09:12: Panel now beginning: Science research, science journalism, and science policy. Hosted by Bob MacDonald of CBC's Quirks & Quarks. Participants: Penny Park, Science Media Centre; Pallava Bagia, Science; Valera Roman, Clarin.
09:19: Bob MacDonald: I know how hard it is to get journalists out of bed in the morning!
We don't ask for opinions, only for the basic stuff. Sometimes this gets frustrating because I'll have a scientist who's an expert raise a "red flag" about something; then I see how the politicians do not act. Or people who aren't scientists have an agenda and put out info to mislead the public. This is what science journalism is for--to set the record straight. Sometimes we're up against some powerful forces that don't want those messages to get out there.
Movies and sciences--scientists are always "mad", even if they start out good they turn into the bad guys or women; I love how science is misrepresented. Superman--defying the laws of physics, and not just in the superhero way. Lois Lane shouldn't have survived even being caught by Superman; he couldn't have caught her with "arms of steel" without her getting pulped. Nice!
Pallava Bagla, chief correspondent for Science for South Asia; New Delhi TV; author of multiple books.
India has a large population that is illiterate; the way to get the message of science out was through TV and I opted for that.
Report came out--glaciers of Himalayas would melt by 2035. These are 3rd largest accumulation of water in the world. Over 1.5 billion people depend on this water. I realised there was a problem with the reports. A lone journalists against a couple of thousand scientists, not an easy task. Glaciers don't behave the same way in the Himalayas as they do in other parts of the world. Just before the Copenhagen conference we put out a story on TV. I was attacked by several members of the IPCC. How can you take a pot shot at such a learned party.
I didn't attack--I just out a fact out that highlighted your error. Finally they offered their regrets.
A case where the best and the worst of science came together in the space of a few weeks.
Several other stories that went against the tide.
1998 India exploded a nuclear bomb, for the second time. I questioned the size of the bombs, whether they were large or small.
09:30: Times of India: largest English-language paper in the world.
Policy: 80% of research, funding comes from the government. Increased public funding, India has decided that it wants to increase private sector funding for research.
India sent its first probe to the moon. International partners on Indian mission. I broke this story in 1999, for the next 6-8 years I reported on this extensively. In 2009, when the probe dies prematurely, having reported on this some people felt I was as much a part of the space association as any of the scientists. Space and nuclear are two very secretive areas of work and I reported on both of them.
Same moon probe came up with first evidence of water on the moon.
09:36: Valera Roman, Clarin; Vice President of the World Federation of Science Journalism.
Reveals barriers to teaching evolution in Argentina.
Science journalism is a way to learn new things every day; I live in Argentina which is a developing country so we need to improve the situation there. It's a difference with journalists in developing countries because we feel the journalism is a way to change the environment.
While I work for a national paper, after MIT I thought I should work as an activist for science journalism. I started to organise some workshops and meetings to bring together science journalists. We had a big problems because science journalists work for multiple institutions at once (conflict of interest). But this is a norm, we have these "two hats". it's a problem to face.
In Argentina we have a lot of stories to tell about science because the situation has been brewing, so we have more scientists in the country a lot of people who were overseas came back, so we have a new science initiative.
Last week Argentina launched a satellite. We work to reach the general public with scientific evidence. In developing countries most political decisions are taken without considering science. So we're trying to fill this gap. A good example is the tobacco control issue in Argentina, for 30 years the tobacco industry has been lobbying against any regulation.
The industry paid doctors to say that second-hand smoke is not harmful. They paid off journalists and politicians, it was a big problem. But the past 5 years, the media have paid more attention to the scientific evidence for controlling tobacco. This past year--2 weeks ago--there is a new law and the country has become a smoke-free country. So we have to face a lot of problems, but I think science journalists can make a big difference.
09:44: Penny Park, Science Media Centre executive director.
Science Media Centre is a new organisation that's been set up to help journalists cover science.
Our goal is to raise the level of discourse in this country. There are few specialists in reporting science in Canada, but science issues are part of the stories we need to discuss in a democracy. The idea is based on one that started in the UK about 10 years ago, partly in response to the terrible tabloid journalism that had been going on relating to GMOs, for example. An organization that would help journalists get access in a timely way to good, evidence-based, accurate information. That's the sort of thing we do.
Who reads the media? We all use it; policy-makers, legislators, entrepreneurs, scientists, are the audience. Making sure the info they have access to is accurate. We're trying to improve the discussion rather than presenting any one particular point of view. Science needs to be part of the discussion at the table. Policy: science should be "sitting there". Other aspects of policy--economics, values--should be part of the discussion. We need evidence-based research. In Canada we've has some interesting discussions.
E.g. safe injection site in Vancouver; should money be going to this? The science says "yes".
yesterday we had a discussion with a Canadian Stem Cell researcher who was running a clinic at U Michigan, and the state had legislation that didn't allow for that kind of research; so he was part of the move to change the legislation in the state (Proposition 2) and was up against a lobby group that spent 10 million to try to shut down stem cell research in the state.
Climate change, nuclear energy..all these issues we need to be discussing as a society; ensuring that science is part of the discourse; that's what we're trying to do.
09:57: [Great discussion with questions on this panel; science journalism has a special role as science has such an influential role in our society, and many issues are fraught with tension because lobbyists, corporate sectors, scientists and so on, all have an interest in these outcomes, and the outcomes (especially policy on major science-related issues) have an effect on the general public.]
10:22: Keynote: Are you listening? Has the "cross-dressing" of media and academia created better understanding between these worlds, or do they remain two solitudes? by Michelle Stack. Moderated by John Fraser, Massey College. Includes Adam Habib; Cat Warren; Nicole Blanchett; Ann Rauhala; Jerrfrey Dvorkin; Sandy McKean.
10:40: Our understanding of education in contemporary society; universities under pressure to brand themselves in current context. Issues around branding and neoliberalism are important. But we have needed a conference/discussion that goes beyond critique; need to dialogue and work better together (journalists and academics). Public policy debate and policy about what is a good and worthwhile education in a democracy society. Who gets invoked as an expert?
The media has a direct effect on policy making. Of course! Policy making is mediated. The public come to know about policies through media. So how do journalists decide what is a good education story?
Are academics and journalists two solitudes? There are impediments to this relationship, they are central to which voices policy makers hear and listen to.
The door's left wide open for policy makers to provide "false choices".
10:45: Issue of impediments to engaging the public: decline in newspaper audiences and large cuts to budgets; journalists have less time for fact checking and investigative reporting. Journalists experience the pressures of intensification of work conditions just as academics do.
Journalists and academics often reinforce each other in circulating discourses about education. E.g. rankings: circle of mutually-reinforcing reiteration? Journalists use rankings to talk about the "best universities".
Journalists as watchdogs? What about the lapdog? Friendly, small, obedient to government and business, who provide regular "meals" (information, issues to write about). Academics--the ivory tower--a symbol of virginal purity. This metaphor is used to show the academy's "distance and disdain from "reality". But these metaphors don't reflect the complexity of academics and journalists.
Sometimes journalism can be stronger than academic research. E.g. immunisation debate over vaccines and autism: the Lancet published this piece, which gave the author/researcher a "launching pad of credibility". A reported did journalistic research to uncover shabby academic research.
Cross dressers? Noam Chomsky: got involved in politics in the 1960s; he wanted to critique the academy and had to engages with the public in order to get this message across. He used his research to create opportunities for understanding. Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed. Did investigative research on low-income workers in the U.S. She realised that PhDs were not immune from sexism; she quit her job and became a full-time journalist. Both these people are public intellectuals. Ehrenreich became a journalist, Chomsky because a media figure. They both found ways to transcend the definition of their fields.
10:58: Perhaps we're asking the wrong question when we ask "is this work academic or journalism?" What are the methods, the beliefs about responsibility and the public that underpin this work?
Solitudes and configurations of power: Is that person a "real" researcher or a "real" journalist? E.g. the Daily Show--provides more news than anything on FOX or CNN.
Debates/relationships are different in different places (e.g. different countries).
Different models of academic public engagement. But a new model means nothing if issues of inequity are not highlighted and challenged.
Structural biases in both professions: most had not considered why most experts are white and male. Academics in the Global North: making careers talking about their research on globalisation, whilst excluding those most affected by globalisation.
Knowledge dissemination: WHO is invoked as an expert, who is the beneficiary of expertise? Certain groups are more quoted in mainstream media than others. I.e. white men. In media women's foundation: women 1/3 of full-time journalism workforce in one survey of 500+ companies. Studies point to power configurations that invoke some as experts, others as beneficiaries.
Internal power configurations of respective fields (e.g. political economic issues). Journalists and academics: what are the implications of these systemic issues for the quality of public debates? We need to have serious conversations about who has access to the mechanics of power within and across these two fields.
Disciplinary/professional "solitudes": re-frame the question in terms of what are the ethos that frame journalistic and academic knowledge about education? To expand conversations about public education, we need more comparative research, and more conversations like the ones facilitated by this conference.
Graham Hingangaroa Smith: Encouraging public rather than privatised academics.
Work going on in New Zealand :-) More examples: University of Venus; Informed Opinions (works with female academics to get them to engage with media).
Educational activism is important: but activism without attention to media is not sufficient. Academics must become media literate. Solitude can be a lonely place though it can also be an important space. But eventually we have to come out of these "solitudes" and engage in new ways, especially as a means of informing a democratic/pluralistic society. It's imperative that we consider the engagement of media & academia as vital networks for invigoration of public spaces, and development of research/information literacy of the public.
3:12PM: Panel on "The research arms war and the battle for researchers". Includes Wisdom Tettey, Noreen Golfman, and Philip Altbach. Moderated by Glen Jones of OISE.
Wisdom Tettey: the African context and African researchers in the global research architecture.
Significant competition globally for research and researchers; reputation, researcher support; excellence begets further research and support. Situation yourself as attractive partner for research collaborations; ranking (implications).
Global architecture: everyone wants the "best minds" no matter where they're located. Implications for academics around the world who want to be part of this network but aren't being provided the resources for this.
Institutions in the North are trying to attract academics from around the world.
How that struggle to attract people will affect research relevance.
EU has a "blue card" system to attract researchers, for example.
GDP in African countries lags behind the rest of the world [so there are fewer resources for research]. No granting councils in many of these African countries.
Implications for publishing capacity of the institutions. How do they find the resources and the outlet.
Reality of "knowledge architecture". Recognition that's given to knowledge networks around the world tends to marginalise certain kinds of researchers.
Implication beyond individuals is that institutions are mimicking what the "leading" institutions are doing; implications for diversity of research.
Who defines the research agenda and how that shapes the location of African research.
How uncritical institutions are when engaging in these partnerships-?
Will engagement open up doors to the global stage?
3:20PM: Recruitment drives going on as institutions engage in what's euphemistically called "internationalisation"--commodification of knowledge.
Media; tendency to focus on African primary and secondary education.
Universities, what goes on it often disconnected from the public in general.
Institutional support for engagement? Many universities have public engagement but they haven't made significant efforts to open up spaces for engagement.
