Universities 'get poor value' from academic journal-publishing firms
Ian Sample, The Guardian, June 17, 2014

I think we knew this, but the secrecy of subscription contracts prevented us from 'knowing' this (in any documented way). But now we have an analysis and "The analysis by a team of economists found that for leading universities, journals published by non-profit organisations were two to 10 times better value than those published by commercial companies, such as Elsevier, Springer, Sage, and Taylor & Francis." I expect the very same is true of learning resources for students as well. Here is the study the Guardian article is based on (might be behind a paywall where you live, natch).

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Curation: Creatively Filtering Content
Sue Watters, The Edublogger, June 17, 2014

I think this is a good article and well worth a look because it encourages the revival of a disappearing activity online these days: reading and writing about other people. This of course is the central activity of OLDaily, so it's close to home for me. But I reject the term 'curation' to describe what I do and what others should do. The term 'curation' reflects past practice, as though to legitimize thoroughly contemporary practices by association with the word. Curation suggests that the primary task is selection and filtration, but to me, that's only a small part of what I do; I'm describing my practice when I recount the works I've read. As well, the term 'curation' suggests passivity, observation, preservation, and even objectivity. My work is none of these things. I consider myself to be engaging with the authors and works I summarize. This is not the same as curation. It's something new, something internet.

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Three issues with the case for banning laptops
Robert Talbert, The Chronicle: Casting Nines, June 17, 2014

I am often present in meetings and sessions where the request is made that people close their laptops. I don't do it. For me, the laptop is the machine I use to help me think; I engage with the ideas being presented in real-time, and create a record I can search and integrate into later work. So I wasn't persuaded by the anti-laptop argument presented in the Atlantic last week. That said, the response to the article doesn't sway me either. I think that the study (comparing taking notes by typing and by hand) should be rejected as irrelevant. I think the characterization of a laptop as a work or a play tool is irrelevant (for me, my work is my play). And the laptop vs the lecture argument sets up a false dilemma.

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Cape Breton University President Looks Toward Super University
David Wheeler, Cape Breton University, June 17, 2014

Presentation slides and press release about a talk by Cape Breton University president David Wheeler. He argues that " future universities will be rewarded by governments for their performance in economic development, employability of graduates, immigration and commercialisation of research in addition to more traditional metrics which may have less to do with scientific, social and cultural excellence or economic prosperity." One slide points out that universities have survived since the 16th century "because societies need them."

It is worth asking at this juncture exactly what it is that societies need. The citizens of Leiden famously opted for a university as a reward from William of Orange instead of the economic advantage of tax-free status. The citizens of Tubingen famously rejected industrial development in favour of remaining a university city. The need is to develop a university as a university, not an engine to support day-to-day economic development. If we want job creation or economic development we have the private sector to do that; if they won't (and in Canada, increasingly, they won't) we need other measures to address that; converting universities into something they're not is not the answer.

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