256 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2018
  2. Jul 2018
    1. In fact blog posts are not the kind of thing one can detail on one’s annual review form, and even a blog in the aggregate doesn’t have a place in which it’s easy to be claimed as a site of ongoing scholarly productivity.
  3. Jun 2018
  4. May 2018
    1. As an academic, I need to regularly have empirical research publications in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals. Nothing else matters. Many senior colleagues bemoan the fact that I need to play double duty…yet the system still exists.

      And why can't your own blog count as a top-tier, peer-reviewed journal?

  5. Mar 2018
    1. Having found my voice in the academic community and a means to engage in the meaningful deployment of my abilities across institutional and national boundaries thanks to the open internet, I have made yet another career "modification" - one where I can pass on a new perspective to students considering teaching languages.

      agency, voice research community

  6. Nov 2017
    1. On the users’ side, a number of indicators are examined: share of firms and investment financed by bank credit, share of the population with account at a formal financial institution by gender and by income groups, share of firms citing finance as a major obstacle, share of adults using accounts to receive transfers and wages, share of bank borrowers in the population, and, finally, the extent of the use of insurance products.
  7. Oct 2017
    1. Kamler, Barbara. 2008. “Rethinking Doctoral Publication Practices: Writing from and beyond the Thesis.” Studies in Higher Education 33 (3): 283–94. doi:10.1080/03075070802049236.

  8. Sep 2017
    1. ccording to this blog,

      When I read this blog, I thought about how knowledge comes to mature academics. When we are junior, we spend a great deal of time reading the specifics of articles and texts. Do we do the same as senior academics? Or does knowledge come to us via our networks? We talk to people at conferences or exchange ideas via email or other digital means? Just wondering if knowledge networks change over the life course of an academic?

    1. t is possible to identify a wide variety of actors who have contributed to ashift towards, and/or reproduced, academic capitalism:

      Each of these could be a network. You could compare the networks to see if they are structured differently as a way of trying to understand who is most responsible for the push towards Academic Capitalism.

  9. Jul 2017
    1. Finding out what has been published. Determining where a copy of that item may be located. Obtaining a copy of that item. Interpreting the meaning of that item (i.e. it may be written in very technical language).

      Stated uses and goals of the Biography of the Athabasca River Basin. This site was primarily intended for researchers and academic uses. There is no stated or implied opinion on the Alberta oil sands.

  10. Apr 2017
    1. The Initiative for Open Citations I4OC is a collaboration between scholarly publishers, researchers, and other interested parties to promote the unrestricted availability of scholarly citation data.

      https://twitter.com/i4oc_org

  11. Mar 2017
    1. Our students are required to develop a professional digital identity, and their blogs are central to this.

      The way we are visible to others is changing. Science 50 years ago was quite closed, and relied on paper constructs to pass and organize knowledge. As well as face2face. We are now able to be present in many places at once and hold asynchronous convos with increasing complexity. How will we design new tech to meet our evolving digital culture? I am seeing DPL on the forefront, and hope to contribute...

    1. I spoke, I was in tears at all the frustration I had felt, the people in the room were touched.

      This was me who was doing that.

      This was the best work that I could muster at that moment.

      Frustration at not having the means to communicate.