Philip Altbach: Global knowledge economy does affect the way knowledge moves around. "true academic revolution" propelled by two main things.
Massification: dramatic increase in enrolments. Move to "universal access".
In many countries, this has led to a differentiated and increasingly segmented system of HE. What that means for this topic is that we're talking about a tiny top of this huge massified system. No global arms race for community college teachers. Only for the people at the topic of the system. Active researchers.
[Note: this is the interesting conflict between "meritocracy" and "democracy".]
Decline in the quality of the higher education systems around the world; though in Canada it seems that the overall quality has been "protected".
Top universities may be less great than systems where there is a more formal tiered system (like in California). [Note: not sure if California is really the best example for us to look at right now...the whole system is practically falling apart right now.]
Beginnings of global language and scholarship, i.e. English; it's the Latin of the 21st Century. English isn't the medium of instruction globally.
The peripheries are "bleeding" to the centres that's a characteristic of the academic "arms races". The academic world is also becoming more "multi-polar"; different parts of the world are now building research centres and infrastructure (e.g. China).
3:38: South Africa is "bleeding" to the US and Canada, but it's stealing from its neighbours; South African scholars, mainly (but not all) white, are going to the U.S.; Saudi Arabia is hiring from other Arab countries, e.g. Egypt and Syria. And the Americans steal from everybody. The U.S. pays the best salaries still [question: is that overall, or just for tenure-track faculty?].
Unequal, centre-periphery, but highly mobile work context/dynamic.
[3:42: Canada Excellence Research Chairs issue comes up in a question. No, there were no women candidates; and all CERC hires were international. This is a program that highlights the equity issues involved in these high-stakes competitions.]
4:30PM: I'm late for this panel after walking back down from the Munk Centre, but happy I didn't miss all of it. Panel: "Muted Voices and Higher Education Media Coverage". Shari Graydon, John Miller and Vinita Srivastava, moderated by Minelle Mahtani.
4:48PM: Globe & Mail [I don't have this speaker's name--she wasn't on the program]: Huge role for communications departments at universities. [Note: I take it this means public relations comms rather than Communication Studies ;-)]
The media tend to pick the same person again and again due to time constraints and so on. But there are ways of building up these relationships without being "sought out". Academic blogs can be one way of doing this; creating contacts with trusted individual reporters/journalists. Men may be more comfortable being self-promotional. Downside: time consuming and journalists may want a reductionist or simplistic version of research points. Even emailing the paper to find out what happened to your op ed can be a good idea.
Leaders impact who gets air time, who has access to influencers. Not caught up with demographic shift; nonwhites are completely under-represented in the media AND in universities and colleges. 70% of leaders in GTA in business, nonprofits, media, education, and so on, are non-white. Companies that track and count diversity actually get better results; a lot of subconscious bias can be overcome in this way; diversity doesn't "just happen" on its own. The media, something like 4% of leaders are from diverse backgrounds; and these are the people shaping public attitudes, no surprise that there's not very good representation in the op-ed section.
4:50PM: Vinita Srivastava on using social media.
Importance of media representation: mainstream media has historically marginalised racialised groups. Media sparks public dialogue.
How social media might make space and influence the dialogue: The public prefer the "authentic voice" over expert opinion/coverage (?).
Is bypassing the media a good thing? You need to get your voice into mainstream media, but this relates to building social capital (first).
One in ten African Americans using Twitter every day, far higher than whites and Latino/a users. [How do we interpret that data? What does it "mean"?]
Many people/groups have been "left out", are social media helping people to feel "empowered"?
Benefits of using social media: access to a community of scholars who aren't necessarily around you (geographically/physically). Less isolation; direct communication with students; changes to self-perception/ego.
5:27PM: Last panel for me today: Should universities and colleges, drawing on the experience of academia in science, politics, economic development, arts and culture, and community affairs, bypass the mainstream media?
Includes: Moderater Paul Fain, plus Wilf Dinnick of Open File, Jenny Leonard of Futurity, Andrew Jaspin of The Conversation, Hanson Hosein of University of Washington.
Jenny Leonard, Futurity publication--launched in 2009. Promotes research.
The kind of stories that can engage the imagination.
Andrew Jaspin: We're just 10 weeks old. Similar to Futurity except that we focus on analysis, commentary and news, and issues such as academic freedom. E.g. death threats to climate scientists in Australia (recent issue covered). Major series on debunking the climat change denials, actually using peer review on the climate denials.
We also engage in real time; a team of 14 editors engaging with the news cycle; all writers are academics, and there are 1,000 of them; a larger virtual newsroom than any mainstream media in Australia.
Mainstream media are bypassing themselves; they've had "bypass operations", they are their own worst enemies. E.g. the Globe and Mail five years ago was a much larger and very different paper.
Offer an alternative service that is based on reliable and trustworthy content.
We were able to produce much more quickly a very deep analysis of Osama Bin Laden's death/assassination.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
"Live" Blog from Worldviews Conference 2011: Day 1
9:02: After some struggles with wireless issues, we're finally online and I can start making comments about the talks :-) We've seen an introduction to the conference, and another welcome from the editor of Inside Higher Ed.
9:05: Dr. Glen Jones from OISE: We're trying to understand "truth", that's a commonality between higher education and media. But there are differences of scope and scale, academic focus is usually much more narrow than what journalists can report. The timelines are very different as well; in the academic world, time moves much more slowly than in journalism.
09:08: Dr. Glen Jones: Two communities (universities/academic and media/journalists) don't necessarily interact; they have a lot to learn from each other. Faculty need to learn more about how the media works. Media may need to understand more about the complexities of the academic world. Through critical analysis we need to understand more about ourselves (academics, the university). The greatest potential lies in finding new ways to build these relationships, to allow these communities to work better together. The goal is create an informed society and we all play a role in that.
09:18: UNESCO representative Stella Hughes introduces the first session. Why would anyone trust the media? :-)
Academics can't "trust" the media to tell the "whole truth" because that isn't their job. They're not there to be exhaustive; and there could be a disconnect here in terms of understanding. So trusting the media to "do their job" doesn't necessarily mean trusting them to tell the "whole truth".
09:30: John Burness of Duke University: Who covers university issues? Often, this coverage is in the financial section of the paper, not in a section dedicated to education. He thinks the areas where changes have occurred have been within universities & colleges as organisational structures and how they manage themselves.
Stella Hughes: Is institutional change something that isn't yet "grasped" by the media? Is this because there's an ambiguity within higher education about its roles and responsibilities? Mass higher education--almost a contradiction in terms. Is this not seen as an issue for the media, i.e. the transformation of the whole sector?
Tony Burman of Al Jazeera: Higher education's not a monolith, it's not one single institution. There's a "dumbing down" that happens in the coverage.
09:35: Stella Hughes: Media seem to engage in cherry picking of the better stories or the "hottest" stories. They tend to home in on anxieties. Will I get a job? Is it worth doing a degree? And so on. Aren't we losing something by always homing in on those issues and failing to look at what we want, as societies, from the higher education system. Discussion should be more similar to how we talk about the health system and even the school system.
My note: as a formerly elite for of education, postsecondary ed doesn't have that long-term discussion/discourse going where there is a public debate about what would be "good for everyone".
Tony Burman: There's a variety of coverage; it's not all the same.
Hughes: To what extent could the authority of universities, their expertise, be a stumbling block to actually analysing the problems with the system? Are people reluctant to look at the "fundamental challenge" of mass higher education?
09:40: John Burness: Mentions a key point, which is that the responsibility for failing public schools is also being somewhat uploaded to colleges and universities which are expected to fill a skills deficit. We can't even "fix" our own problems, how can we fix these issues as well?
09:45: Hughes: Positioning of higher education in the "knowledge revolution"--shouldn't we be in the best position in this debate? Yet some of the most vital parts of this revolution are think-tanks, silicon valley, other places "outside" universities. "Think tanks are the bridge between knowledge and power." So isn't it important for higher education to claim some ownership of that?
Burness: Higher education needs to create knowledge and disseminate it, which is what it does best. Different issue with think tanks: they are tied to the political process. Their job is less to provide objective info, more to reinforce views from one side or another.
Burman: In Washington [DC] the explosion of news channels shows that more academics are on TV, there's more visibility than ever before.
My note: expertise is very regulated though (i.e. how experts from academe are "chosen"); it's also gendered (more men than women). The people chosen as "experts" even from academic professions are often the same people over and over, and not always commentating on their actual areas of expertise.
09:56: Stella Hughes to Tony Burman: Can you tell the difference when you're interviewing an academic if they've had proper media training?
Tony Burman: Depends where you are. In Canada, the US, Europe, that would be the case. With Al Jazeera we bring in so many academics from so many different backgrounds that there isn't really a combative relationship; we're as interested as they are to make their point clearly, to get through to the audience.
10:05: Great question/comment session. Are universities really doing enough to "defend" themselves from attacks that come from think tanks, from critics through the media, and so on? Why do they move slowly to respond? There is a constant barrage of criticism in the media, much of it not based on any thorough understanding of how universities actually work.
10:20: New session beginning. Time for Keynote talk #1 with Adam Habib, University of Johannesburg, moderated by Karen MacGregor of University World News.
Habib: Scale of meaning in important--when someone says there's a crisis in higher education in the U.S., "part of me says "you don't know what that means.""
When you think about "crises", they mean fundamentally different things in different parts of the world. We need to pay attention to these differences.
The relationship between the university and the media is one that hasn't been sufficiently explored. One reason this needs to happen is for inclusive development: that speaks to the interests of everyone in society. Not just a technocratic and policy process, but a political process about accountability.
For that to happen, the higher education sector and the media must play the roles they need to play; these create political conditions for a robust public discourse about these issues.
10:31: Summarising the role and social function of both the university and the media.
Universities: Role is to provide high level graduates for the economy; to provide a critical citizenry for society; to provide cutting edge research; to enable and enrich the public discourse; to produce the social values of the society and its dominant values in particular; and to harbour intellectual dissidents who ask "hard questions of society".
Role of the media is to keep people informed; to provide voice for citizen & society stakeholders; enhancing accountability of political system; to reflect the voice of corporate and other dominant elites; to expose corruption and the violation of ethics; to enrich the political and policy discourse in society.
Suggests that they should be natural allies and partners even if this partnership will at times be strained.
10:41: Relationship takes between universities and media takes 4 distinct forms:
1. Universities are the subject of reporting and investigation; sometimes this isn't understood/appreciated by those in universities; but universities in particular represent a huge investment of public resources and this is partly where that interest comes from. This is entirely legitimate considering the role of the media in ensuring accountability. The problem is how they think the question through: they approach it with the mentality of an accountant, rather than the substantive, reflective sense.
2. The media is a service provider through which universities enhance academic teaching and research profile particularly through branding and marketing. Many people see marketing as part of corporatisation dynamic. But universities can benefit enormously from appropriate branding and marketing.
3. Universities and media can be partners to enrich the public discourse. Partnering with sections of the media as has happened, successfully, in South Africa. Political accountability and inclusive development.
