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Kevin Stranack

Seeking Impact and Visibility: Scholarly Communication in Southern Africa - 3 views

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    "The Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was a three-year research and implementation initiative that took place between March 2010 and August 2013. Hosted by the University of Cape Town, the programme engaged the Universities of Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius in a process aimed at better understanding the dynamics around scholarly communication in the Southern African higher education environment and advancing the open access agenda for the purpose of increasing the visibility of African research. This work was made possible by a grant from the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC). This report synthesizes research and findings from the four institutional case studies conducted at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia. It provides an overview the scholarly communication activity systems at work in these four Southern African universities."
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    Thanks for this article. I think it gives a great overview of the current landscape of scholarly publishing in Africa, and concisely states the problems of visibilities (or the lack thereof).
anonymous

Open educational resources and the role of university - 0 views

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    This article gives opinion that university is playing an important role that will not be replaced by the open educational opinion, which I also agreed. Instead of considering OER as a threat to university, the article argues that "OER can help institutions provide higher education to rapidly increasing numbers of students and lifelong learners".
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    Thank you for sharing the article Ming Tang. I think you make a great point about OER and the university working together as opposed to a "war of the roses" type scenario where a married couple refuses to work together. As the article mentioned the university is the one that gives the diploma and is the one that deals with accreditation inspections, etc. OER to me would make a nice complement on the arms of any university. Another good article along the same lines can be found at http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/impact-globalization-and-future-university.
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    Thank you Melduncan2!
Kevin Stranack

Are universities teaching the skills needed in a knowledge-based economy? - 14 views

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    Provides a list of important skills and how those skills are embedded within the curriculum.
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    Encontré un post relacionado con las Alfabetizaciones digitales y competencias fundamentales en http://futurosdellibro.com/alfabetizaciones-digitales-y-competencias-fundamentales/ Tal vez interese: El pasado 5 de marzo los expertos de UNESCO dedicados a la alfabetización mediática y digital, en reunión preparatoria de la siguiente World Summit of Information Societies, rubricaron lo que es una evidencia ya incontrovertible: que la alfabetización mediática e informacional (MIL. Media and information literacy) ocupa un lugar central en el mapa escolar de competencias del siglo XXI. Esto no es nada esencialmente nuevo: Viviane Reding, la hoy Vicepresidenta de la Comisión Europea y ex-comisaria de Información entre los años 2004-2009, declaraba en el año 2006: "Hoy, la alfabetización mediática es tan central para el desarrollo de una ciudadanía plena y activa como la alfabetización tradicional lo fue al inicio del siglo XIX". Y añadía: "también es fundamental para entrar en el nuevo mundo de la banda ancha de contenidos, disponibles en todas partes y en cualquier momento". De acuerdo con el European Charter for Media Literacy podríamos distinguir siete áreas de competencias que, de una u otra forma, deberían pasar a formar parte de todo currículum orientado a su adquisición: Usar adecuadamente las tecnologías mediáticas para acceder, conservar, recuperar y compartir contenidos que satisfagan las necesidades e intereses individuales y colectivos. Tener competencias de acceso e información de la gran diversidad de alternativas respecto a los tipos de medios que existen, así como a los contenidos provenientes de distintas fuentes culturales e institucionales. Comprender cómo y porqué se producen los contenidos mediáticos. Analizar de forma crítica las técnicas, lenguajes y códigos empleados por los medios y los mensajes que transmiten. Usar los medios creativamente para expresar y comunicar ideas, información
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    Thank you Kevin Stranack for sharing. Tony Bates ends with five questions: 1. Have I covered the main skills needed in a knowledge-based society? What have I missed? 2. Do you agree that these are important skills? If so, should universities explicitly try to develop them? 3. What are you or your university doing (if anything) to ensure such skills are taught, and taught well? 4. What roles if any do you think technology, and in particular online learning, can play in helping to develop such skills? 5. Any other comments on this topic - My answers: 1. Frustration tolerance and keeping a balance between work and private life is a necessary skill 2, The skill set mentioned is important, but more likely trained in college than in university 3. I do have a personal coach and a counseler, and I'm enrolled in #OKMOOC 4. The activities required in every module of #OKMOOC ask to reach out, connect, build relationships, Have you answered the feedback questions?
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    This question is really the elephant in the room in a lot of university programs, especially in the humanities. I myself was a doctoral student in the humanities before leaving because, as I eventually learned, there were essentially no employment opportunities and my skillset in today's economy was sorely lacking. But the old mantra that "we teach critical thinking" is become a worn excuse. Do we really need four years to teach people the skills to survive "out there"? How much of our specialized knowledge will really be useful outside of the academy? These are questions we just don't have the answer to, and I'm not sure there are many people willing to ask them. But more to the point, I didn't see anything in this link about the changing ways that millennials (I promise that I hate the term as much as anyone, but it's a useful one) are engaging with information, and how that is changing how they actually think. There have been arguments made that digital natives (again, a pretty terrible term) think about and process information in very different ways that have serious implications for contextualization and long-term research. I'm not saying that universities don't teach these things in their own ways, but it's an important issue that needs addressing. I know that the link talks about the important of knowledge management, but there's a huge difference between simply knowing how and when to access information and quite another to properly contextualize its place in a larger hierarchy (or web) of knowledge. I would argue *that* skill is the one that universities are best poised to provide, and maybe why we keep hearing talk about how undergraduate degrees are the new highschool diplomas.
w_kwai