    1. Willkommen in diesem B1 Sprach- und Kulturkurs Deutsch!  Dieser Kurs ist für alle diejenigen offen, die sich für die deutsche Sprache und Kultur interessieren (kann in Kanada oder anderswo in der Welt sein). Teilnehmende werden notwendige Einsichten in das (Uni-)Leben in Deutschland und anderen deutschsprachigen Ländern bekommen. Sie müssen also gar nicht nach Deutscland fahren, um zu erleben, wie sich Deutschland anfühlt.Vision: Dieser Kurs möchte Lernern mit beschränktem Zugang eine kostengünstige Alternative zum Deutschlernen auf B1-Niveau anbieten.Für Wen: Interessenten jeder Art, die einen Studienaufenthalt in Deutschland planen oder sich generell für das Leben in Deutschland heute interessieren. Übergreifendes Ziel des Kurses: Eine aktive Gemeinschaft von Deutschlernenden bilden, deren Mitglieder sich mithilfe nützlicher Webtools auch über Länder- und Zeitgrenzen hinweg selbstständig dem Deutschlernen widmen können.Kursdauer: 10-12 WochenWöchentlicher Arbeitsaufwand: 3-5 StundenKurskommunikation zwischen Kursleitung und KursteilnehmendenRegelmäßige Umfragen an Studenten, um Bedürfnisse der Teilnehmenden zu erfassenLernstandsmessung: Eine Kombination aus automatisiertem Feedback und persönlichen Kommentaren der Kursleitung Kursmaterialien: alle verwendeten Materialien sind kostenfrei im Internet zugänglich und von jederman nutzbar (OER)Kursbuch: Deutsch im Blick. Online German Course Components including textbook/ audio/ video/ etc. CC-BY-NC-ND: UT Austin. Available: http://coerll.utexas.edu/dib/ 

      This course caters to all people interested in learning German (in Canada or other parts of the world). Participants in this course will gain an insight into so (university) life in Germany and the German-speaking countries. You won't have to be there to still see what Germany feels like!

      Intended Audience: Informal students or faculty/ instructors planning a study visit to Germany or people interested in (uni) life in Germany

      High-level Course Goal: Build a community of learners of German and provide its members with valuable insights into webtools and open study content, so that the learners can then continue learning German independently after this course.

      Length of Course: 10-12 weeks Weekly study time for students: 3-5 hours Communication of instructor with students: General feedback on collaborative activities on a weekly basis (private speaking lessons with one-on-one practice sessions can be arranged for a fee) Track students’ happiness with individual module surveys Assessment: Automated Feedback or General Feedback to community at the end of weekly modules Materials used: all materials and tools used for language learning activities are either Open Educational Resources (OER) or otherwise freely available resources on the internet Course Book: Deutsch im Blick. Online German Course Components including textbook/ audio/ video/ etc. CC-BY-NC-ND: UT Austin. Available: http://coerll.utexas.edu/dib/

  12. Feb 2017
    1. Corin Throsby human terms as a 'companion' who 'converses' with her, and in this way blurs the distinction between author and text:

      I feel that Byron has always struggled with identity so it does not surprise me that Throsby points out the distinction between author and text beginning to blur. Lord Byron has been known to live a "risque"lifestyle so whose to say their is not very much distinction between what Byron writes and what he leaves? This adds to the mystique of who Lord Byron is and add to his appeal to women reading his literature.

  13. Dec 2016
    1. One challenge is whether – or how – this conversation becomes generative of traditional scholarship, such as a more linear, peer-reviewed article.

      There is, truly, so much potential in these tools and approaches toward asynchronous, distributed reading and writing. One question I have, already, is how such distributed forms of production-consumption further dissolve notions of textuality and authorship so entrenched within traditional notions and practices of scholarship and empirical research. The flattened hierarchies, especially, threaten the institutionalized power structures which have tightly controlled the design, review, and dissemination of scholarship and research.

