Monthly Archive for October, 2011

Call for Book Reviewers

Published on October 28, 2011 in Book and Newsletter. 0 Comments Tags: .

Common Ground Publishing is seeking distinguished peer reviewers to evaluate book manuscripts submitted to the Ubi-Learn Book Series.

As part of our commitment to intellectual excellence and a rigorous review process, Common Ground sends book manuscripts that have received initial editorial approval to peer reviewers to further evaluate and provide constructive feedback. The comments and guidance that these reviewers supply is invaluable to our authors and an essential part of the publication process.

Common Ground recognizes the important role of referees by acknowledging book reviewers as members of the Ubi-Learn Book Series Editorial Review Board for a period of at least one year. The list of members of the Editorial Review Board will be posted on our website. In addition, Common Ground also offers a US$200 voucher for each completed review which meets the standards set out by the Commissioning Editor at the commencement of assignment. Vouchers may be used in the Common Ground Bookstore or for registration at one of our international conferences.

If you would like to referee book manuscripts submitted to the Ubi-Learn Book Series, please email books@ubi-learn.com. Please make sure to include:

  1. a brief description of your professional credentials
  2. a list of your areas of interest and expertise
  3. a copy of your CV with current contact details

If we feel you are qualified and we require refereeing for manuscripts within your purview, we will contact you.

The Revolution Will Not Be Subscription-Based

Published on October 24, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Barbara Fister, Inside Higher Education

Another fascinating report has just come out from Project Information Literacy, a source of many fascinating reports. This one focuses on how students use technology during the busiest time of the semester. I love what these researchers are doing—actually talking to undergraduates about how they do research (what a concept!) rather than making assumptions. Often, when I read their reports I think to myself “yes, that sounds exactly like our students; no surprises here.” But then I realize how much their findings challenge the latest library craze and am grateful to have real data to back up my impressions.

Take ebooks. Librarians currently seem to think we should be investing in massive numbers of ebooks, and the rationale often given is “students live on the Internet. If it’s not online, it doesn’t exist to them. We need to meet them where they are.” In a stronger form this is worded as “EVOLVE OR DIE!!” But if you point out that the students you talk to don’t like to read anything on the screen, you’ll probably hear “oh, we just need a better marketing campaign. They don’t know what they’re missing.”

This is fresh in my mind because I just attended an interesting day-long virtual conference on ebooks in libraries. In fact, I was a panelist for a session on marketing ebooks to students in academic libraries. Sadly, what I had to say probably wasn’t what the audience came for. Our students aren’t interested in ebooks, so we aren’t buying lots of them and thus have nothing to market. Frankly, I would much rather see libraries fund the production costs of open access monographs, the way the University of Michigan is doing with their Digital Culture imprint or what the National Academies Press has been doing for years, rather than become the open wallet used to fund another digital transition.

Pearson and Google Jump Into Learning Management With a New, Free System

Published on October 20, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Josh Fischman, Chronicle of Higher Education

One of the world’s biggest education publishers has joined with one of the most dominant and iconic software companies on the planet to bring colleges a new—and free—learning-management system with the hopes of upending services that affect just about every instructor, student, and college in the country.

Today Pearson, the publishing and learning technology group, has teamed up with the software giant Google to launch OpenClass, a free LMS that combines standard course-management tools with advanced social networking and community-building, and an open architecture that allows instructors to import whatever material they want, from e-books to YouTube videos. The program will launch through Google Apps for Education, a very popular e-mail, calendar, and document-sharing service that has more than 1,000 higher-education customers, and it will be hosted by Pearson with the intent of freeing institutions from the burden of providing resources to run it. It enters a market that has been dominated by costly institution-anchored services like Blackboard, and open-source but labor-intensive systems like Moodle.

“Anytime Pearson and Google are used in the same sentence, it’s going to get people’s attention,” says Don Smithmier, chief executive and founder of Sophia, another community-based learning system that is backed by Capella Education, the corporation behind the online educator Capella University. “I believe the world will be shifting away from a classic LMS approach defined by the institution. Openness and social education is a very powerful idea.”

To Read More…

New Study Reveals Student Perspective on Technology Use in Higher Education

Published on October 11, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Kanoe Namahoe, CampusTechnology.com

College students believe that technology has a direct impact on their academic performance, according to findings from a new student-driven study out of the Lone Star College System. In “The National Lone Star Report on Aligning Technology with Student Success,” 78 percent of college students reported that their grades and learning experience are improved when technology is effectively and consistently implemented on their campus.

The Report is a compilation of survey data collected from more than 6,000 students on 36 campuses across the country. Focused exclusively on two-year colleges, the study also included analysis of more than 1.5 million helpdesk inquiries from 55 institutions. The student-led initiative is the first of its kind, according to LSCS vice chancellor and CIO Shah Ardalan.

“‘The National Lone Star Report on Aligning Technology with Student Success’ will allow college administrators access to the collective voice of American students and it provides invaluable data on students’ needs, desires and dreams, and how technology can help them achieve these goals,” Ardalan said in a prepared statement.

To Read More…

Robo-Truant Tech and Other Apps to Fix Education

Published on October 6, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Jonathan Alter, Bloomberg.com

The education reform movement is at an important juncture. It will either peter out in platitudes or advance based on a new consensus. At this week’s Education Nation conference in New York City, I came away with some hope for the latter. My cautious optimism is rooted in two Ts — technology and transparency.

In the pitched battles between reformers and traditionalists, I’ve been passionately on the side of the reformers for almost 20 years. With the help of the last four presidents, they’ve made progress against the education establishment in pushing for accountability, common standards, charter schools, merit pay and rigorous teacher evaluation.

But traditionalists in the unions and the business-as-usual bureaucracy have recently been successful in depicting reformers as teacher-bashers (not guilty) and as overreliant on test scores in reading and math at the expense of other subjects (guilty).

To Read More…

Illustration by Andy Rementer, via Bloomberg.com