Academic Commons

What's a Liberal Arts Education Good For?

ravishan@wesleyan.edu — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 09:45:39 -0500

You may be interested in reading the following blog posting by Michael S. Roth, Wesleyan’s president:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-roth/whats-a-liberal-arts-educ_b_147584.html

Third Annual HASTAC Conference: Traversing Digital Boundaries

lisagatesphd@gmail.com — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:52:49 -0500

The third annual HASTAC conference will be held April 19-21, 2009, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under the theme "Traversing Digital Boundaries." As the theme suggests, the gathering will focus on the exploration of new territory and in work that crosses, manipulates, or simply ignores traditional boundaries. The conference program will include presentations of research, performances, technology demonstrations, posters, panel discussions, and "virtual" participation via telepresence technology. To participate, please submit a one-page abstract describing your work, how it traverses digital boundaries, and how you would like to present it at the conference (panel, poster, demo, dance, etc.).

Submissions are due DECEMBER 17, 2008 to HASTAC3@ncsa.uiuc.edu. Submissions will be reviewed by the planning committee and invitations to participate will be issued by JANUARY 21, 2009. In addition to the conference program, we also will spotlight innovative submitted work on the conference website through video, blogs, and other online features.

Questions? Contact HASTAC3@ncsa.uiuc.edu.

Key dates:

Abstract submissions due: Dec. 17, 2008
Notification of participants: Jan. 21, 2009
Conference: April 19-21, 2009

HASTAC III Planning Committee:

Dr. Allison Clark, co-chair
Dr. Kevin Franklin, co-chair
Safiya Noble, co-chair

Ideas Please for the Obama CTO

davidgreen@knowledgeculture.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:32:55 -0500

Vote, vote, vote - for ideas, now that we have a President Elect...and a soon-to-be-announced CTO for the nation.

Peter Suber has brought our attention to a new site from Seattle-based software company Front Seat for recommending ideas to the nation's first CTO and voting on the ideas submitted by others.

Obama CTO already has some 550 ideas, from the rather broad "Ensure the Internet is widely accessible & network neutral" (with 10363 votes) to the specific, "Repeal the Digital Milennium Copyright Act" (6679 votes) to over 400 ideas with less than 10 votes each. You can post your idea, vote up to ten times for your favorite posted ideas, and then await the official response from the transition team.

SO: go vote!

War Of The Worlds 2.0

pete.naegele@oberlin.edu — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 08:30:43 -0400

There was an thought provoking re-enactment of the War Of The Worlds broadcast yesterday on Twitter. The original idea came from Kris Kowal over at his Ask A Wizard blog. The full dialogue can be found at wotw2 on twitter [with an archive of material here] and the "script" was posted as a google doc.

The result was an interesting new take on the classic story and broadcast; updating the tale with the influence of modern technology ["Have you been abducted?" "Is there good mobile-phone access in those nets?"] with the role of the broadcaster/reporter played by Twitter. What made the story more interesting was the influence of technology in its telling such as photoshopped images and re-purposed videos

It made for an interesting evening and compelling reading; waiting to see what the night would bring. It also made me think how useful this application could be in an academic setting. The uniqueness of this story could have included contributions from departments of literature, rhetoric, history, broadcasting, astronomy, physics, psychology and information technology.

In a traditional classroom setting, this task my have bee a daunting task. However, via the cloud, the collaboration could have been quite enjoyable and educational for everyone involved!

Fair Use and the Future of the Commons: A HASTAC.org Scholars Discussion Forum

roy@academiccommons.org — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:17:52 -0400

An announcement from HASTAC.org
Veronica Paredes, a HASTAC Scholar from USC, has just opened our next HASTAC Scholars Discussion Forum on "Fair Use and the Future of the Commons," featuring the non-profit advocacy coalition Critical Commons. Please come join the discussion!

Fair Use and the Future of the Commons
Discussion forum open now at www.hastac.org

Coinciding with a day-long Critical Commons event to take place at USC's Annenberg Research Park on Oct 27, this forum will address the fear, uncertainty and misinformation dominating the discourse of copyright and intellectual property. Fair Use has become one of the most vexing issues in today's academic landscape. As educators, what are our rights and responsibilities when working with copyrighted media (images, audio, video) under the current copyright regime? In light of recent developments in legislation (e.g. the creation of a 'copyright czar'), how is this copyright regime changing? How can media scholars and artists avoid chilling effects and self-censorship? How can we contribute to advocacy and reform of fair use protections?