  14. Nov 2016
  15. Sep 2016
    1. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn GooglePlus jQuery(document).ready(function() { "use strict"; $ = jQuery; var decal = $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').parent().width(); $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').css({'margin-left':decal+5}); $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').fadeIn(); $(window).scroll(function() { socialbar.scroll(); }); }); var socialbar = (function(jQuery) { var timeOutId = 0; var jitterBuffer = 20; return { scroll:function() { var offset = $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').parent().offset(); var top = offset.top -150; //alert(offset.top); if ($(window).scrollTop() > top) { $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').addClass('fixed'); } else { $('.c-socialbar-cta:not(.horizontal)').removeClass('fixed'); } } }; })(); Message from the president: 'This is a victory for academic freedom'
    1. "The university is thankful that the tireless efforts of governments, diplomats and colleagues across Canada and internationally were successful. The Concordia community — in particular faculty and staff members and unions — played a critical role in securing her release. This is a victory for academic freedom."
    1. Application Modern higher education institutions have unprecedentedly large and detailed collections of data about their students, and are growing increasingly sophisticated in their ability to merge datasets from diverse sources. As a result, institutions have great opportunities to analyze and intervene on student performance and student learning. While there are many potential applications of student data analysis in the institutional context, we focus here on four approaches that cover a broad range of the most common activities: data-based enrollment management, admissions, and financial aid decisions; analytics to inform broad-based program or policy changes related to retention; early-alert systems focused on successful degree completion; and adaptive courseware.

      Perhaps even more than other sections, this one recalls the trope:

      The difference probably comes from the impact of (institutional) “application”.

    1. We commonly look at Ivy League institutions as the standard of higher education in America, but the truth is that the majority of the nation's workforce, innovation identity and manufacturing futures are tied to those institutions which graduate outside of the realm of high achievers from wealthy families. 
  16. Jul 2016
    1. Hello. This is my first entry. Dario and I plan to create a podcast that has three elements:

      1) A formal exploration of the podcast form using our own podcast as a case study. 2) A discussion around academic research and the podcast. 3) A discussion around the 'disruptive journal' featuring input from JMP contributors.

      The aim is to construct a text that operates as a viable and valid piece of research and also is reflexive regarding the changing nature of academic research.

      We will be talking in person late July following some leave and will be emailing disruptive JMP participants shortly to invite them to participate.

      For now I listening to podcasts to prepare, and recommend the latest NPR Invisibilia episode on problem solving, and any episode of the brilliant Longford Podcast.

  17. Jun 2016
    1. VIA EFF

      Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it? (Ars Techica)

      Excellent report on the state of academic publishing— and why so much of it is still locked down.

      NOTE

      if we can Not access the works we fund, we can Neither annotate all knowledge.

      And this case, it may pertain the most crucial body of all our knowledge — the knowledge upon what we are to found our own futures for us all. What is to be recognized as "the Human knowledge", whilst yet unknown by almost everyone us Humans ourselves.>

    2. A history of open access academic publishing from the early 1990s to 2016.

    1. uthorship (and therecognition that flows therefrom) is the undisputed coin ofthe realm in academia: it embodies the enterprise of schol-arship (Bourdieu, 1991; Cronin, 1984, 2000; Franck, 1999

      Authorship "is the coin of the realm in academia"; "it empbodies the enterprise of scholarship.

    2. o state the obvious, public affirmation of au-thorship is absolutely central to the operation of the aca-demic reward system, whether one is a classicist,sociologist, or experimental physicist.

      Authorship is central to the operation of the academy, whether classicist or physicist

  18. May 2016
    1. Since the dawn of civilization, there have been a number of irrefutable ‘golden laws’ of business, including the following:

      Terrible intro, but really good overview of the financial issues facing academic publishing

    1. The new title and pricing trends in Table 1 and Table 2 were also evident in Table 3. University press totals for these three years was 1,908. Even if statistics were excluded from the final totals of commercial presses, the output of commercial presses in 2012 was higher than the university press totals for all three years; and their tally for 2012–14 reached 14,493 (which is 659.59% more than for university presses). The suggested retail price differences were again rather dramatic between university presses and commercial publishers in several marker fields, including sociology (+75.48%); political theory (+45.52%); political science [End Page 109] in North and South America (+113.26%); mathematics (+33.56%); physics (+66.55%); and natural science (+128.24%). The cost to buy one copy of the university press books in Table 3 in these seven fields was $1549.51, while commercially published books cost $2379.84 (+53.59% higher) (see Table 3 for the details).