Harvard University admits to secretly photographing students - 11 views

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    I think, its really an expensive and unnecessary experiments, if the attendance of Harvard University is low, then they have to come up with different rule to attract the interest of students. Cameras should be there for security, but not for surveillance.
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    Similar example to what Adobe software has done with collecting information…users/students seem to have to accept this "new-normal" of spying, etc.
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    I agree. Cameras should be there for security, not for surveillance. But just like the Adobe software, before we use it we have to "agree" on its' terms. I believe very few actually read those agreements, because we have to use the software, "agreeing" on those terms might just be "agreeing" on allowing them to collect our information. I live in Vancouver, BC. I know there are people who dislike the idea of the buses with cameras. I personally like that idea, it makes me feel like I am protected. When I was in high school in Victoria, BC, I feel safe taking the taxi even when it is late, because they have cameras in every one of them. When I was in Hong Kong, I feel insecure taking a taxi even when it is noon. So even if some of our information or our identity is given away, I agree on the idea of having cameras on buses and taxi's. I wonder if there is a gender difference on this, and there is also a gender gap of taxi drivers, maybe that is also why I personally feel insecure. Back to the point, if the purpose of cameras is for security, I agree to that. If it is for surveillance, I do not think it is essential; referring to the Harvard University attendance, at least they should inform the students about it.
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    This line caught my eye: "The study was approved by the US federally mandated Institutional Review Board, which assesses research and determined that the study "did not constitute human subjects research" and therefore did not require prior permission from those captured by the study." I have been debating with my own campus IRB over what constitutes human subjects research and what doesn't--they seem to be operating under the idea that if it's not invasive medical studies involving blood or drugs, it's not really human subjects. I think the issue in this Harvard study is that the IRB also has a clause that if you are collecting data in public spaces and not interacting with the people there, it doesn't require IRB approval; the question is whether these classrooms should be considered public spaces. My feeling is they aren't--in order to be in a room at a particular time, a person has to have chosen to attend that class, and within college classes it is assumed that the students can know that what they say is to some extent private among their classmates and professor. Even if the photos were destroyed after analysis, the fact remains that there were cameras inside what I would consider private spaces, without the consent of the people doing what they might feel is dangerous work (given the current assault on public intellectuals and academic freedom). My guess is that Harvard could easily have asked all the relevant parties to sign consent forms at the beginning of a semester but not indicated on which days they would be filming--people would probably continue doing what they normally do either way, but at least would have the option of asking not to be filmed. There's always a way to set up an area in a lecture hall where the cameras couldn't reach, so students who didn't want to be on film could opt out.
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    Thank you so much for sharing this article, I meant to read it a few days ago and got side-tracked!
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    Thanks for sharing this! I have mixed feelings about this article. At first, I was super opposed to the whole initiative Harvard did to their students because I would feel that my privacy has been violated completely, but after realizing that there are many more subtler forms of violations in privacy online (social media sites, tracking cookies etc.) I wasn't as opposed to the article. Although initially, students were not informed about their surveillance, there were told in the aftermath, and their information was destroyed. When using social media sites or installing new applications, there are terms of agreement before continuing on with the installation in which personally I don't read at all. Those terms and conditions have statements inside which notify us of tracking personal information which I have not read earlier but am still not opposed to giving. The information is probably sold to advertisers and we're probably not aware of it but we still give them the information via the signup of the program. Hence, even though there are contradictory views and feelings about their initiatives, we should be more aware and cautious of other forms of surveillance when we sign up for things (e.g. social media sites etc.)
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    Thank you for sharing. This does raise some concern. I guess there may be good and bad with cameras installed in the school. The cameras installed without students' consents may be violating their privacy and rights. However, it may prevent wrong doings, i guess. When my friend was doing final exam, the prof asked the whole class to put their belongings in front of the classroom, but when he went to pick up his stuff after he was finished, his bag was missing. Through the security camera, they were able to see who stole his stuff.
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    Did any body else remember George Orwell's novel (1984). By accepting this type of behavior we accepting the image of a holly power that is ethical, care and neutral. Does this exist? and who will monitor the observers?
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    I think this is a really good point, who will monitor the observers? What kind of power do those people hold and what are they doing with all those information? It makes people uncomfortable.
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    Interesting news! It's surprising to get to know that Harvard University places cameras without letting students know, photographs them during lectures to measure attendance. This reminds me of my high school in China. When I was in high school, I remember that cameras were installed at the back of every classroom to prevent students from distraction in class or cheating during exams. It mainly worked as threatening students, from my understanding. Because you never know when the camera will be opened, actually, it never opened. What happened in Harvard University just reminded me of that, which is quite satiric.
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    Thanks for sharing this article. In my personal opinion, I think the action of secretly installed the cameras from Harvard University violates students' privacy. If it's just for measuring classroom attendance, I think Harvard University could definitely find a much better way instead of installing the camera.
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    wondering if this would be a different conversation if the cameras were just picking up heat signals so that the identity of the people could not be known but they could still be counted. The technology is pretty basic and it might even be more efficient than the way they're using them now.
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    Can't believe Harvard can do this thing. I think informations are sharing and revealing on internet or others more and more serious. Harvard shouldn't secretly photograph students, they should ask permission first.
salma1504

