Schoolpoint, n.

"Many new open-access publishers are trustworthy. But not all. Anyone with a spare afternoon and a..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:38:35 -0400

“Many new open-access publishers are trustworthy. But not all. Anyone with a spare afternoon and a little computing savvy can launch an impressive-looking journal website and e-mail invitations to scientists to join editorial boards or submit papers for a fee. The challenge for researchers, and for Beall, is to work out when those websites or e-mail blasts signal a credible publisher and when they come from operations that can range from the outright criminal to the merely amateurish.”

- Investigating journals: The dark side of publishing : Nature News & Comment

"Non-completion is only a problem if we accept MOOCs as alternative revenue-generating credentialing..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:59:44 -0400

“Non-completion is only a problem if we accept MOOCs as alternative revenue-generating credentialing system.”

- Not A Hand Up | Inside Higher Ed

"Before the campaign, Ghani said that he found it difficult to use his data skills for social good...."

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:55:21 -0400

“Before the campaign, Ghani said that he found it difficult to use his data skills for social good. There were plenty of corporate jobs that wanted people who could do analytics, but not many non-profits. “The reason I got on the campaign is that I was trying to connect things I cared about with what I was good at. I wanted to use analytics and data for social problems,” he said. “But when the campaign was done, I was back in the same place.””

- What the Obama Campaign’s Chief Data Scientist Is Up to Now - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic

Congress is close to making unlocking cell phones legal

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:52:55 -0400

Congress is close to making unlocking cell phones legal:

Join the campaign asking Congress to fix the DMCA and make unlocking, jailbreaking, and modifying devices permanently legal.

"Before 1992 most studies concluded that people read slower, less accurately and less comprehensively..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:47:28 -0400

“Before 1992 most studies concluded that people read slower, less accurately and less comprehensively on screens than on paper. Studies published since the early 1990s, however, have produced more inconsistent results: a slight majority has confirmed earlier conclusions, but almost as many have found few significant differences in reading speed or comprehension between paper and screens.”

- Ferris Jabr. The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens: Scientific American

"Affluent students today learn to read for nuance in expensive private schools, but then are trained..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:39:57 -0400

““Affluent students today learn to read for nuance in expensive private schools, but then are trained to read for simplicity by often expensive test-prep tutors. That they are coached to strategize the right test answer rather than respond meaningfully to the material doesn’t really matter, because when the testing is over, they will return to the classrooms where it is the play of ideas and the depth of thought that matter most, and where they will learn to interpret tricky texts and complex situations.””

- Monica Cohen, Los Angeles Review of Books, May 17, 2013.

Of course the rest of the piece is about why it does matter - not to these students but to others who cannot hope to compete in a world that chooses not to poke at the thin veneer of “fairness” that these gatekeeper tests provide.

I appreciate Cohen’s willingness to shift focus away from “do reforms increase access” and over to “access to what?” If the institutions for the privileged continue on as they always have — or outright reject these democratizing reforms (like standardized tests, which were intended to increase access) — we’re setting up two systems, not haves and have-nots but “us” and “them.”

"In late 2011 the Stanford Social Innovation Review published a paper on collective impact. According..."

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:14:22 -0500

“

In late 2011 the Stanford Social Innovation Review published a paper on collective impact. According to this article the five conditions of collective success, as demonstrated by Strive in Cincinnati are:

Common Agenda
Shared Measurement System
Mutually Reinforcing Activities
Continuous Communication
Backbone Support Organizations

”

- Via Snippets from the State Librarian - A brief pause in our history lesson

Divided Conversations: Identities, Leadership, and Change in Public Higher Education: Kristin G. Esterberg, John Wooding: 9780826518996: Amazon.com: Books

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:53:11 -0500

Divided Conversations: Identities, Leadership, and Change in Public Higher Education: Kristin G. Esterberg, John Wooding: 9780826518996: Amazon.com: Books:

“Through their interviews with faculty and administrators (from department chairs and deans to provosts and presidents) from a sample of eight public universities in the Northeast and their own experiences in both worlds, the authors provide a unique window into the life experiences and identities of those who struggle to make universities work. The book examines the culture of academic institutions and attempts to understand why change in public higher education is so difficult to accomplish.”

Will University of Phoenix lose accreditation?

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:41:47 -0500

The company is also expecting to receive a draft report from its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, said Gregory Cappelli, Apollo’s Chief Executive Officer, during a conference call with analysts and investors. He said the company believes it will be placed on notice, which would require follow-up reports and action.