      Commercial presses are publishing more books and charging more for those books than are university presses. This might support the claim made in Jones and Courant (2014) that Academic Librarians are more likely to purchase books from university presses than from commercial presses, thereby increasing pressure on the commercial presses to publish more books and charge more for them.

    1. At the University of Ottawa, Canada, the UO Press and the UO Library have developed a strategic partnership to publish and disseminate selected new monographs as gold open access (OA). Starting in 2013, the Library agreed to fund three books at C$10,000 per book (a total of C$30,000 per year) in order to remove barriers to accessing scholarship and to align with scholarly communication goals of the University.

      Univeristy of Ottawa's Library & Press joined together to underwrite OA books for $10k (Canadian) each.

    1. “The monograph has been at risk for a long time,” Sisler notes. “Journals, in science in particular, have eaten up library budgets that were formerly spent on humanities and social-science monographs. As the number of units in print goes down, the price per book goes up, and you sell fewer; it becomes a vicious cycle.

      This points to a cycle that I read about elsewhere. Academic monograph publishers are printing more books, but a lower percentage of them are being bought by the libraries. Thus the number of sales per book is decreasing. The price for the books then goes up, as does the demand to print more books, further contributing to the cycle.

    1. And although this trend does decline eventually, the decline starts much later than is commonly asserted, starting only in 2000, and thus coinciding less with the serials crisis than with the succession of economic downturns that have squeezed university funding since the turn of the century.

      The authors are arguing that the 'serials crisis' predated the downturn in book purchasing. However, it's not clear why the date the 'serials crisis' when they do. Their data seems to support the idea that rising periodicals pricing in the 21st century has squeezed the purchasing of academic monographs.

    1. Variable costs of academic journals are paid by the publisher and, as long as journals were printed and distributed physically, these costs were sizeable. In the print era, publishers had to typeset the manuscripts, print copies of journals, and send them to various subscribers. Hence, each time an issue was printed, sent and sold, another copy had to be printed to be sent and sold. However, with the advent of electronic publishing, these costs became marginal.

      Digital era lowered the costs of publication

    2. In that sense and contrary to any other business, academic journals are an atypical information good, because publishers neither pay the provider of the primary good—authors of scholarly papers—nor for the quality control—peer review. On the publisher’s side, average first-copy costs of journal papers are estimated to range between 20 and 40 US dollars per page, depending on rejection rates [37];

      The authors note that much of the editorial work is done for free by academics, and put a price tag on the per page cost to publish journals.

    3. Data from the mid-1990s by Tenopir and King [12] suggests an increase of commercial publishers’ share of the output; by then, commercial publishers accounted for 40% of the journal output, while scientific/professional societies accounted for 25% and university presses and educational publishers for 16%.

      Data from mid-1990s on the publication of academic journals.

    4. Despite the fact that it is generally believed that the digitalization of knowledge diffusion has led to a higher concentration of scientific literature in the hands of a few major players, no study has analyzed the evolution over time of these major publishers’ share of the scientific output in the various disciplines. This paper aims at providing such analysis, based on all journals indexed in the Web of Science over the 1973–2013 period.

      Thesis: digitization has contributed to the consolidations of the academic journal publishing market

    5. On the other hand, papers in arts and humanities are still largely dispersed amongst many smaller publishers, with the top five commercial publishers only accounting for 20% of humanities papers and 10% of arts papers in 2013, despite a small increase since the second half of the 1990s.

      Why have the arts and humanities not experienced a similar consolidation?

    6. scientific societies such as the ACS or the APS publish many journals in the specialties of chemistry and physics respectively, for which they successfully managed the shift from print to electronic.

      Larger scientific societies can float the costs of digital conversion and avoid being snapped up by commercial publishers.

    7. Profit margins decreased, however, between 1998 and 2003, although profits remained relatively stable. Absolute profits as well as the profit margin then rose again, with the exception of the 2008–2009 period of economic crisis, resulting in profits reaching an all-time high of more than 2 billion USD in 2012 and 2013. The profit margin of the company’s Scientific, Technical & Medical division is even higher (Fig 7B).