4. The media acts as an agent of advocacy on behalf of the university. Including sources like Chronicale, Inside Higher Ed, Times Higher Ed, and so on. They report but also advocate on behalf of the sector. The choice of articles often highlights the best aspects of the sector, legitimating the sector.
But when major, politically charged problems have arisen in the universities, both now and in the past, are the university-aligned media recognising this and bringing attention to it? For example, structural adjustment programs in African countries.
10:57: Habib describes transnational issues for universities and media:
--Responsiveness of research questions in the academy to the specific concerns of the developing world. E.g. renewable energy and climate change. Much of the debate in the global academy is focussed on bio-fuels, solar panels, etc.; but how feasible are these kinds of solutions on the African continent? 80% of people there don't have access to energy at all; both cost and energy access need to be considered.
--How legitimate are traditional indicators of university productivity, and rankings? These things must be questions; blind peer review, for example, is not easily achieved in small academic communities. Citations are often talked about, but they're largely influenced by the size of national academies. What is the impact of the spread of international university rankings? Is the media sufficiently aware of how these rankings can subvert national development goals? Rankings can force universities to behave in unhelpful ways.
--Academic book production is declining in many parts of the developing world; this is a product of the measures of academic productivity, which favour journals. A research unit is defined as a journal article, not a monographs; they can get more "research units" credited to them in this way.
--Nature of the global inequality of universities. Good academics in South Africa, for example, want to be published in influential places. But are their issues prioritised? Most of the time, no.
--Annual cost of academic and research journals has been increasing rapidly, seriously compromising the academic project in less developed parts of the world. This is becoming a truly difficult burden for smaller or less well financed institutions. This is no longer just an issue for the developing world, but one that is affecting universities in Europe and the United States (for example). How legitimate is it for academic journals to be housed under and academic banner? Should these not be organised towards public service ends?
1:38PM: Back to live-blogging after a lunch break!
Bill Ayers: Responsibility of intellectuals and academics entering the public sphere.
"Something of a Stunt Intellectual"...the intellectual that other intellectuals call when they want to jump off a bridge"
Pay attention, be astonished, and then say something about it. God advice for living a moral life, for being a citizen. We are not simply academics. We don't take off our citizenship when we enter the academy. We all have this responsibility, to see everything in its complexity, to be astonished; the joy of living; then to say something about it, to comment on it.
--What are we not seeing today? What are we not opening our eyes to today? As with slavery in the past.
If you take that rhythm, opening your eyes, that's not something you can do "once" a lifetime or once a week, it's an infinite dynamic ongoing world, opening your eyes is something that you must do again and again and again." We're horrified and delighted and we speak up.
We have to doubt that wheat we've seen is all there is to see, that what we've said is all there is to say. There's always something new, new insights, new perspectives. f we avoid the last step then we slip easily into dogma.
1:41PM: Bill Ayers: Nothing precious or special about academics speaking in the public sphere; we shouldn't remove ourselves from what's happening.
Academic freedom is an instance of free speech; a particular place of free speech, a kind of free speech. We should defend on the basis of universality of free speech, not specialness of free speech (in the university; in society).
Cold wind blowing through the academy: it silences academics but it also silences everyone else. When academics are attacked publicly, what does that mean to everyday people, to teachers, when even a powerful celebrity intellectual can be brought down? We need to defend academic freedom because it's a part of general freedom of speech.
We don't need freedom of speech to repeat established and accepted ideas. We need it to question those ideas. The ways in which common sense comes to normalise insane ideas. Academics have a special responsibility to push back against that.
1:46PM: A general problem: the shrinking of the public square, something that should concern everybody. It gets shrunk because we take an anemic view of what democracy is or could be. This kills the spirit of democracy, a spirit of dialogue and mutual respect, rests on a precious and fragile ideal: the incalculable value of every human being
We have to push the notion that democracy requires dialogue. The fullest development of all of us is the condition for the fullest development of each of us.
Democracy by its nature is dialogical and dialectical. Whatever new consensus we arrive at, we have to re-examine, re-look. It's never finished: it's a project always in the making. It requires an alter, attentive citizenry. It requires the arts.
Education should be a place where we imagine the "alternatives". The arts show us world world in another way. This opens the space for real democratic thinking.
The way we're living is not adequate. We are more, that definition doesn't limit us, we could be more.
Our job as intellectuals is to always make things more complicated. Teaching the taboo: teaching what we don't know. Teaching how to ask the questions that need to be asked. it's always the next question that's interesting.
1:52PM: Art is what urges voyages: if you think about education broadly, including the media and advertising and public debate/discussion, education does not require obedience and conformity; the excising of the arts from the curriculum is always a big message to everybody else. It's a public pedagogy.
Guilt by association is the real danger. If anyone (dissident) shared a church, a neighbourhood, with Obama, he would be tainted by association: but this should be a virtue, not a sin; to leave the path and spend time around diverse groups. When strange and weird and wild winds can blow, that's when we stand the best chance of living in a real democracy that has real substance.
2:14PM: Social Media on Campus keynote talk.
Alfred Hermida (moderator): Social media is an elusive term--it's hard to explain to someone who doesn't know what it is.
Characterised by collaboration. Can disrupt hierarchical systems. As educators we're figuring out, how do we navigate these media?
Social media are about networked, asynchronous, distributed dynamics. Participation, collaboration, sharing, fluidity.
Sydneyeve Matrix (speaker): social web: commerce, culture, information...digital proclivities; web first.
Teaching the connected cohort: everyone has a camera, everyone has a phone...technologies that work as social cohesion.
Building a shared economy
Facebook generation: parents, teachers;
bringing expectations that are "super-disruptive". Personalise the experience of the campus, personalise their experiences of the campus, of courses, of course content.
Infovores...consuming and creating digital media.
Real time information must be "super-fresh". Sometimes instant isn't even fast enough. Students will crowdsource every single lesson. News-sharing.
tech-forward initiatives; strongly appeal to "Generation Y". We know we can get buy in from this; students will also do better this way.
Plugged-in courses, plugged-in campus; these drive student engagement.
2:29PM: Leading to "better outcomes" by using technology.
Teaching in the age of Wikipedia and Google. Students push back every time they need to "memorise" something. Do we NEED multiple choice exams? When we have Wikipedia? Those are conversations we aren't really having in mainstream news.
Personal learning environments, on campus, and reportage; we have a tech skills gap. In terms of faculty administrators, staff, C-suite, and so on; and students have expectations, and some profs are already trying to make change and having a hard time.
Reverse techno-mentoring? A fix for these problems. Grabbing someone young and getting them to show you what they do with technology.
What are we doing on campus already? Social media on campus is about Q&A right now. How do I get in, where do I get my meal card, etc.
2:39PM:
"Like a Little" --"flirting" on campus. (Example of how students adopt technology)
Privilege intergenerational relationships; helps us to keep up.
Launching a web site for a class and socialising it. Page must change every hour; social recognition is the currency of the web, and they can get it when their content is being splashed across the class page/feed.
Need to teach where the students already are; e.g. teaching on Facebook.
--Teaching on niche social networks like Ning. Niche sites are gated communities, so what's different about twaching on Facebook and teaching somewhere like Ning?
--Wordpress: open-source teaching, student blogging, and so on. You get a lot of traffic on a blog/website when you do this.
--Social publishing: microcontent "purpose-built for sharing".
High proportion of students have smart phones.
We need to be smart phone ready. If this isn't a priority for you and your content but this is your demographic, you should be thinking about it.
iTunes U: do students like to listen to lectures? Definitely. Lots of demand for Podcasts and videos.
"Comfort of ambient connectivity". "Digital pain": what happens when students don't get their WiFi, their plugs for electronic devices, and so on. How do we manage this?
--Get text and email (SMS) reminders before assignments are due? Only 8% of students opted into this. Students didn't want their private/personal phones; they didn't want to hear from the prof through SMS.
--Backchannel: Twitter is [apparently] already "old school".
2:44PM: "Just in time learning"?--"I'm not going to worry about that exam in December.
[My note: why on earth would we want to encourage this kind of learning habit?]
QR codes: students want to scan things. [What about students who don't have a Blackberry? Or who can't afford a SmartPhone?]
Students want to "add value" to the community, add value to the course web site. Integrate mainstream media into the classroom as well as social media.
Losing control: what happens when students "over-share"? Example of the girl who posted a racist video. Any example of unfortunate Twitter or Facebook status updates.
4:31PM: Panel on "What do new media offer that mainstream media don't?"
Wilf Dinnick, Open File: readers have the oportunity to suggest stories which we then follow up with professional reporters; stories that readers suggest are almost always more popular in terms of readership (metrics). In academe you have a huge potential to source information that you may not have known was "out there".
Set out to engage the public differently than the way the mainstream media do. Huge potential to tap into an audience or group that has expertise.
Vinita Srivastava, Ryerson: Level of coverage, e.g. post-9/11, is not critical or informative enough.
Social media and bloggers can't necessarily "lead" a news cycle; we still need resources in the mainstream media, and with media consolidation fewer and fewer investigative reporters are employed and available to provide in-depth reporting.
There's a "gap" in mainstream media, a "disappointment"; some of that is being filled by the way users employ social media.
"Going viral": otherwise obscure issues can become very, very public through dissemination, such as the student who was tasered on campus; YouTube videos circulated and made the mainstream media.
4:42PM: Daniel deVise, Washington Post: Su Meck, story of the woman who re-made her life after she lost her memory; it was on the front page of the Post yet it circulated far more through "new media" channels, and many people didn't even know that it has been a Washington Post story. "Vast army" of people who are reiterating, restating all over the place; people "take the stuff that we write and replicate it", which is great because it's dissemination. The Post is just one piece of "thing huge thing", the newspaper is now like "one massive op-ed page". Many many more people are "out there" writing their opinion of things; great writers, brilliant people, wonderful content. We've tried to match new media, through blogs and Twitter. This also brings content to the paper that wouldn't ordinarily be there. Finite number of news producers, large number of circulators and commentators.
4:49PM: Mary Churchill, University of Venus: New media as a game-changer for Gen-X women in higher education. Blog was started over a year ago. Started on WordPress blog with just 8 authors. Reading things online and reporting and commenting. 4 months into the project, Inside Higher Ed offered a spot on their site. 90,000 viewers from a couple of hundred (!). Twitter was one way through which this happened. Found new readers and also new writers, also international not only in the United States and Canada. Presence on Facebook, page now has 800+ "likes". Facebook gives very good demographic shots; shows the readers tend to reflect the topic of the blog. Another development: relationship with Guardian.co.uk; over 250 comments on "Women and leadership in Higher Ed". [My note: see my post called "Leading the Pack"]. This led to further blog posts by UVenus writers.
Shared tactics; new knowledge; community building; etc. With new readers come new writers.
New media provides a new playing field; subjectivity; insider knowledge; build community; solve problems.
5:16PM: Next panel time--> Alfred Hermida, JAmes Compton, Patric Lane, Mary Churchill. Social Media from the university and College Perspective: What are the Implications?
Mary Churchill: University of Venus--GenX women in higher ed--tired of being silenced; junior faculty were told that they were like children.
