February 9, 2012
Elsevier’s Alicia Wise on the RWA, the West Wing, and Universal Access
Richard Poynder,
Open and Shut, February 9, 2012.
What's Elsevier's take on legilsating open access for government-funded research publications? "[W]e don’t believe that the government should tell authors and publishers what we can do with our publications." Well. Maybe government should say "we don't believe in letting Elsevier publish any work that we've funded." I wonder whether they would call that interference. Anyhow, read the rest of these eye-opening comments from Elsevier’s director of universal access Alicia Wise, who posted a defence of the company on the Liblicense mailing list.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Mailing Lists, Books, Research, Open Access, Academic Publications]
Putting the User at the Heart of Education
Ben Showers,
JISC, February 9, 2012.
Summary of "a recent Usability workshop held by Ben Showers and Torsten Reimer as part of their work on the Usability and Adaptability of User-Interfaces." Themes covered include the impact on the product development culture, strategic buy-in and communication. The post is useful enough, however, I found that if I substituted any other word for "usability" it read pretty much the same.
Book review: Quality assurance in distance education and e-learning
Tony Bates,
Online Learning and Distance Education Resources, February 9, 2012.
Tony Bates reviews a book that "provides comprehensive coverage of the practice and applications of quality assurance in distance education and some elements of e-learning around the world." He expresses disappointment because "the book does not touch on the greatest area of application of e-learning, which is in the traditional campus-based universities and two year colleges." I'm not really sure these fall properly under the heading of "distance education and e-learning." But Bates explains, "We don’t need to build a bureaucracy around this (quality in learning), but there does need to be some mechanism, some way of calling institutions when they fail to meet these standards. However, we should also do the same for campus-based teaching."
Unbundling Education, A Simple Framework
Michael Staton,
M. P. Staton, February 9, 2012.
Illustrated, a framework for unbunbling education. I've commented on the concept previously. This breaks down the task of learning along very different dimensions, describing "ten services, listed here in the order of they will be disrupted."
New Research Paper Presents 30 General Design Considerations for Online Deliberation Systems
Tim Bonnemann,
Intellitics, Inc., February 9, 2012.
Good summary of an article (itself unfortunately behind a paywall) on the design of online deliberation systems. These are systems that enable a group of people to debate and eventually reach a decision about some matter. The article reviews a number of such systems in an effort to draw out design principles.
Open Access and Interventionism
Steve Kolowich ,
Inside Higher Ed, February 9, 2012.
The 377 responses posted in response to the White House's request for commentary on open access are a treasure trove of commentary and perspectives on the issue. This article focuses on one statement, from William E. Davis, III, on behalf of the American Anthropological Association, which asserts that "no research that demonstrates a problem with the existing system." This created a revolt in the ranks of the AAA, as members had already pledged themselves to support open access. Jeremy Trombley, for example, writes, "I'm willing to put my career on the line and promise to only publish in open access journals.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Books, Research, United States, Open Access]
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