The history of the University Press - 0 views

the university presses in the United States were by and large founded specifically for the publication of scholarship; in this sense, as Thompson points out, "they were generally seen as an integra...

module5

started by salma1504 on 01 Oct 14 no follow-up yet
Francisco Reveles

University of Chicago Acts to Improve Access for Lower-Income Students - NYTimes.com - 2 views

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    I say it's about time. A family member of mine studied on the East Coast USA and tuition was impossible. While I can't speak extensively for American schools, I can say that post-secondary education at established universities in Canada is expensive and the financial burden becomes a stressor, often effecting academic performance. It is accessible, yes. National and provincial student loans make it possible for almost anyone to obtain a post-secondary education. But does it make sense? Definitely not. The debt incurred by students is mortifying. What about a European model? Many schools around the globe offer free post-secondary educations. I recently visited New Mexico, where if you stay within the state after high school graduation you enter a lottery to go to university for free. Every entree into the lottery is awarded sufficient funds to make a post-secondary career in the state of New Mexico feasible. My question about this article is about how "low income" is determined. There are a lot of factors that can play into one's financial needs that sometimes aren't on paper.
Kevin Stranack

Publishing Education in the 21st Century and the Role of the University - 0 views

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    "This article argues for a model of university-level (graduate and undergraduate) publishing education that builds upon a vocational self-identification of incoming students, nurtures a community of practice and professional discourse, and in doing so generates and renews the very culture of publishing. In times of transition and disruption, this is a role uniquely suited to the university, where an environment of collaborative research, development, and innovation can be cultivated. "
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    Kevin: Muchas gracias por la referencia. Es interesante no solo el artículo que mencionas sino varios de los textos del número monográfico, http://tinyurl.com/nvoq8xq. Dear Kevin: Thank you very much for the info. Interestingly, not only the article but several of the texts of special issue.
Kevin Stranack

Universities 'get poor value' from academic journal-publishing firms | Science | thegua... - 4 views