Inspired by Critical Commons, a non-profit advocacy coalition that supports the use of media in educational contexts, this forum will explore these urgent questions and aim to provide some tangible answers. The forum will also document and engage a real-life Critical Commons event - a series of presentations and discussions with key players in the advancement and redefinition of fair use (which will include a keynote presentation from Peter Jaszi, Professor of Law at American University and co-chair on the Code of Best Practices Committee at the Center for Social Media). The event will be coupled with a faculty showcase and hands-on workshops at the Institute for Multimedia Literacy (IML), as well as a virtual space to join in on the conversation at the IML island in Second Life. Possibilities for participation are many and diverse: read and post on the forum; attend presentations and discussions in Second Life; visit us in Southern California and participate in a workshop at the IML!

The goal of this forum is to bring clarity to questions of fair use for scholars and educators working with copyrighted media for research, teaching and electronic publication. This forum, in its multiple forms, will facilitate some much-needed discussion of the state of contemporary Fair Use and where we should be setting our sights for the future.

Veronica Paredes is a PhD student in the new interdivisional program Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) at USC's School of Cinematic Arts. While at USC, she has worked as a research and teaching assistant for the Institute for Multimedia Literacy. Her research interests include digital scholarship, transnational online economies and audio culture. Her work explores histories of technology and culture through the topics of gender, labor and race.

Critical Commons, a winner of the 2007 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media & Learning Competition Knowledge Networking award, is a non-profit advocacy coalition that supports the use of media in educational contexts, providing resources, information and tools for scholars, students and educators. They aim to: Facilitate the writing and dissemination of best practices and fair use guidelines for academic communities; Showcase innovative electronic scholarship that is free, open source, or fair use; Inform educators about current copyright law and its alternatives; Provide a tool for viewing, tagging, annotating and distributing media for classroom use; Build an open, informed community around media-based education, scholarly research and critical practice; and Share tools, resources and information of interest to educators, students and researchers.

Upcoming NERCOMP Workshop: Pen-based Technologies for Teaching and Learning

lisagatesphd@gmail.com — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 10:34:48 -0400

Registration is now open for NERCOMP's upcoming workshop: "Pen-based Technologies for Teaching and Learning."

DATE: December 2, 2008

TIME: 9:00 - 3:00 (Coffee and Registration start at 8:00)

PRICE: NERCOMP Members: $92, Non-Members: $217

LOCATION: The College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA)

DESCRIPTION: Many faculty today are turning to pen-based technologies in their teaching to better engage students in the learning process and to make themselves more effective and productive. Attendees of this session will gain an understanding of how pen-based technologies are being used for teaching and learning at several institutions and the impact those technologies are having. Attendees will also have an opportunity for hands-on playing with pen-based technologies provided by the presenters.

For a full schedule and registration information, please go to: http://www.nercomp.org/events/event_single.aspx?id=1702

Webcast on Open Education Thursday October 2, 2008 @ 11 AM PDT

roy@academiccommons.org — Wed, 1 Oct 2008 08:46:16 -0400

Join the editors of Opening Up Education, Toru Iiyoshi and Vijay Kumar, and John Seely Brown, who wrote the book's foreword, to talk about future possibilities for the open education movement and how it can improve the quality of education. The conversation addresses the fact that despite the diversity of open education initiatives, tools and resources that aim to make educational assets freely available online, educators have yet to take full advantage of shared knowledge. You can hear what innovations are emerging and discuss with us what educators should do to reinvent and re-energize education.

The webcast on Thursday October 2, 2008 is at 11 AM PDT will be found at http://commons.carnegiefoundation.org/openingupeducation/ .

NERCOMP Workshop: Teaching Well Using Technology

lisagatesphd@gmail.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:38:57 -0400

Registration is now open for NERCOMP's upcoming workshop: "Teaching Well Using Technology: A Faculty Member’s Guide to Wise and Time-Efficient Use of Instructional Technology"

DATE: November 12, 2008

TIME: 9:00 - 3:00 (Coffee and Registration start at 8:00)

PRICE: NERCOMP Members: $110, Non-Members: $235

LOCATION: University of Massachusetts, Amherst Campus Center - First Floor, Amherst, MA.