      Profits rose across Reed-Elsevier's business, and rose fastest in the company's Sci,Tech, and Med division. The focus of the commercial interests in publishing Sci,Tech,Med is entirely logical from a profit-oriented perspective.

  19. Apr 2016
    1. The few open access journals that managed to acquire substantial prestige such as some of Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals did so mostly because of the very high prestige of founding editors, including nobel laureates. It is also the reason why simply calling for researchers to switch to open access outlets won’t work. Since careers and funding depend on the proven ability to publish in established “top journals”, researchers in general and early-career researchers in particular have strong incentives to avoid newly founded open access outlets. But there are groups of people that could make a difference: journal editors and their editorial review boards. A huge part of a journal’s reputation is effectively derived from its editors. If the whole editorial board of a prestigious journal decided to collectivley leave this journal behind and open up a new one, it’s very likely that this new journal would outperform the journal they had left behind.
  20. Mar 2016
    1. The American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL

      Academic source

  21. Feb 2016
  22. Jan 2016
    1. Scott Johnson tweeted a screen-capture of a message he received from academia.edu.

      Would you be open to paying a small fee to submit any upcoming papers to our board of editors to be considered for recommendation? You'd only be charged if your paper was recommended.

      Academia.edu founder Richard Price replied.

  23. Dec 2015
    1. We believe that openness and transparency are core values of science. For a long time, technological obstacles existed preventing transparency from being the norm. With the advent of the internet, however, these obstacles have largely disappeared. The promise of open research can finally be realized, but this will require a cultural change in science. The power to create that change lies in the peer-review process.

      We suggest that beginning January 1, 2017, reviewers make open practices a pre-condition for more comprehensive review. This is already in reviewers’ power; to drive the change, all that is needed is for reviewers to collectively agree that the time for change has come.

    1. We find ourselves at a decisive moment. This is the time to recognize that the very existence of our massive knowledge commons is an act of collective civil disobedience. It is the time to emerge from hiding and put our names behind this act of resistance. You may feel isolated, but there are many of us. The anger, desperation and fear of losing our library infrastructures, voiced across the internet, tell us that. This is the time for us custodians, being dogs, humans or cyborgs, with our names, nicknames and pseudonyms, to raise our voices. Share this letter - read it in public - leave it in the printer. Share your writing - digitize a book - upload your files. Don't let our knowledge be crushed. Care for the libraries - care for the metadata - care for the backup. Water the flowers - clean the volcanoes.
    2. In Elsevier's case against Sci-Hub and Library Genesis, the judge said: "simply making copyrighted content available for free via a foreign website, disserves the public interest"

      The copyrighted material in question is academic research, much of which is paid for by public funds. This judge is confusing "public" with "publishing companies". How much has the academic journal scam cost the public?

  24. Nov 2015
    1. With over 36 million visitors each month, the San Francisco-based platform-capitalist company Academia.edu is hugely popular with researchers. Its founder and CEO Richard Price maintains it is the ‘largest social-publishing network for scientists’, and ‘larger than all its competitors put together’. Yet posting on Academia.edu is far from being ethically and politically equivalent to using an institutional open access repository, which is how it is often understood by academics. Academia.edu’s financial rationale rests on the ability of the venture-capital-funded professional entrepreneurs who run it to monetize the data flows generated by researchers. Academia.edu can thus be seen to have a parasitical relationship to a public education system from which state funding is steadily being withdrawn.

      Includes links to related articles.

  25. Sep 2015
    1. In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, for example, where universities are under effective control of neoliberal states, academic freedom has no legal standing

      This doesn't seem to me to be accurate. The UK's Education Reform Act of 1988 sec 2(a), still in force as far as I know, is written in law "to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions;"

      http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/40/part/IV/crossheading/academic-tenure

  26. Jul 2015