The most compelling piece in social media was having a story to tell.
Making sure that writers were in different countries, where they had different audiences; this helped to bring in new writers. Huge diversity of authors and issues.
5:30PM: James Compton, U Western Ontario [President of Faculty Association]: Collective bargaining. Faculty Association web site; creation of Facebook Page (launched about 2 weeks before strike deadline). Op-ed piece in student newspaper "I [heart] librarians"; worked very well on web site & elsewhere. Lots of people within the librarian community across Canada joined this page. With faculty it was a different scenario, Facebook site didn't do anything helpful. Difference in cohorts; librarians all know each other, a small community; they come together to support each other. The faculty didn't have the same existing real-world social network to tap into.
5:42PM: Patric Lane: Health & Science editor at UNC Chapel Hill. Former journalist--bringing the "Voice of the Devil's Advocate". :-)
Many people are still not very familiar with social media.
Positive benefits of social media [Mark Twain quote]? "[Social media] is fatal to prejudice, bigotry..." Like travel.
"Digital Natives"? [Note: he seems to be using this term uncritically; and I know many of us would disagree with this!]
Continuing the metaphor of travel...help people navigate. Build a social media presence/s; you need to help people find the channels that will prove useful to them. Practical tools: at UNC, a social media directory helps people to find what they need.
"Speak the language clearly": To reach an audience, don't use jargon.
Other destinations: How to draw in social media "travellers"?
Required skills and experience: to make a case for proper use of social media...extreme cat-herding; built-in institutional and social GOS; Devil's advocate; ability to boil watched pots.
5:51PM: Alfred Hermida on social media--representing ourselves in a specific way; blurring the professional and personal. How does our social media "personality" show as a representation of self to peers, students, etc.
Conversations: all archived, searchable, retrievable.
Sharing: at the heart of social media; being social implies some kind of exchange. Social media as the "gift economy". Extends the "reach" of your academic research. But there's more to this than just promotion. Who are your contacts in the network? Groups have different interests; share links to jobs, because students might be looking. Colleagues might be interested in research you come across.
Relationships: How we connect and extend ourselves to different people. Nature of connections determines the "what" and the "how" of social interaction.
What is your network expecting from you?
All factors come together as part of our reputation on social media. How do we rate our social media reputation? In some ways it's all about peer evaluation. How do we assign value to what we do on social media and how we do it? How does this relate to other professional activity?
9:05: Dr. Glen Jones from OISE: We're trying to understand "truth", that's a commonality between higher education and media. But there are differences of scope and scale, academic focus is usually much more narrow than what journalists can report. The timelines are very different as well; in the academic world, time moves much more slowly than in journalism.
09:08: Dr. Glen Jones: Two communities (universities/academic and media/journalists) don't necessarily interact; they have a lot to learn from each other. Faculty need to learn more about how the media works. Media may need to understand more about the complexities of the academic world. Through critical analysis we need to understand more about ourselves (academics, the university). The greatest potential lies in finding new ways to build these relationships, to allow these communities to work better together. The goal is create an informed society and we all play a role in that.
09:18: UNESCO representative Stella Hughes introduces the first session. Why would anyone trust the media? :-)
Academics can't "trust" the media to tell the "whole truth" because that isn't their job. They're not there to be exhaustive; and there could be a disconnect here in terms of understanding. So trusting the media to "do their job" doesn't necessarily mean trusting them to tell the "whole truth".
09:30: John Burness of Duke University: Who covers university issues? Often, this coverage is in the financial section of the paper, not in a section dedicated to education. He thinks the areas where changes have occurred have been within universities & colleges as organisational structures and how they manage themselves.
Stella Hughes: Is institutional change something that isn't yet "grasped" by the media? Is this because there's an ambiguity within higher education about its roles and responsibilities? Mass higher education--almost a contradiction in terms. Is this not seen as an issue for the media, i.e. the transformation of the whole sector?
Tony Burman of Al Jazeera: Higher education's not a monolith, it's not one single institution. There's a "dumbing down" that happens in the coverage.
09:35: Stella Hughes: Media seem to engage in cherry picking of the better stories or the "hottest" stories. They tend to home in on anxieties. Will I get a job? Is it worth doing a degree? And so on. Aren't we losing something by always homing in on those issues and failing to look at what we want, as societies, from the higher education system. Discussion should be more similar to how we talk about the health system and even the school system.
My note: as a formerly elite for of education, postsecondary ed doesn't have that long-term discussion/discourse going where there is a public debate about what would be "good for everyone".
Tony Burman: There's a variety of coverage; it's not all the same.
Hughes: To what extent could the authority of universities, their expertise, be a stumbling block to actually analysing the problems with the system? Are people reluctant to look at the "fundamental challenge" of mass higher education?
09:40: John Burness: Mentions a key point, which is that the responsibility for failing public schools is also being somewhat uploaded to colleges and universities which are expected to fill a skills deficit. We can't even "fix" our own problems, how can we fix these issues as well?
09:45: Hughes: Positioning of higher education in the "knowledge revolution"--shouldn't we be in the best position in this debate? Yet some of the most vital parts of this revolution are think-tanks, silicon valley, other places "outside" universities. "Think tanks are the bridge between knowledge and power." So isn't it important for higher education to claim some ownership of that?
Burness: Higher education needs to create knowledge and disseminate it, which is what it does best. Different issue with think tanks: they are tied to the political process. Their job is less to provide objective info, more to reinforce views from one side or another.
Burman: In Washington [DC] the explosion of news channels shows that more academics are on TV, there's more visibility than ever before.
My note: expertise is very regulated though (i.e. how experts from academe are "chosen"); it's also gendered (more men than women). The people chosen as "experts" even from academic professions are often the same people over and over, and not always commentating on their actual areas of expertise.
09:56: Stella Hughes to Tony Burman: Can you tell the difference when you're interviewing an academic if they've had proper media training?
Tony Burman: Depends where you are. In Canada, the US, Europe, that would be the case. With Al Jazeera we bring in so many academics from so many different backgrounds that there isn't really a combative relationship; we're as interested as they are to make their point clearly, to get through to the audience.
10:05: Great question/comment session. Are universities really doing enough to "defend" themselves from attacks that come from think tanks, from critics through the media, and so on? Why do they move slowly to respond? There is a constant barrage of criticism in the media, much of it not based on any thorough understanding of how universities actually work.
10:20: New session beginning. Time for Keynote talk #1 with Adam Habib, University of Johannesburg, moderated by Karen MacGregor of University World News.
Habib: Scale of meaning in important--when someone says there's a crisis in higher education in the U.S., "part of me says "you don't know what that means.""
When you think about "crises", they mean fundamentally different things in different parts of the world. We need to pay attention to these differences.
The relationship between the university and the media is one that hasn't been sufficiently explored. One reason this needs to happen is for inclusive development: that speaks to the interests of everyone in society. Not just a technocratic and policy process, but a political process about accountability.
For that to happen, the higher education sector and the media must play the roles they need to play; these create political conditions for a robust public discourse about these issues.
10:31: Summarising the role and social function of both the university and the media.
Universities: Role is to provide high level graduates for the economy; to provide a critical citizenry for society; to provide cutting edge research; to enable and enrich the public discourse; to produce the social values of the society and its dominant values in particular; and to harbour intellectual dissidents who ask "hard questions of society".
Role of the media is to keep people informed; to provide voice for citizen & society stakeholders; enhancing accountability of political system; to reflect the voice of corporate and other dominant elites; to expose corruption and the violation of ethics; to enrich the political and policy discourse in society.
Suggests that they should be natural allies and partners even if this partnership will at times be strained.
10:41: Relationship takes between universities and media takes 4 distinct forms:
1. Universities are the subject of reporting and investigation; sometimes this isn't understood/appreciated by those in universities; but universities in particular represent a huge investment of public resources and this is partly where that interest comes from. This is entirely legitimate considering the role of the media in ensuring accountability. The problem is how they think the question through: they approach it with the mentality of an accountant, rather than the substantive, reflective sense.
2. The media is a service provider through which universities enhance academic teaching and research profile particularly through branding and marketing. Many people see marketing as part of corporatisation dynamic. But universities can benefit enormously from appropriate branding and marketing.
3. Universities and media can be partners to enrich the public discourse. Partnering with sections of the media as has happened, successfully, in South Africa. Political accountability and inclusive development.
4. The media acts as an agent of advocacy on behalf of the university. Including sources like Chronicale, Inside Higher Ed, Times Higher Ed, and so on. They report but also advocate on behalf of the sector. The choice of articles often highlights the best aspects of the sector, legitimating the sector.
But when major, politically charged problems have arisen in the universities, both now and in the past, are the university-aligned media recognising this and bringing attention to it? For example, structural adjustment programs in African countries.
10:57: Habib describes transnational issues for universities and media:
--Responsiveness of research questions in the academy to the specific concerns of the developing world. E.g. renewable energy and climate change. Much of the debate in the global academy is focussed on bio-fuels, solar panels, etc.; but how feasible are these kinds of solutions on the African continent? 80% of people there don't have access to energy at all; both cost and energy access need to be considered.
--How legitimate are traditional indicators of university productivity, and rankings? These things must be questions; blind peer review, for example, is not easily achieved in small academic communities. Citations are often talked about, but they're largely influenced by the size of national academies. What is the impact of the spread of international university rankings? Is the media sufficiently aware of how these rankings can subvert national development goals? Rankings can force universities to behave in unhelpful ways.
--Academic book production is declining in many parts of the developing world; this is a product of the measures of academic productivity, which favour journals. A research unit is defined as a journal article, not a monographs; they can get more "research units" credited to them in this way.
--Nature of the global inequality of universities. Good academics in South Africa, for example, want to be published in influential places. But are their issues prioritised? Most of the time, no.
--Annual cost of academic and research journals has been increasing rapidly, seriously compromising the academic project in less developed parts of the world. This is becoming a truly difficult burden for smaller or less well financed institutions. This is no longer just an issue for the developing world, but one that is affecting universities in Europe and the United States (for example). How legitimate is it for academic journals to be housed under and academic banner? Should these not be organised towards public service ends?
1:38PM: Back to live-blogging after a lunch break!
Bill Ayers: Responsibility of intellectuals and academics entering the public sphere.
"Something of a Stunt Intellectual"...the intellectual that other intellectuals call when they want to jump off a bridge"
Pay attention, be astonished, and then say something about it. God advice for living a moral life, for being a citizen. We are not simply academics. We don't take off our citizenship when we enter the academy. We all have this responsibility, to see everything in its complexity, to be astonished; the joy of living; then to say something about it, to comment on it.
--What are we not seeing today? What are we not opening our eyes to today? As with slavery in the past.
If you take that rhythm, opening your eyes, that's not something you can do "once" a lifetime or once a week, it's an infinite dynamic ongoing world, opening your eyes is something that you must do again and again and again." We're horrified and delighted and we speak up.
We have to doubt that wheat we've seen is all there is to see, that what we've said is all there is to say. There's always something new, new insights, new perspectives. f we avoid the last step then we slip easily into dogma.