DESCRIPTION: This is a planning workshop that guides faculty members through a 7 step course planning/technology adaptation process. The day starts with identification of course goals and available times and spaces for teaching and learning. This is followed with an overview of technology tools available and how they can impact the use of time and space. Faculty members leave with the beginnings of a redesigned course that includes thoughtfully selected technology tools that will help students reach the identified learning goals. The TWUT workshop has been offered to dozens of colleges and universities across the United States and Canada.

This workshop is for faculty, instructional designers, and technologists.

For a full schedule and registration information, please go to: http://www.nercomp.org/events/event_single.aspx?id=1692

IT Index

pschilling@amherst.edu — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 09:50:12 -0400

Amherst College, in western Massachusetts, enrolled 438 first year students this fall, for a total student population of 1680+. I gathered the following to tell the story of the changes occurring here and now in the life of the College.

Percentage of first-year applicants who applied online in 2003: 33%.
Percentage of applicants who did last year: 89%.
Year that an incoming Amherst College class first created a Facebook group so that they could socialize and otherwise get to know each other prior to arriving on campus: 2006.
By the end of August 2008 the total number of members and posts at the Amherst College Class of 2012 Facebook group: 432 members and 3,225 posts.
Students in the class of 2012 who registered computers, IPhones, game consoles, etc. on the campus network by the end of the day on August 24th, the day they moved into their dorm rooms: 370 students registered 443 devices.
Number of students in the class of 2012 who brought desktop computers to campus: 14.
Number that brought iPhones/iTouches: 93.
Likelihood that a student with an iPhone/iTouch is in the class of 2012: approximately 1 in 2.
Total number of students on campus this year that have landline phone service: 5.
Mac or PC? Of the four classes currently on campus the classes of 2009 and 2010 are more likely to own Windows, while the classes of 2011 and 2012 are more likely to own Macs.
Total bandwidth to and from the Internet available on campus in September 2000: 3 megabits per second.
Total bandwidth to and from the Internet available on campus today: 100 megabits per second for the Internet and 45 for Internet 2.
Ratio of network bandwidth available per Ethernet port today to that which will be available when the current campus network upgrade is complete: 1 to 100.
Percentage of College classrooms that have an LCD projector and a computer or laptop hookup: 85%.
For students adding/dropping courses this semester, the number of requests for access to the electronic resources associated with courses: 564.
The number of individual film titles in the College’s digital video streaming collection: 1,260.
The number of times these films were watched last year: 20,662.
Average number of emails received per day: 180,000.
Percentage of email that arrives on campus that is spam: 94%.
Percentage of storage space taken up by email, a system designed to send brief text messages, that is actually taken up the files attached to the emails: 95%.
Ratio of the storage required for email and attachments for just the year 2007 to that of all of the preceding 5 years together: 1 to 1.
Increase in the total number of College-owned computers in use on campus from 2005 to 2008: 413 for a 2008 total of 1,308.
Total number of calls and emails to the IT Help Desk in 2007: 8,650.
Average time required to close a help-desk ticket: 39 minutes.
Based on the first 9 months of 2008, estimated percentage increase in help-desk tickets in 2008 over 2007: 11% (or 15.6 weeks of work for a staff member).
Candidates for administrative and staff job openings who applied through the College’s web-based job applicant system in the first 10 months it was available: 4,037.
Job applicants interviewed for 12 openings in IT in the last year who learned about our positions through postings in regional, national, or professional, publications, websites, or lists: 1.
Estimated number of hours it would have taken to update the graphics, navigation, and organization of the 2005-2006 College web site (static HTML): 50,000.
Hours it took to roll out the new web site in August 2008 (database-driven): 3.5.
Total number of alumni who have logged in to the College web site: 7,354.

Campus Technology 2008 Keynote Address by Adrian Sannier: A ‘New’ American University for Next-Gen Learners

pete.naegele@oberlin.edu — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:26:52 -0400

"Adrian Sannier, technology officer for Arizona State University, discusses strategies for putting in place ground-breaking plans that will serve the next generation of students. These are actionable visions that include strategic technology choices--advancements that may be unfamiliar or even unpopular at first, but which carry enormous potential."