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    Compares the cost of articles from society and non-profit publishers to those of the major commercial publishers.
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    An extremely powerful piece of research. I find it fascinating that the researchers were able to use US Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover the licensing costs. As a librarian, it is extremely frustrating to be bound by non-disclosure agreements when it comes to our subscriptions.
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    Its crazy. The numbers (of profit and control) for the publishing companies is astronomical!
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    Universities have received a poor deal from the system of private, subscription-based access to knowledge production since the port WW2 commercialization of the scientific publishing industry. It is absurd that the university or research funder supplies the content (the research), pays for the authoring (the time of the researcher writing the article), and provides and pays for the time of peer reviewers and academic editors. In addition, it often pays page charges or formatting charges to publishers. It then cedes copyright and finally buys back its own research at prices that have escalated at four times the rate of inflation in the past decade and a half! Considering most of this research is conducted using public funds, it becomes a moral argument when public resources are used once again to purchase access to the outputs of this research. The commercial model of disseminating research does not obey the rules of supply and demand. A relatively small number of 'core' journals occupy monopoly positions, in that university libraries have to subscribe to access their content, whatever the cost, because these journals have been established as 'must-have' resources. While the practice of 'bundling' offers the advantage of bulk pricing, it reduces room for choice, as bundles consume large chunks of library budgets, making it difficult to subscribe to smaller, individual titles. In addition, the inflexibility of indexing systems makes it difficult for new journals to establish themselves; thus compromising the potential for smaller niche subjects and newer interdisciplinary areas. Thankfully the global inequalities engendered by the commercialization of scholarly publishing are being challenged by open access.
victorialam

Harvard University says it can't afford journal publishers' prices | Science | The Guar... - 5 views

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    This is an interesting article in the Guardian reporting on Harvard's move against rising prices of journal publications. It calls for Faculty to make their research freely available.
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    Well worth reading. It also mentioned a model of how publication of the article could be paid for: "Open access comes in various guises, but one model requires authors to pay to have their articles published and made freely available to anyone." In the academic world, research /grant monies would allow authors to build the cost of publishing into their research/grant applications.
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    Very interesting article. Especially because it relates to Harvard who (alongside with Stanford) is an opinion leader among universities. Other universities watch Harvard (and Stanford) and it is highly likely that these two universities are able to influence the trend.
Kevin Stranack

The University Library as Incubator for Digital Scholarship (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUS... - 4 views

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    "By leveraging technology, we can open new doors to scholarly inquiry for ourselves and our students. Through new collaborations, we can create exciting shared spaces, both virtual and physical, where that inquiry can take place. The library is a natural home for these technology-rich spaces.
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    This article is fantastic, and speaks to just about everything I'm passionate about as an aspiring academic librarian. I'm somewhat worried about how smaller universities-my chosen workplace-will adapt to these newer models of scholarly communication and publication, and generally with how the academic conversation is changing. These exciting developments in what the university means have the potential to widen the already extensive divide between smaller and larger schools. I know the challenges section at the end talks a little bit about convincing decision makers to fund these projects, but has anyone read anything about how these changes can be made specifically by smaller or poorly funded universities?
mbittman

A Beginner's Guide to the World of Self-Publishing - YouTube - 5 views

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    YouTube, Full Sail University, Published on Mar 12, 2014 "Technology has made it easier than ever to publish your own work. This Full Sail University panel discusses how to successfully self-publish your own work, and how to do it without getting lost in the sea of all of the other content that's out there." A panel of successful self-published authors talk about the flexibility of new technology within the publishing realm to sell books/music: formatting your work, business models, copyright , print on demand options, music aggregators,, marketing, worldwide distribution, etc.
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    The video length of one+ hour might seem a bit daunting at first, but I ended up watching most of it in one go - this is really an excellent and easy-to-follow overview of all the important aspects of self-publishing. (I was especially pleased that this video listens to well in the background, as opposed to most other videos that I find require more "involvement" and that do not fit well with a busy day schedule.) What is best about this is that it is all based on actual people experiences - successful self-published authors participating in the panel, and sharing their knowledge & tips in real-time. I was especially curious to find out about the marketing side of of self-publishing a book, and was pleased to discover quite a few helpful ideas and tips. As someone who is thinking about self-publishing soon, this has answered a lot of questions and definitely sparked confidence in the process as a whole. Thank you very much for sharing! Hopefully, this will help and encourage many more self-publishers to be.
Fernando Carraro

Best Public Domain Characters - 4 views

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    Una lista de personajes de Dominio Público. También hay otra: http://free-universe.myartsonline.com/literature.html ---- A list of characters in the public domain. There is another: http://free-universe.myartsonline.com/literature.html
jeanmichael

Brazil becomes the Open Knowledge Foundation's first Full Chapter in Latin America | Op... - 2 views