1:41PM: Bill Ayers: Nothing precious or special about academics speaking in the public sphere; we shouldn't remove ourselves from what's happening.
Academic freedom is an instance of free speech; a particular place of free speech, a kind of free speech. We should defend on the basis of universality of free speech, not specialness of free speech (in the university; in society).
Cold wind blowing through the academy: it silences academics but it also silences everyone else. When academics are attacked publicly, what does that mean to everyday people, to teachers, when even a powerful celebrity intellectual can be brought down? We need to defend academic freedom because it's a part of general freedom of speech.
We don't need freedom of speech to repeat established and accepted ideas. We need it to question those ideas. The ways in which common sense comes to normalise insane ideas. Academics have a special responsibility to push back against that.
1:46PM: A general problem: the shrinking of the public square, something that should concern everybody. It gets shrunk because we take an anemic view of what democracy is or could be. This kills the spirit of democracy, a spirit of dialogue and mutual respect, rests on a precious and fragile ideal: the incalculable value of every human being
We have to push the notion that democracy requires dialogue. The fullest development of all of us is the condition for the fullest development of each of us.
Democracy by its nature is dialogical and dialectical. Whatever new consensus we arrive at, we have to re-examine, re-look. It's never finished: it's a project always in the making. It requires an alter, attentive citizenry. It requires the arts.
Education should be a place where we imagine the "alternatives". The arts show us world world in another way. This opens the space for real democratic thinking.
The way we're living is not adequate. We are more, that definition doesn't limit us, we could be more.
Our job as intellectuals is to always make things more complicated. Teaching the taboo: teaching what we don't know. Teaching how to ask the questions that need to be asked. it's always the next question that's interesting.
1:52PM: Art is what urges voyages: if you think about education broadly, including the media and advertising and public debate/discussion, education does not require obedience and conformity; the excising of the arts from the curriculum is always a big message to everybody else. It's a public pedagogy.
Guilt by association is the real danger. If anyone (dissident) shared a church, a neighbourhood, with Obama, he would be tainted by association: but this should be a virtue, not a sin; to leave the path and spend time around diverse groups. When strange and weird and wild winds can blow, that's when we stand the best chance of living in a real democracy that has real substance.
2:14PM: Social Media on Campus keynote talk.
Alfred Hermida (moderator): Social media is an elusive term--it's hard to explain to someone who doesn't know what it is.
Characterised by collaboration. Can disrupt hierarchical systems. As educators we're figuring out, how do we navigate these media?
Social media are about networked, asynchronous, distributed dynamics. Participation, collaboration, sharing, fluidity.
Sydneyeve Matrix (speaker): social web: commerce, culture, information...digital proclivities; web first.
Teaching the connected cohort: everyone has a camera, everyone has a phone...technologies that work as social cohesion.
Building a shared economy
Facebook generation: parents, teachers;
bringing expectations that are "super-disruptive". Personalise the experience of the campus, personalise their experiences of the campus, of courses, of course content.
Infovores...consuming and creating digital media.
Real time information must be "super-fresh". Sometimes instant isn't even fast enough. Students will crowdsource every single lesson. News-sharing.
tech-forward initiatives; strongly appeal to "Generation Y". We know we can get buy in from this; students will also do better this way.
Plugged-in courses, plugged-in campus; these drive student engagement.
2:29PM: Leading to "better outcomes" by using technology.
Teaching in the age of Wikipedia and Google. Students push back every time they need to "memorise" something. Do we NEED multiple choice exams? When we have Wikipedia? Those are conversations we aren't really having in mainstream news.
Personal learning environments, on campus, and reportage; we have a tech skills gap. In terms of faculty administrators, staff, C-suite, and so on; and students have expectations, and some profs are already trying to make change and having a hard time.
Reverse techno-mentoring? A fix for these problems. Grabbing someone young and getting them to show you what they do with technology.
What are we doing on campus already? Social media on campus is about Q&A right now. How do I get in, where do I get my meal card, etc.
2:39PM:
"Like a Little" --"flirting" on campus. (Example of how students adopt technology)
Privilege intergenerational relationships; helps us to keep up.
Launching a web site for a class and socialising it. Page must change every hour; social recognition is the currency of the web, and they can get it when their content is being splashed across the class page/feed.
Need to teach where the students already are; e.g. teaching on Facebook.
--Teaching on niche social networks like Ning. Niche sites are gated communities, so what's different about twaching on Facebook and teaching somewhere like Ning?
--Wordpress: open-source teaching, student blogging, and so on. You get a lot of traffic on a blog/website when you do this.
--Social publishing: microcontent "purpose-built for sharing".
High proportion of students have smart phones.
We need to be smart phone ready. If this isn't a priority for you and your content but this is your demographic, you should be thinking about it.
iTunes U: do students like to listen to lectures? Definitely. Lots of demand for Podcasts and videos.
"Comfort of ambient connectivity". "Digital pain": what happens when students don't get their WiFi, their plugs for electronic devices, and so on. How do we manage this?
--Get text and email (SMS) reminders before assignments are due? Only 8% of students opted into this. Students didn't want their private/personal phones; they didn't want to hear from the prof through SMS.
--Backchannel: Twitter is [apparently] already "old school".
2:44PM: "Just in time learning"?--"I'm not going to worry about that exam in December.
[My note: why on earth would we want to encourage this kind of learning habit?]
QR codes: students want to scan things. [What about students who don't have a Blackberry? Or who can't afford a SmartPhone?]
Students want to "add value" to the community, add value to the course web site. Integrate mainstream media into the classroom as well as social media.
Losing control: what happens when students "over-share"? Example of the girl who posted a racist video. Any example of unfortunate Twitter or Facebook status updates.
4:31PM: Panel on "What do new media offer that mainstream media don't?"
Wilf Dinnick, Open File: readers have the oportunity to suggest stories which we then follow up with professional reporters; stories that readers suggest are almost always more popular in terms of readership (metrics). In academe you have a huge potential to source information that you may not have known was "out there".
Set out to engage the public differently than the way the mainstream media do. Huge potential to tap into an audience or group that has expertise.
Vinita Srivastava, Ryerson: Level of coverage, e.g. post-9/11, is not critical or informative enough.
Social media and bloggers can't necessarily "lead" a news cycle; we still need resources in the mainstream media, and with media consolidation fewer and fewer investigative reporters are employed and available to provide in-depth reporting.
There's a "gap" in mainstream media, a "disappointment"; some of that is being filled by the way users employ social media.
"Going viral": otherwise obscure issues can become very, very public through dissemination, such as the student who was tasered on campus; YouTube videos circulated and made the mainstream media.
4:42PM: Daniel deVise, Washington Post: Su Meck, story of the woman who re-made her life after she lost her memory; it was on the front page of the Post yet it circulated far more through "new media" channels, and many people didn't even know that it has been a Washington Post story. "Vast army" of people who are reiterating, restating all over the place; people "take the stuff that we write and replicate it", which is great because it's dissemination. The Post is just one piece of "thing huge thing", the newspaper is now like "one massive op-ed page". Many many more people are "out there" writing their opinion of things; great writers, brilliant people, wonderful content. We've tried to match new media, through blogs and Twitter. This also brings content to the paper that wouldn't ordinarily be there. Finite number of news producers, large number of circulators and commentators.
4:49PM: Mary Churchill, University of Venus: New media as a game-changer for Gen-X women in higher education. Blog was started over a year ago. Started on WordPress blog with just 8 authors. Reading things online and reporting and commenting. 4 months into the project, Inside Higher Ed offered a spot on their site. 90,000 viewers from a couple of hundred (!). Twitter was one way through which this happened. Found new readers and also new writers, also international not only in the United States and Canada. Presence on Facebook, page now has 800+ "likes". Facebook gives very good demographic shots; shows the readers tend to reflect the topic of the blog. Another development: relationship with Guardian.co.uk; over 250 comments on "Women and leadership in Higher Ed". [My note: see my post called "Leading the Pack"]. This led to further blog posts by UVenus writers.
Shared tactics; new knowledge; community building; etc. With new readers come new writers.
New media provides a new playing field; subjectivity; insider knowledge; build community; solve problems.
5:16PM: Next panel time--> Alfred Hermida, JAmes Compton, Patric Lane, Mary Churchill. Social Media from the university and College Perspective: What are the Implications?
Mary Churchill: University of Venus--GenX women in higher ed--tired of being silenced; junior faculty were told that they were like children.
The most compelling piece in social media was having a story to tell.
Making sure that writers were in different countries, where they had different audiences; this helped to bring in new writers. Huge diversity of authors and issues.
5:30PM: James Compton, U Western Ontario [President of Faculty Association]: Collective bargaining. Faculty Association web site; creation of Facebook Page (launched about 2 weeks before strike deadline). Op-ed piece in student newspaper "I [heart] librarians"; worked very well on web site & elsewhere. Lots of people within the librarian community across Canada joined this page. With faculty it was a different scenario, Facebook site didn't do anything helpful. Difference in cohorts; librarians all know each other, a small community; they come together to support each other. The faculty didn't have the same existing real-world social network to tap into.
5:42PM: Patric Lane: Health & Science editor at UNC Chapel Hill. Former journalist--bringing the "Voice of the Devil's Advocate". :-)
Many people are still not very familiar with social media.
Positive benefits of social media [Mark Twain quote]? "[Social media] is fatal to prejudice, bigotry..." Like travel.
"Digital Natives"? [Note: he seems to be using this term uncritically; and I know many of us would disagree with this!]
Continuing the metaphor of travel...help people navigate. Build a social media presence/s; you need to help people find the channels that will prove useful to them. Practical tools: at UNC, a social media directory helps people to find what they need.
"Speak the language clearly": To reach an audience, don't use jargon.
Other destinations: How to draw in social media "travellers"?
Required skills and experience: to make a case for proper use of social media...extreme cat-herding; built-in institutional and social GOS; Devil's advocate; ability to boil watched pots.
5:51PM: Alfred Hermida on social media--representing ourselves in a specific way; blurring the professional and personal. How does our social media "personality" show as a representation of self to peers, students, etc.
Conversations: all archived, searchable, retrievable.
Sharing: at the heart of social media; being social implies some kind of exchange. Social media as the "gift economy". Extends the "reach" of your academic research. But there's more to this than just promotion. Who are your contacts in the network? Groups have different interests; share links to jobs, because students might be looking. Colleagues might be interested in research you come across.
Relationships: How we connect and extend ourselves to different people. Nature of connections determines the "what" and the "how" of social interaction.
What is your network expecting from you?
All factors come together as part of our reputation on social media. How do we rate our social media reputation? In some ways it's all about peer evaluation. How do we assign value to what we do on social media and how we do it? How does this relate to other professional activity?
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Communication, not Edutainment
This entry was originally posted on March 3, 2011, at University of Venus blog, Blog U, Inside Higher Ed.
