[EAS] Summer, Tools, and Originality
Peter J. Kindlmann
pjk at design.eng.yale.edu
Thu Aug 2 17:38:28 EDT 2007
Dear Colleagues -
It's been well over a month since the last mailing, so I guess you
can't complain that I'm contributing to email overload. Let me assure
you that I'm ok -- there have been some concerned inquiries -- just
taking it easy and making modest progress with photography. I'll be
exhibiting in a local library early next year.
In the spirit of summertime and easy livin', with a tip of the hat to
William Dunk <http://www.globalprovince.com/letters/2007-08-01.htm>,
I'm forwarding the current issue of TL Infobits. It comes only once a
month, and has often been good food for thought. (Note that you can
also read it in its Web version
<http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitjul07.php>.)
Don't let the lead item on e-learning tools scare you. It is not an
earnest probe into learning psychology and methods of assessment, but
a nice survey of useful tools to consider as part of your computer
house-keeping.
The items on "mashups" in education and on plagiarism sort of go
together. Summer is a good time to ponder what is happening to the
meaning of originality, and how you'll relate to your students this
coming academic year. Their concept of originality has come to be
quite different from yours, not because they're lazy or overstressed
and try to take an easy way out, but because they've grown up in
circumstances with much more "group-think." Before we can expect
originality and its close relative, intellectual honesty, as we think
of them, we may have to give a freshman course on intellectual
history and originality, and then offer an academic reward
environment that really encourages them.
"University Publishing in a Digital Age" may not seem interesting to
you, but it again relates to processes of editorial scrutiny, fashion
shows vs. fashion aversion, the politics of peer review, and the
reasons for academic publishing -- all areas where the fluid digital
technology has eroded many comfortable assumptions. E.g. when looking
for reliable information on, say, medical matters, I often delimit my
Google search to the .edu domain. I'd like to think that will
continue to serve me as intended.
Have a good summer. --PJK
--------------------------------------------------------
From: "Carolyn Kotlas" <kotlas at email.unc.edu>
To: Peter Kindlmann <pjk at design.eng.yale.edu>
Subject: TL Infobits -- July 2007
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:07:57 -0400
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:leave-16805481-100510J at listserv.unc.edu>
Reply-To: kotlas at email.unc.edu
TL INFOBITS July 2007 No. 13 ISSN: 1931-3144
About INFOBITS
INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning division. Each month the
ITS-TL's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a
number of information and instructional technology sources that come to
her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to
educators.
NOTE: You can read the Web version of this issue at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitjul07.php.
You can read all back issues of Infobits at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/.
......................................................................
Top Ten E-Learning Tools
Mashups in Education
University Publishing in a Digital Age
Plagiarism Detection Tools Comparison
Recommended Reading
......................................................................
TOP TEN E-LEARNING TOOLS
Jane Hart, Head of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies,
asked e-learning experts to list their top ten tools. Sixty-four people
responded; the most-frequently cited tool was the Firefox Web browser,
mentioned by 37 respondents. To view all the responses and the summary
of all contributions, go to
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html.
The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies "provides advice and
guidance on current and emerging tools and technologies for businesses
and education." For more information, contact Jane Hart, Centre for
Learning & Performance Technologies, 16 Lansdowne Place, Wincanton,
Somerset, BA9 9FB, England; tel: 44 (0)7778 063068; email:
info at c4lpt.co.uk; Web: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/.
......................................................................
MASHUPS IN EDUCATION
"For educators and policy-makers, already struggling with the many
cultural and logistical challenges posed by digital technologies,
mashups complicate the picture even while offering tremendous promise.
What, exactly, constitutes a valid, original work? What are the
implications for how we assess and reward creativity? Can a college or
university tap the same sources of innovative talent and energy as
Google or Flickr? What are the risks of permitting or opening up to
this activity?"
In "Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and
Love the Remix" (EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 42, no. 4, July/August 2007, pp.
12-24), Brian Lamb discusses the conditions needed in universities to
enable mashups and other Web 2.0 tools to play a significant role in
education. The article is online at
http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0740.asp.
EDUCAUSE Review [ISSN 1527-6619], a bimonthly print magazine that
explores developments in information technology and education, is
published by EDUCAUSE (http://www.educause.edu/). Articles from current
and back issues of EDUCAUSE Review are available on the Web at
http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/.
......................................................................
UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING IN A DIGITAL AGE
"Publishing in the future will look very different than it has looked
in the past. Consumption patterns have already changed dramatically, as
many scholars have increasingly begun to rely on electronic resources
to get information that is useful to their research and teaching.
Transformation on the creation and production sides is taking longer,
but ultimately may have an even more profound impact on the way
scholars work."
The Ithaka report, "University Publishing in a Digital Age" (July 23,
2007), "began as a review of U.S. university presses and their role in
scholarly publishing. It has evolved into a broader assessment of the
importance of publishing to universities." To assess the current state
and future role of university-based scholarly publishing, the report's
authors interviewed a variety of university provosts, press directors,
and librarians from public and private institutions. Based on the
interviewees responses, in the future of university publishing:
-- Everything must be electronic
-- Scholars will rely on deeply integrated electronic
research/publishing environments
-- Multimedia and multi-format delivery will become
increasingly important
-- New forms of content will enable new economic models
The complete report is available online at
http://www.ithaka.org/strategic-services/university-publishing.
Ithaka is an independent not-for-profit organization with a mission to
accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the
benefit of higher education worldwide. "We work in close collaboration
with JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/) and ARTstor
(http://www.artstor.org/), and we are currently incubating three
initiatives: Aluka (http://www.aluka.org/), a digital library of
scholarly resources from and about the developing world; NITLE
(http://www.nitle.org/), a collaborative effort to promote emerging
technologies in liberal arts contexts; and Portico
(http://www.portico.org/), a permanent archive of electronic scholarly
journals." For more information about Ithaka, go to
http://www.ithaka.org/.
See also:
"New Model for University Presses"
By Scott Jaschik
INSIDE HIGHER ED, July 31, 2007
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/31/ricepress
"The Rice University Press, which was eliminated in 1996, was revived
last year with the idea that it would publish online only, using
low-cost print-on-demand for those who want to hold what they are
reading."
"What a Difference a Publisher Makes"
by Alma Swan
July 7, 2007
http://optimalscholarship.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-difference-publisher-makes.html
"[Copy editing is] a special little focus of interest at the moment
because publishers claim it as an important area of added value and
want to demonstrate how much they contribute to the integrity of
scholarly literature through providing it, while the proponents of
self-archiving counter-claim that the author's final version of an
article -- the one which contains all the changes advised or required
by the peer review process -- is a perfectly adequate version to be
deposited in a digital repository for open access purposes." In her
blog, OptimalScholarship, scholarly communication consultant Alma Swan
discusses some studies that examine the value of what publishers
contributed to final versions of scholarly works.
......................................................................
PLAGIARISM DETECTION TOOLS COMPARISON
As part of her presentation, "Plagiarism Detection: Is Technology the
Answer?" at the 2007 EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference, Liz
Johnson, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, provided
a chart comparing seven plagiarism detection tools: Turnitin,
MyDropBox, PAIRwise, EVE2, WCopyFind, CopyCatch, and GLATT. The chart
is available online at
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/SER07017B.pdf.
For more information about the 2007 EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional
Conference and to view the proceedings, go to
http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?SECTION_ID=248.
......................................................................
RECOMMENDED READING
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or
that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or
useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits
subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas at unc.edu for
possible inclusion in this column.
WE THINK: WHY MASS CREATIVITY IS THE NEXT BIG THING (Draft version)
By Charles Leadbeater
http://www.wethinkthebook.net/home.aspx
"We-Think: the power of mass creativity is about what the rise of the
likes of Wikipedia and Youtube, Linux and Craigslist means for the way
we organise ourselves, not just in digital businesses but in schools
and hospitals, cities and mainstream corporations. My argument is that
these new forms of mass, creative collaboration announce the arrival of
a society in which participation will be the key organising idea rather
than consumption and work. People want to be players not just
spectators, part of the action, not on the sidelines."
Leadbeater is making a draft of his book available online prior to
formal publication to allow readers to comment and make suggestions.
[Editor's note: Years ago I came across a study on the importance of
professors' informal conversations in the hall for the exchange of
ideas. Coming across the link to Leadbeater's book made me think on how
much the Web has become a virtual hallway for informally sharing ideas
and resources. Thanks to Seb Schmoller's posting (in his FORTNIGHTLY
MAILING; http://fm.schmoller.net/) on David Jennings' posting on
anarchism (http://alchemi.co.uk/archives/ide/is_web_20_a_man.html), I
was led to the link to Leadbeater's book.]
......................................................................
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