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    On my navigation searching for initiatives to see how Open Knowledge are making the difference on the Latin America society I found this... nowadays unfortunately on South America (and in other places as well) open knowledge initiative are not divulgated. Universities seem to be not interested about promoting these initiatives and few people know about them. I was amazed reading the text from Francisco J. García-Peñalvo (Open Knowledge. Challenges and Facts) and seeing that a lot of Universities on Europe and North America are promoting and working with open and free access to texts and online courses. It's incredible how people have the possibility of learning in a world that each day is more competitive. I really hope that this great news about Brazil helps more and more people to understand the impact and the changings on the educational process.
tlsohn

Universities are Schooling Tech Companies in Video - 0 views

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    Colleges and universities aren't just teaching businesses about the value of technology, they're leading by example. At the core of their lesson is an essential technology: the video content management system. With it, universities are able to use low-cost computers and anything from high-end cameras to consumer webcams to record every lecture in every classroom across campus. Some go beyond recording, broadcasting live courses to remote learners around the world.
Jannicke Røgler

Journals and Publications - 0 views

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    Thank you very much for your link. In the specific case of my university (University of Málaga, in Spain) we have the Jabega platform, (http://jabega.uma.es) where all the members of the university community (students and professor) have free access to the different journals whose license was paid by our university. It is a very similar project, offering not only the name of the journals and resources but also a summary describing their topic.
christofhar

Electronic publishing - 0 views

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    Publishing has transited from traditional to Electronic format making information resources available to users without much subscription. E-publishing is engendered by the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT), this development has brought about increase in the number of scholarly communication in circulation. The awareness and rate of e-publishing differs among faculties, it based on this that this study was carried out to survey the situation of e-publishing and open access of librarians in three federal universities in Southern Nigeria, five research questions were formulated to guide the study. The methodology adopted is descriptive survey, questionnaire was given to a total population of 64 librarians consisting of librarians from the institutions understudy, the data collected from the study shows that though librarians are aware of e-publishing but they have not being publishing as should have been expected in University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) out of the 95% that aware of electronic publishing only 30% have published there articles electronically, in University of Lagos (UNILAG) 100% indicated that they have published electronically while in University of Benin (UNIBEN) 45.4% percent indicated yes while 54.5% said they have not published their articles electronically. On availability of open access it was discovered that they have access as a total of 84% from UNN responded Yes, UNILAG 100% said Yes while in UNIBEN 90.9%. The following problems based on their scoring militating against e-publishing and open access in Nigeria. Inadequate power supply; inadequate computer terminals; inadequate funding for subscription payment.
snilova

free software - 1 views

Dear colleagues, I will try to express opinion on this problem. My short comment will be connected with a problem of the free software in education. Since 20O7 I together with students of universit...

started by snilova on 13 Oct 14 no follow-up yet
Jen Eidelman

The university experiment: Campus as laboratory : Nature News & Comment - 0 views

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    Innovative ways of teaching, learning and doing research
v woolf

Project Information Literacy (iSchool at University of Washington) - 3 views

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    "Project Information Literacy (PIL) is a large-scale, national study about early adults and their research habits, conducted in partnership with the University of Washington's iSchool." This website contains a wealth of knowledge about the literacy habits of students making the transition into university. In particular, check out the "publications" tab for some of the project's preliminary results, and both published and news articles on the topic. The site also contains links to other relevant resources on the same topic (in the "Practical PIL" tab).
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    I reviewed some of the videos for the PIL and was delighted by their message. Thanks for sharing. I wish I'd had known about this, or maybe that it had existed when I was making the transition.
Kim Baker

The Baloney Detection Kit: Carl Sagan's Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking - 3 views

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    "Just as important as learning these helpful tools, however, is unlearning and avoiding the most common pitfalls of common sense. Reminding us of where society is most vulnerable to those, Sagan writes: In addition to teaching us what to do when evaluating a claim to knowledge, any good baloney detection kit must also teach us what not to do. It helps us recognize the most common and perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric. Many good examples can be found in religion and politics, because their practitioners are so often obliged to justify two contradictory propositions.He admonishes against the twenty most common and perilous ones - many rooted in our chronic discomfort with ambiguity - with examples of each in action"
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    The 20 fallacies: "ad hominem - Latin for "to the man," attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously) argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia - but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out) argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous - perhaps even ungovernable. Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives) appeal to ignorance - the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist - and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don't understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - each in their own way enjoined to
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    Wonderful post, Kim! These are great guidelines alongside which to test ideas.
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