How do we, as tutorial leaders or professors, deal with the revelation that students find classes or entire subject areas "boring?" And to what extent is it our responsibility to get them "interested?" These were questions that came to mind as I read Itir Toksöz’s recent UVenus post about “academic boredom”. While she was discussing the boredom she experiences in conversation with colleagues, my first thought was that boredom is not just (potentially) a problem for and with academics, but also for students.
I see boredom as something other than a mere lack of interest. I think of it as a stand-in for frustration, which can, in turn, stem from a sense of exclusion from the material, from the discussion, from the class, from understanding the point of it all; ultimately an exclusion from the enjoyment of learning. This can happen when the material is too challenging, or when the student doesn’t really want to be in the class for some reason.
Boredom is sometimes about fear, the fear of failing and looking “stupid” in front of the instructor and one’s peers. In other cases it can also be a symptom that someone is far beyond the discussion and in need of a deeper or a more challenging conversation. All these things can be called “boredom” but often they are more like communicative gaps in need of bridging.
In other words, boredom is often a mask for something else. We need to remove this mask, because of the negative effects of boredom on the learning environment and process. It causes people to "tune out" from what's happening, and in almost every case it creates or is accompanied by resentment for the teacher/professor and/or for the other students. As a psychological problem, this makes boredom one of the greatest puzzles of teaching, and one of those problems that most demands attention.
It’s even more important to uncover the causes of boredom now that many students have access to wireless Internet and to Blackberries and iPhones, in the classroom. Professors and TAs complain that students are less attentive than ever while in class, because of this attachment to their devices—something I’ve encountered first-hand with my current tutorial group.
I think the attachment to gadgetry comes not from the technology itself, but from the students. In my blog I've written about the issue with students using technology to "tune out" during lectures, and they do it in tutorial as well; they're "present, yet absent". To understand this behaviour we need to keep in mind that the lure of the online (social) world is reasonable from the students’ perspective. Popular media and established social networks are accessible and entertaining, and provide positive feedback as well as a sense of comfortable familiarity. Learning is hard work, and the academic world is often alienating, difficult, and demanding. It's all-too-easy to crumple under the feeling of failure or exclusion. Facebook is welcoming and easy to use, while critical theory is not.
The other side of this equation is that in the process of negotiating and overcoming "boredom" there's a certain point at which I can meet students halfway, as it were—but I can't go beyond that point. Like everything else in teaching and learning, boredom is a two-way street, and the instructor is the one who needs to maintain the boundary of responsibility. I'm not there merely to provide an appealing performance, which leads to superficial “engagement.” I’m not “edutainment”.
However, I think it's part of my job when teaching to "open a door" to a topic or theory or set of ideas. I can't make you walk through that door (horse to water, etc.) but I can surely do my best to make sure you have the right address and a key that fits the lock. And that means using different strategies if the ones I choose don’t seem to be working.
Holding this view about boredom certainly doesn’t mean I’ve solved the problems with student attention in class; I’m reminded of that frequently. It just means I have an approach to dealing with the problem that treats their boredom as something for which there’s mutual responsibility. In an ideal learning environment there must also be mutual respect—but unfortunately mutual “boredom” is easier and often wins the day. My hope is to help cultivate the former by finding ways of unraveling the latter.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Connecting the Dots: Knowledge, Communication, Science, History
"He says lie down, shut up, take your clothes off... you do."
James Burke's description of the authority of doctors provides an example of why I enjoy his perspective on history: it's a blunt, humourous and--for all intents and purposes--accurate representation of our trust in the medical system, and by extension (I'm sure Burke would add) an indication of our faith in science itself.
The description is provided in "What the Doctor Ordered", episode six of Burke's series The Day the Universe Changed. In this episode, Burke discusses the establishment of a doctor-centered medical expertise via the military surgeons of the French Revolution, and the development of systems of bureaucratic efficiency that are echoed in today's managerialist institutional governance.
Burke's "connectivist" approach is what I enjoy about his series, and I've come to realise that it's a quality I enjoy in a number of theorists who have informed my own way of thinking--particularly Harold Innis and Michel Foucault. Innis and Foucault might seem like an odd couple to put in a room together. While questions of knowledge--not just epistemology, but also about economies of knowledge--are at the heart of the matter for both authors, their views on the subject differ theoretically. Yet as intellectuals they seem to share a fascination with the processes and mechanisms of societal and civilisational change and, not coincidentally, with communication and media--from Foucault's fascination with language and its "formations" to Innis' sweeping historical accounts of communication technologies. Both authors betray a concern with the organisation of power, and they both combine this with the investigation of ways of knowing and the (possible, and historically contingent) instrumentalities of knowledge. This encompassing interest is what leads them to politics, to culture, to economics and to the rituals and problems of social organisation and social life over time.
For Burke, there is the same concern with knowledge and its use. The "connections" made are between the grand abstractions of theory and the one-off solutions to pressing demands of everyday life, with an emphasis on the complex and quirky effects of circumstance, politics, greed, curiosity, religion, objects and technologies, and the new social relations engendered by (and engendering) everything else. In other words, historical messiness: not as a deviation from the kind of theorising provided by the "grand narratives", but rather an attempt to theorise the messiness as is, to trace historical developments as emergent and interconnected in multiple, multidimensional ways, and from which patterns develop in any case--just not always predictably or in ways that seem to "fit".
Take Burke's narrative of medicine: theory and practice, another persistent divide, had to be brought into a working relationship in order for medicine to take on the shape it has today. In other words, surgeons who practiced in the field became doctors who taught what they'd learned to others, and they taught it in institutional environments. Additionally, the doctor had to become an expert, with control over the patient based not on coercive power but on knowledge. Knowledge was generated in new environments and in new ways--the hospitals, built to house large numbers of sick people according to their ailments, provided the evidential input (in the form of patients) for observation, description and classification--all of which was recorded. Statistical analysis, a new mathematical tool, was brought to bear on this data as medical experts sought numerical patterns that could describe and explain (and predict!) the physical world. And for the first time, the patient became just that--an object, or even a collection of symptoms, to be acted upon by medical technologies.
The nineteenth-century concern for numbers was influenced by other developments--an example of which is the one Burke points to, the overpopulation of English cities during the (second) industrial revolution. In other words, a "mass" urban society was confronted with the epidemic of cholera, which required a radical solution. The answer they found involved the use of numbers to track human activity and correlate it with disease (early epidemiology, and the famous London water-pump).
This development, which ultimately pointed to the mobilisation of numbers to make change (including to the landscape of London), was relevant in multiple fields of activity in the nineteenth century including education. Numbers became more important because there was simply more of everything: more people living in crowded cities, more patients collected together in larger hospitals, more students in the schools. It was hard to get a grip on all those people, never mind finding a way of getting them to act in the right ways at the right times--and the more people there were, the more you needed to get them to act the right way, if anything was going to work at all. The connection between nations and numbers is exemplified by the roots of the word "statistics".
Thus Burke argues, "the transition by medicine from bedside to hospital to chemistry is complete. And with it, the disappearance of the patient from our story. His complaint, once voiced personally and authoritatively, is now reduced to a string of numbers on a computer terminal." Burke views the developing medical profession as the beginning of expansive influence for forms of numeric governance. The latter took on an authority that was to extend to numerous areas of our lives--articulated through the use of statistics, correlations, causes and effects. The expertise of doctors is what preserves life, our lives, hence our acceptance of its authority. The (manageable) "population" is born, and here there is a strong connection to Foucault's theories of governance (bio-politics in particular) and his discussions of "medicalisation".
In the final episode of Connections (series 1), James Burke gestures at a linear wall chart of the "History of Agriculture" and articulates his central thesis: "This makes you think in straight lines. And if today doesn't happen in straight lines [...] why should the past have?" Burke's question has implications for the pursuit of (instrumental) knowledge--implications that are clearest in the context of the contemporary university and its shifting position in a network of knowledge "production". What assumptions might be undermined by this view of innovation, in a socio-political landscape so littered with both past accounts and future plans for "strategic" discovery? In what ways might national governments, for example--ever-more dependent upon marketable "innovation" and the development of policy that leads to this profitable result--come to implement/reiterate linear narratives of "progress"?
The search for a successful template for development, or for a proven path to prosperity in uncertain economic times, is constrained by risk. This reminds me of one last point from James Burke (Connections, series 1, episode 1): knowledge of the future tends to bring power over the present. But what role might there be for a re-assessment of the messy, non-linear past?
--------------------------------------------------
Some references for the above topic: James Burke "Re-Connections", a series of recent interviews; The Day the Universe Changed; The Birth of the Clinic and The Order of Things by Michel Foucault; Empire and Communications and The Bias of Communication by Harold Innis; various by Marshall McLuhan (James Burke indirectly quotes McLuhan on a regular basis).
James Burke's description of the authority of doctors provides an example of why I enjoy his perspective on history: it's a blunt, humourous and--for all intents and purposes--accurate representation of our trust in the medical system, and by extension (I'm sure Burke would add) an indication of our faith in science itself.
The description is provided in "What the Doctor Ordered", episode six of Burke's series The Day the Universe Changed. In this episode, Burke discusses the establishment of a doctor-centered medical expertise via the military surgeons of the French Revolution, and the development of systems of bureaucratic efficiency that are echoed in today's managerialist institutional governance.
Burke's "connectivist" approach is what I enjoy about his series, and I've come to realise that it's a quality I enjoy in a number of theorists who have informed my own way of thinking--particularly Harold Innis and Michel Foucault. Innis and Foucault might seem like an odd couple to put in a room together. While questions of knowledge--not just epistemology, but also about economies of knowledge--are at the heart of the matter for both authors, their views on the subject differ theoretically. Yet as intellectuals they seem to share a fascination with the processes and mechanisms of societal and civilisational change and, not coincidentally, with communication and media--from Foucault's fascination with language and its "formations" to Innis' sweeping historical accounts of communication technologies. Both authors betray a concern with the organisation of power, and they both combine this with the investigation of ways of knowing and the (possible, and historically contingent) instrumentalities of knowledge. This encompassing interest is what leads them to politics, to culture, to economics and to the rituals and problems of social organisation and social life over time.
For Burke, there is the same concern with knowledge and its use. The "connections" made are between the grand abstractions of theory and the one-off solutions to pressing demands of everyday life, with an emphasis on the complex and quirky effects of circumstance, politics, greed, curiosity, religion, objects and technologies, and the new social relations engendered by (and engendering) everything else. In other words, historical messiness: not as a deviation from the kind of theorising provided by the "grand narratives", but rather an attempt to theorise the messiness as is, to trace historical developments as emergent and interconnected in multiple, multidimensional ways, and from which patterns develop in any case--just not always predictably or in ways that seem to "fit".
Take Burke's narrative of medicine: theory and practice, another persistent divide, had to be brought into a working relationship in order for medicine to take on the shape it has today. In other words, surgeons who practiced in the field became doctors who taught what they'd learned to others, and they taught it in institutional environments. Additionally, the doctor had to become an expert, with control over the patient based not on coercive power but on knowledge. Knowledge was generated in new environments and in new ways--the hospitals, built to house large numbers of sick people according to their ailments, provided the evidential input (in the form of patients) for observation, description and classification--all of which was recorded. Statistical analysis, a new mathematical tool, was brought to bear on this data as medical experts sought numerical patterns that could describe and explain (and predict!) the physical world. And for the first time, the patient became just that--an object, or even a collection of symptoms, to be acted upon by medical technologies.
