OLDaily

What’s the protocol? Canadian university research ethics boards and variations in implementing Tri-Council policy
Grace Karram Stephenson, Glen A. Jones, Emmanuelle Fick, Olivier Begin-Caouette, Aamir Taiyeb, Amy Metcalfe, Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 2020/05/05

I've been looking at this exact same matter this week (rough draft here), so the arrival of this paper (14 page PDF) is fortuitous. The authors argue that "there is significant variation among the practices of Research Ethics Boards (REBs) at Canada’s universities, particularly when they respond to requests from researchers outside their own institution." The Tri-Council is Canada's three major research funding bodies, and their code of ethics (called TCPS 2) is here. And I just so happen to be reviewing an online course based on this guide. There's more from the Government of Canada on research ethics here.

Anyhow, the study looked at policies from 69 universities, and itself was subject to research review at a number of universities. The authors found some requests for revisions perplexing, for example from one (of 18) universities "was the requirement that we add their university’s logo to our survey’s informed consent page." Additionally, "The history of ethics policy development in Canada has left social scientists questioning whether their system is oriented too heavily toward the medical sciences."

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Learn@Home
YouTube, 2020/05/05

Worth taking a look at is YouTube's Learn@Home service. According to the website, "we’re partnering with learning creators to bring parents & families resources and activities. These resources are not meant to replace homework assigned by teachers, but meant to complement that work." There are live streams, and videos sorted by age and subject (though note all of them are for primary and secondary students). It looks like a lot of this is based on repurposing existing live streams and channels (and making them harder to view in stand-alone windows) but you can sort of see how this could morph into something much more substantial if the user interest is there.

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Redesigning Trust: Blockchain Deployment Toolkit
World Economic Forum, 2020/05/05

I know that a lot of people still think of blockchain as a technology in search of a problem (though if you look at my rough notes you'll see it differently) and many other people aren't thinking of it at all, but it's one of those technologies that's going to be everywhere behind the scenes within the next decade. So understanding this deployment toolkit, even if you just skim it, give you a good sense of the sorts of things to look for in data management and records in the medium-range future (note that my rough notes on this page are mostly cut-and-paste from other sources and should not be treated as an original work) .

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Colleges Preparing for Fall 2020
Jim Shimabukuro, educational technology & change, 2020/05/05

This is going to be an ongoing story for the next four months. Planning is in full flight. Colleges and universities are looking at continued online learning, shrinking enrollment, and large budget cuts. While many have said there will be on-campus classes this fall, that's just for recruitment purposes. Faculty might not be willing to teach. It will not be business as usual. Many have already announced layoffs. Public education funding, which in some places not recovered from 2008, is in jeopardy. Public education itself, according to some, is threatened. But of course they just join the millions who have already lost their jobs, and it would be naive to think that any public service job is safe today.

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Bye, Amazon
Tim Bray, Ongoing, 2020/05/05

I think that this is today's biggest news, because Tim Bray isn't just your average VP, and because of the reason he's quitting. "It’s that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential." And as he says, "It’s how 21st-century capitalism is done." How does this relate to us? Can you imagine senior executive at colleges and universities resigning because their IT staff or sessional (adjunct) instructors are treated as disposable? No, neither can I. Now I know, it's not an ideal time for labour activism. By the same token, as this Metafilter post makes clear, continuity is broken. Maybe it's business as usual after the pandemic clears, or maybe people look around at the wreckage and start thinking, "hey, maybe society should be serving more than just the needs of the few." NPR's On the Media covers this too, before the Bray resignation, May 1, parts 3 and 4.

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Paranoia about cheating is making online education terrible for everyone
Rebecca Heilweil, Vox, 2020/05/05

This article discusses some of the mixed experiences students have had with video proctoring services such as like Proctorio, Examity, Honorlock, and ProctorU. They can rely on both human and AI observers. As the article notes,  Some students seem to hate these services, and social media is chock-full of their grievances, from criticisms of the software to ... privacy objections." I've never been much of a fan of tests and exams generally, nor of proctoring in particular. But it seems to me that if you're going to take an exam, someone is going to watch you, whether in-person or online. Sure, it's intrusive, but the whole process of being tested is intrusive. As for the idea of video surveillance, there's already a lot of that going on, and there's nothing special about exams that would make them the exception.

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The Staff of 2030: The importance of teaching, learning, and leading during a time of change
Barbara Holzapfel, The Economist, Microsoft, 2020/05/05

This article links to a study (33 page PDF), authored by the Economist and sponsored by Microsoft, reports that "survey respondents agree, by wide margins, that the purpose of education must shift to helping students know how to collect, interpret and apply information, rather than just learning it." It also says "A majority (60%) think new teachers will increase the use of technology by 2030." Yet, the study argues, "teachers are not being equipped with the skills and tools they need to deliver a next-generation education agenda—and optimism may be fading on the job." It suggests "training should embody the dynamic learning environments reformers want to see in schools" and supports "meritocratic career progression, better salaries, more effective teacher evaluation and career-long support of the workforce" (I can't guarantee the direct PDF link; I had to go through a spamwall to get to it).

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The Future Is Social and Emotional: Summary for Executives
nference Board of Canada, 2020/05/05

This is a short summary (2 page PDF) of previous work done by the Conference Board in a project with the Future Skills Centre. They are focusing on social and emotional skills (SES) because "employers require new hires who possess not only specialized knowledge and technical skills, but also social and emotional or 'human' skills." I'm all for SES, not because hypothetical future employers might value them, but because SES help people live happier and more fulfilled lives. Anyhow, the detailed report is here (34 page PDF). It defines SES (as "skills like communication, leadership, cultural competence, resiliency, problem-solving, and collaboration"), notes that "most tools and resources for developing SES are designed for K–12 learners," warns that "we risk exacerbating existing inequities among vulnerable groups" by focusing on SES, and argues "it will require rethinking SES training and development in the post-secondary context, including considering it as part of a lifelong learning process."

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