Whoa. In my world, that’s stop-the-presses news. (Okay, I’m old. What’s the internet version of stop the presses?) The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association is planning to place the country’s largest for-profit college on notice?

Coursera's fee-based course option | Inside Higher Ed

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:37:13 -0500

Coursera's fee-based course option | Inside Higher Ed:

“I never thought about the revenue part of it,” said Peter Lange, provost of Duke University, which will be participating in the pilot program for fee-based courses. Duke’s goal for participating is about the global classroom, he said. “All these MOOCs allow our faculty to extend their reach.”

"In a move that Maria Maisto, president of the New Faculty Majority, called “A Huge Step Forward”,..."

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:31:19 -0500

“In a move that Maria Maisto, president of the New Faculty Majority, called “A Huge Step Forward”, the Internal Revenue Service proposed rules for employers that would include the non-classroom hours of adjunct faculty when evaluating whether employers must provide them with health benefits.”

- AHA Today: Adjuncts Find an Ally in an Unlikely Source: The IRS

"Get Involved We would like, in the light of the current situation, to extend an initial call for..."

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:10:11 -0500

“

Get Involved

We would like, in the light of the current situation, to extend an initial call for participants; I want to assemble a group of people who can work to build this project. Whether you have expertise in publishing technology, accountancy and finance, editing publications or simply wish to express your support, please fill in the form below and we’ll get back to you. This is a crucial turning point for our publication system and we must not go down without a fight. We can make this happen.

”

- PLOHSS - A PLOS-style project for HSS

Twitter / ianmilligan1: A student popped in to point ...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:51:23 -0500

Twitter / ianmilligan1: A student popped in to point ...:

A student popped in to point out the “AskHistorians” subreddit. It seems we think a lot about wikipedia, but not this? reddit.com/r/AskHistorians
— Ian Milligan (@ianmilligan1) January 9, 2013

“It hadn’t occurred to me before that moment how important...

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:31:36 -0500

“It hadn’t occurred to me before that moment how important focal flexibility is — the ability to see a given work in all its richness and unpackable complexity, and also see it as one of a constellation of other works. To be able to plot it dispassionately amongst its peers, and also gaze at its internal universes.”

(via Focal Flexibility | Pegasus Librarian)

Catherine Pellegrino, "Some new things I tried this semester, Part 2: Summative assessment," Spurious Tuples

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 01:43:03 -0500

Catherine Pellegrino, "Some new things I tried this semester, Part 2: Summative assessment," Spurious Tuples:

stephenfrancoeur:

Pull quote: “One thing I did learn from one of the two classes, though, is that of the students who clearly ‘got it,’ nearly all of them wound up citing journal articles from databases in their bibliographies. We talk about finding journal articles in the class session, but it gets a really quick, slapdash approach, and we spend a lot more time on other issues. Seeing how many of the successful bibliographies use articles makes me think that we need to switch things up and spend more time, and be a lot more deliberate, in our explanation and exploration of databases.”

"In this context, free access is not enough. To maximize the value of the public good and the return..."

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:26:22 -0500

“In this context, free access is not enough. To maximize the value of the public good and the return on investment, research outputs must be reusable. That does not just mean making data or papers available on the Internet, but ensuring that innovators can manipulate the material, including mining, translating or expressing it in imaginative ways or for new audiences.”

- Science publishing: Open access must enable open use : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

via nature.com

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:21:00 -0500

via nature.com

"Training wheels externalize the hardest part of riding a bike. If you’re a little kid and want to..."

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:37:02 -0500

“Training wheels externalize the hardest part of riding a bike. If you’re a little kid and want to start riding a bike, training wheels are great. If you’re a little kid and want to start to learn how to ride a bike, training wheels will be your greatest obstacle.”

- » Intrusive Scaffolding, Obstructed Learning (and MOOCs) SAMPLE REALITY

"Three pointers, shmee pointers. Two point basket, shmasket. The one point free throw is the most..."

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:06:09 -0500

“Three pointers, shmee pointers. Two point basket, shmasket. The one point free throw is the most important shot in the game. Free throw points in classes can add up to cost you an entire letter grade - or more - over the course of the term. Many class assignments and assessments have free throw points. Points that should be the easiest to get.”

- Student tip: Be more like Marple & Nash | Thirty-Seven

"I have an opinion, and that is that the old model of the travel guide is passe, now that the..."

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:02:22 -0500

“I have an opinion, and that is that the old model of the travel guide is passe, now that the internet exists. The internet is the LIST OF EVERYTHING, the travel book can drop that part. It should focus on helping you decide what to do.”

- The Internet has changed what a travel guide should be | Neuropolarbear