The nineteenth-century concern for numbers was influenced by other developments--an example of which is the one Burke points to, the overpopulation of English cities during the (second) industrial revolution. In other words, a "mass" urban society was confronted with the epidemic of cholera, which required a radical solution. The answer they found involved the use of numbers to track human activity and correlate it with disease (early epidemiology, and the famous London water-pump).
This development, which ultimately pointed to the mobilisation of numbers to make change (including to the landscape of London), was relevant in multiple fields of activity in the nineteenth century including education. Numbers became more important because there was simply more of everything: more people living in crowded cities, more patients collected together in larger hospitals, more students in the schools. It was hard to get a grip on all those people, never mind finding a way of getting them to act in the right ways at the right times--and the more people there were, the more you needed to get them to act the right way, if anything was going to work at all. The connection between nations and numbers is exemplified by the roots of the word "statistics".
Thus Burke argues, "the transition by medicine from bedside to hospital to chemistry is complete. And with it, the disappearance of the patient from our story. His complaint, once voiced personally and authoritatively, is now reduced to a string of numbers on a computer terminal." Burke views the developing medical profession as the beginning of expansive influence for forms of numeric governance. The latter took on an authority that was to extend to numerous areas of our lives--articulated through the use of statistics, correlations, causes and effects. The expertise of doctors is what preserves life, our lives, hence our acceptance of its authority. The (manageable) "population" is born, and here there is a strong connection to Foucault's theories of governance (bio-politics in particular) and his discussions of "medicalisation".
In the final episode of Connections (series 1), James Burke gestures at a linear wall chart of the "History of Agriculture" and articulates his central thesis: "This makes you think in straight lines. And if today doesn't happen in straight lines [...] why should the past have?" Burke's question has implications for the pursuit of (instrumental) knowledge--implications that are clearest in the context of the contemporary university and its shifting position in a network of knowledge "production". What assumptions might be undermined by this view of innovation, in a socio-political landscape so littered with both past accounts and future plans for "strategic" discovery? In what ways might national governments, for example--ever-more dependent upon marketable "innovation" and the development of policy that leads to this profitable result--come to implement/reiterate linear narratives of "progress"?
The search for a successful template for development, or for a proven path to prosperity in uncertain economic times, is constrained by risk. This reminds me of one last point from James Burke (Connections, series 1, episode 1): knowledge of the future tends to bring power over the present. But what role might there be for a re-assessment of the messy, non-linear past?
--------------------------------------------------
Some references for the above topic: James Burke "Re-Connections", a series of recent interviews; The Day the Universe Changed; The Birth of the Clinic and The Order of Things by Michel Foucault; Empire and Communications and The Bias of Communication by Harold Innis; various by Marshall McLuhan (James Burke indirectly quotes McLuhan on a regular basis).
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Leading the Pack
Time for a tidbit of self-promotion--on Friday, May 6, I was lucky enough to be a panelist in a "live" online discussion on the Guardian.co.uk site, which has a special section for postsecondary education. The topic of the day was "How do you promote female leadership in higher education?". You can check out the "Q&A best bits", which are a kind of summary of what each panelist contributed to the discussion. The full discussion with over 250 "comments" is available here.
Thankfully I can say that in sharing the links to our panel, I'm also promoting the other participants, all of whom were more experienced and knowledgeable than myself! Many thanks to Mary Churchill of University of Venus for "recruiting" me for the panel.
If you click through and take a look at the short version of the discussion, you'll notice that I made a point of highlighting the structural nature of women's work in the university, e.g. the fact that certain work tends to be recognised as more "feminine", including teaching and low-level "service"--a phenomenon not confined to the university. I also emphasised the historicity of the problem, that universities have for thousands of years been elite institutions operating in patriarchal societies.
I'm reminded of that last point as I research a presentation (and paper) I'm writing about gender, science, and meritocracy (using the Canadian CERC program as my example). It's a testament to the tenacity of gender norms/ideologies that we can still blame women for lacking "merit" when they "fail" to achieve high-ranking positions in scientific communities. To me it hardly seems like a matter of "excellence", when for so many centuries women have been excluded from participation in knowledge creation in its formal settings. Yet the arguments persist, as I've seen quite clearly in the news articles and comments I've been analysing.
Plus ça change...
[EDIT, June 6, 2011] Here's the link to the Prezi for my CERC talk on June 1st. I hope you enjoy it!
Thankfully I can say that in sharing the links to our panel, I'm also promoting the other participants, all of whom were more experienced and knowledgeable than myself! Many thanks to Mary Churchill of University of Venus for "recruiting" me for the panel.
If you click through and take a look at the short version of the discussion, you'll notice that I made a point of highlighting the structural nature of women's work in the university, e.g. the fact that certain work tends to be recognised as more "feminine", including teaching and low-level "service"--a phenomenon not confined to the university. I also emphasised the historicity of the problem, that universities have for thousands of years been elite institutions operating in patriarchal societies.
I'm reminded of that last point as I research a presentation (and paper) I'm writing about gender, science, and meritocracy (using the Canadian CERC program as my example). It's a testament to the tenacity of gender norms/ideologies that we can still blame women for lacking "merit" when they "fail" to achieve high-ranking positions in scientific communities. To me it hardly seems like a matter of "excellence", when for so many centuries women have been excluded from participation in knowledge creation in its formal settings. Yet the arguments persist, as I've seen quite clearly in the news articles and comments I've been analysing.
Plus ça change...
[EDIT, June 6, 2011] Here's the link to the Prezi for my CERC talk on June 1st. I hope you enjoy it!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Tech Round-Up
It’s time for another technology update, as a follow-up to the two previous posts on the tools I’ve been using for research and for connecting with others. Since I’ve been checking out a number of new and nifty tools recently, I thought I’d share the goods.
Diigo: an important change I’ve made is a switch from Del.icio.us to Diigo. When Yahoo! announced that they would cease to develop Del.icio.us, there was a sort of general uproar from committed users (myself included—I’d come to rely on it for bookmarking articles for media analyses) since we were afraid of losing such a great tool. Even though it became apparent that Yahoo! would not shut down Del.icio.us, I decided to switch to another bookmarking tool for the sake of stability. I admit I’d also been tempted by the many options available. As it turns out other sites, like Diigo, have been developed more than Del.icio.us and so they provide helpful features such as highlighting on web pages, caching pages for later reference, and the option to add notes to a page (which others can view). Most of these features are only fully available with Premium service, but I’m considering buying in (it’s only about $5 per month).
Scrivener: Thanks to Dr Inger Mewburn (@thesiswhisperer) for continual praise of Scrivener that prodded me into giving it a try. I think I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of its capabilities, but already I love the way I can create a “project” in Scrivener and include not only Word files but also .pdfs, images, web pages (html files) and even sound files—all relevant research materials in one layout. Scrivener’s handy “splits” feature allows you to view two files at once in the same visual space, invaluable when you’re looking at information on web pages or copying notes into a draft of a paper (for example). For those of us who need to organise things visually, Scrivener has an iTunes-like format that allows you to places files and folders in easy-to-access order, to easily add/create new files and folders and add documents, and to write different sections with the full structure in view. Another great thing about Scrivener is that you can download a 30-day trial, which I did, and that helped convince me that it was worth purchasing a copy. Bonus: if you pay for Scrivener you can install it on multiple computers without paying any additional fees. The bad news: it's only for Mac, as is another suggested tool, DevonThink.
Below: an example (screen-shot) of a Scrivener project layout, showing the outline for a paper in sections and also a series of .pdf files of articles I've used in the research.
Prezi: I first saw a demonstration of Prezi at the Georgetown University Round Table back in March of this year. As an alternative presentation format (alternative to Powerpoint, that is), I immediately liked the look of Prezi and was eager to find it online and try it out. Once I got going with the site (Prezi is not downloadable software, rather it’s an online tool) I enjoyed the way in which it facilitated my thinking as well as the creation of my presentation; whereas Powerpoint always makes me feel boxed in, with Prezi I can move objects around to see how they might “look” in another order, or indeed how ideas might make more sense in a different sequence. The one complaint I’ve heard from those who aren’t keen on Prezi is that it makes them feel “seasick” or nauseated because of the “zooming” motion that happens as the program moves from one “slide” to the next. So far I haven’t given any presentations using Prezi, but I’m attending a conference at the end of the month and will give it a try for at least one of the two presentations I’m planning. I’ll be keeping the zooming to a minimum, given the complaints about it.
Scribd: Though I haven’t used it much, I realised the potential usefulness of Scribd when I came across a cache of letters and other documents relating to my dissertation research. In order to download from Scribd, you have to upload documents of your own; this wasn’t a problem since I was able to connect through Facebook and complete an upload easily (taking into account the relevant copyright restrictions). I think as a document sharing site Scribd actually has a lot of potential and I’m gradually starting to upload more items (generally reports from Statistics Canada and from think tanks, relating to post-secondary education).
Zotero: Zotero is a citation manager that works both as an add-on to Firefox and as a web site through which users can sync their account across multiple computers (great for me, since I use a desktop and a laptop); it’s similar to sites like Del.icio.us and Diigo in that way. Zotero was suggested to me by a number of people, but after an initial try I found it clunky and didn’t see how it would be of any use to me. Recently I was prompted by Dr Lee Skallerup (@readywriting) to give Zotero a second chance, and thankfully this time I’ve figured out where it fits in to my personal media/technology ecology. I use Zotero now for the search process, so that as I browse online I can create citations without having to go back and document everything later. (If you’re not keen on Zotero, recommended alternatives include Mendeley and Endnote).
Dipity: Suggested to me by John Dupuis (@dupuisjohn) of York University’s Steacie Library, Dipity is a site for constructing timelines. This became important for me because of the nature of the research I’m doing for my dissertation—i.e. I am mapping institutional developments onto provincial and federal policy and political trends, so for me it really helped to be able to see those things in a kind of linear, comparative way. My “Post-Secondary Education in Canada” timeline is still very much under construction, but I think it will eventually be a time-saving tool for others looking at the same topic.
Moo: A final nod goes to Moo, not technically a “tool” but rather a site through which you can design your own business cards, post-cards, and so on. I wrote a bit about Moo in a post in my other blog, where you can also see the images I chose to use. I love this idea of having my photos in this miniature form that I can hand out to new acquaintances. The cards arrived the other day in the mail, and they look lovely; I can’t wait to start dishing them out.
Diigo: an important change I’ve made is a switch from Del.icio.us to Diigo. When Yahoo! announced that they would cease to develop Del.icio.us, there was a sort of general uproar from committed users (myself included—I’d come to rely on it for bookmarking articles for media analyses) since we were afraid of losing such a great tool. Even though it became apparent that Yahoo! would not shut down Del.icio.us, I decided to switch to another bookmarking tool for the sake of stability. I admit I’d also been tempted by the many options available. As it turns out other sites, like Diigo, have been developed more than Del.icio.us and so they provide helpful features such as highlighting on web pages, caching pages for later reference, and the option to add notes to a page (which others can view). Most of these features are only fully available with Premium service, but I’m considering buying in (it’s only about $5 per month).
Scrivener: Thanks to Dr Inger Mewburn (@thesiswhisperer) for continual praise of Scrivener that prodded me into giving it a try. I think I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of its capabilities, but already I love the way I can create a “project” in Scrivener and include not only Word files but also .pdfs, images, web pages (html files) and even sound files—all relevant research materials in one layout. Scrivener’s handy “splits” feature allows you to view two files at once in the same visual space, invaluable when you’re looking at information on web pages or copying notes into a draft of a paper (for example). For those of us who need to organise things visually, Scrivener has an iTunes-like format that allows you to places files and folders in easy-to-access order, to easily add/create new files and folders and add documents, and to write different sections with the full structure in view. Another great thing about Scrivener is that you can download a 30-day trial, which I did, and that helped convince me that it was worth purchasing a copy. Bonus: if you pay for Scrivener you can install it on multiple computers without paying any additional fees. The bad news: it's only for Mac, as is another suggested tool, DevonThink.
Below: an example (screen-shot) of a Scrivener project layout, showing the outline for a paper in sections and also a series of .pdf files of articles I've used in the research.
Prezi: I first saw a demonstration of Prezi at the Georgetown University Round Table back in March of this year. As an alternative presentation format (alternative to Powerpoint, that is), I immediately liked the look of Prezi and was eager to find it online and try it out. Once I got going with the site (Prezi is not downloadable software, rather it’s an online tool) I enjoyed the way in which it facilitated my thinking as well as the creation of my presentation; whereas Powerpoint always makes me feel boxed in, with Prezi I can move objects around to see how they might “look” in another order, or indeed how ideas might make more sense in a different sequence. The one complaint I’ve heard from those who aren’t keen on Prezi is that it makes them feel “seasick” or nauseated because of the “zooming” motion that happens as the program moves from one “slide” to the next. So far I haven’t given any presentations using Prezi, but I’m attending a conference at the end of the month and will give it a try for at least one of the two presentations I’m planning. I’ll be keeping the zooming to a minimum, given the complaints about it.
Scribd: Though I haven’t used it much, I realised the potential usefulness of Scribd when I came across a cache of letters and other documents relating to my dissertation research. In order to download from Scribd, you have to upload documents of your own; this wasn’t a problem since I was able to connect through Facebook and complete an upload easily (taking into account the relevant copyright restrictions). I think as a document sharing site Scribd actually has a lot of potential and I’m gradually starting to upload more items (generally reports from Statistics Canada and from think tanks, relating to post-secondary education).
Zotero: Zotero is a citation manager that works both as an add-on to Firefox and as a web site through which users can sync their account across multiple computers (great for me, since I use a desktop and a laptop); it’s similar to sites like Del.icio.us and Diigo in that way. Zotero was suggested to me by a number of people, but after an initial try I found it clunky and didn’t see how it would be of any use to me. Recently I was prompted by Dr Lee Skallerup (@readywriting) to give Zotero a second chance, and thankfully this time I’ve figured out where it fits in to my personal media/technology ecology. I use Zotero now for the search process, so that as I browse online I can create citations without having to go back and document everything later. (If you’re not keen on Zotero, recommended alternatives include Mendeley and Endnote).
Dipity: Suggested to me by John Dupuis (@dupuisjohn) of York University’s Steacie Library, Dipity is a site for constructing timelines. This became important for me because of the nature of the research I’m doing for my dissertation—i.e. I am mapping institutional developments onto provincial and federal policy and political trends, so for me it really helped to be able to see those things in a kind of linear, comparative way. My “Post-Secondary Education in Canada” timeline is still very much under construction, but I think it will eventually be a time-saving tool for others looking at the same topic.
Moo: A final nod goes to Moo, not technically a “tool” but rather a site through which you can design your own business cards, post-cards, and so on. I wrote a bit about Moo in a post in my other blog, where you can also see the images I chose to use. I love this idea of having my photos in this miniature form that I can hand out to new acquaintances. The cards arrived the other day in the mail, and they look lovely; I can’t wait to start dishing them out.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Market Fail: UK Attempts at Marketisation Bring a Cascade of Troubles
Many articles over the past little while have been looking at the failure of government marketisation efforts in England. Following last year’s Browne Review (which recommended that university fee limits be lifted), the UK government dropped the policy bomb that universities had long feared—massive funding cuts (including 40% cuts to teaching), a drop from ￡7.1 billion to ￡4.2 billion, and a marketisation scheme to be implemented through raising the “cap” on tuition fees to ￡9,000 from ￡3,290. The idea was that universities would voluntarily differentiate their fee levels in order to capture different student demographics/groups, creating a quasi-market. However, when faced with the option of setting fees of "up to" ￡9,000, the majority of universities opted to charge the highest possible price. They did this in spite of the government’s threats to penalise them in various ways for inhibiting accessibility.
Why has the UK government's marketisation scheme failed so dramatically with regards to fee levels? Surely the less well-known universities knew that in claiming the maximum possible tuition, they would now be charging the same fee as heavyweights such as Oxford and Cambridge. The government assumed that universities would naturally want to compete for various student “markets”, relying on institutions to create an appropriate distribution. However, such a tactic doesn’t ensure that a market will emerge. That outcome still depends on the behaviour of individual institutions. Since universities operate in competition for prestige at least as much as for revenue (the two are closely connected), their “behaviour” as actors in a market is unlikely to mirror that of (e.g.) a pet food company or an automotive corporation. So the relationship between price and prestige is undoubtedly one factor in the equation; no-one wants to be a "low-cost provider".
In keeping with this logic, students do not behave like regular consumers when "shopping" for a university degree. They don't necessarily seek out what's affordable or reasonable in terms of cost; they are making an estimate on the future returns from their short-term investment, and education is not something that can be traded for a "better model" later on when one has more money to spend. Students are in a bind of their own, with those lacking present income being encouraged to take on debt in order to finance their future employability.
Lastly, it's very difficult to create “economies of scale” in education (in my opinion it can’t be done, but that’s a whole other blog post). Thus universities cannot easily expand enrolment while also keeping tuition low, offering "discount education"--though this has happened to a certain extent with for-profit, online providers, mostly in the United States.
Another important aspect of the UK government’s plan was to remove funding from teaching, already an under-valued aspect of university work (international rankings are based on research); and from what I understand, this funding was taken only from the arts, social sciences, and humanities. But it seems that that the very universities that depend most on those enrollments will now have to raise tuition even more to make up for the significant loss of revenue--more so than, say, a university focussed heavily on the sciences. Is the UK government asking students to pay more for degrees that they (the government) have demonstrably judged to be less valuable-? (NB, I don't personally believe that degrees outside STEM areas are less inherently valuable; but they are certainly less marketable according to the logic being employed.)
As it turns out, in most cases students will pay the same (increased) price for their degrees no matter where they choose to enroll; but clearly they won’t all be getting a better “product”. One reason is that the tuition money is replacing government funding that had been cut, rather than augmenting current income in order to increase “quality”. If the funding estimate of cost per student was considered insufficient to begin with, then it makes sense that universities would raise the level of tuition to the maximum possible (￡9,000). So it seems there might be a fundamental disagreement between universities and government about the “cost” of educating a student in a certain discipline or area of study (not a surprise).
On a more theoretical level, I don't believe it's possible for students to “receive” a uniform education since every person brings something different to, and takes something unique from, their educational experience.
Overall I think this is a good example of some of the problems with trying to marketise education as a “product” with an inherent economic/monetary value. Universities in Britain are now stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place: if they charge higher fees (i.e. above ￡6,000), they are more likely to be penalised by the government for inhibiting accessibility. The necessity for this stop-gap measure demonstrates the failure of the initial policy to establish the desired equilibrium. Such radical policy change within a short period is likely to have deep effects on the British universities, including changes to student decision-making and to the faculty workforce.
Why has the UK government's marketisation scheme failed so dramatically with regards to fee levels? Surely the less well-known universities knew that in claiming the maximum possible tuition, they would now be charging the same fee as heavyweights such as Oxford and Cambridge. The government assumed that universities would naturally want to compete for various student “markets”, relying on institutions to create an appropriate distribution. However, such a tactic doesn’t ensure that a market will emerge. That outcome still depends on the behaviour of individual institutions. Since universities operate in competition for prestige at least as much as for revenue (the two are closely connected), their “behaviour” as actors in a market is unlikely to mirror that of (e.g.) a pet food company or an automotive corporation. So the relationship between price and prestige is undoubtedly one factor in the equation; no-one wants to be a "low-cost provider".
In keeping with this logic, students do not behave like regular consumers when "shopping" for a university degree. They don't necessarily seek out what's affordable or reasonable in terms of cost; they are making an estimate on the future returns from their short-term investment, and education is not something that can be traded for a "better model" later on when one has more money to spend. Students are in a bind of their own, with those lacking present income being encouraged to take on debt in order to finance their future employability.
Lastly, it's very difficult to create “economies of scale” in education (in my opinion it can’t be done, but that’s a whole other blog post). Thus universities cannot easily expand enrolment while also keeping tuition low, offering "discount education"--though this has happened to a certain extent with for-profit, online providers, mostly in the United States.
Another important aspect of the UK government’s plan was to remove funding from teaching, already an under-valued aspect of university work (international rankings are based on research); and from what I understand, this funding was taken only from the arts, social sciences, and humanities. But it seems that that the very universities that depend most on those enrollments will now have to raise tuition even more to make up for the significant loss of revenue--more so than, say, a university focussed heavily on the sciences. Is the UK government asking students to pay more for degrees that they (the government) have demonstrably judged to be less valuable-? (NB, I don't personally believe that degrees outside STEM areas are less inherently valuable; but they are certainly less marketable according to the logic being employed.)
As it turns out, in most cases students will pay the same (increased) price for their degrees no matter where they choose to enroll; but clearly they won’t all be getting a better “product”. One reason is that the tuition money is replacing government funding that had been cut, rather than augmenting current income in order to increase “quality”. If the funding estimate of cost per student was considered insufficient to begin with, then it makes sense that universities would raise the level of tuition to the maximum possible (￡9,000). So it seems there might be a fundamental disagreement between universities and government about the “cost” of educating a student in a certain discipline or area of study (not a surprise).
On a more theoretical level, I don't believe it's possible for students to “receive” a uniform education since every person brings something different to, and takes something unique from, their educational experience.
Overall I think this is a good example of some of the problems with trying to marketise education as a “product” with an inherent economic/monetary value. Universities in Britain are now stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place: if they charge higher fees (i.e. above ￡6,000), they are more likely to be penalised by the government for inhibiting accessibility. The necessity for this stop-gap measure demonstrates the failure of the initial policy to establish the desired equilibrium. Such radical policy change within a short period is likely to have deep effects on the British universities, including changes to student decision-making and to the faculty workforce.
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