[English] Fwd: TL Infobits -- August 2009

Sat Sep 5 05:25:53 EST 2009

> From:   "Carolyn Kotlas" <kotlas at email.unc.edu>
> Date:   Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:38:23 -0400 
> Subject:   TL Infobits -- August 2009 

TL INFOBITS     August 2009  No. 38       ISSN: 1931-3144

About INFOBITS

INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning division. Each month the
ITS-TL's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a
number of information and instructional technology sources that come to
her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to
educators.

NOTE: You can read the Web version of this issue and all back issues at 
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/ 

......................................................................

Report on Online Education Study
Teaching with Web 2.0 Tools Mashups
Study Finds that Online Education Beats the Classroom
Future of Scholarly Publishing
Recommended Reading

......................................................................

REPORT ON ONLINE EDUCATION STUDY

"More than one-third of public university faculty have taught an online
course while more than one-half have recommended an online course to
students . . . . In addition, nearly 64 percent of faculty said it
takes 'somewhat more' or 'a lot more' effort to teach online compared
to a face-to-face course. However, a large majority of faculty cited
student needs as a primary motivator for teaching online, most commonly
citing 'meet student needs for flexible access' or the 'best way to
reach particular students' as the reason they choose to teach online
courses."

The two-part report, "Online Learning as a Strategic Asset," published
by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, summarizes the results of the APLU-Sloan
National Commission on Online Learning Benchmarking Study conducted in
2008 and 2009 that surveyed 45 public institutions across the U.S. The
study was "designed to illuminate how public institutions develop and
implement the key organizational strategies, processes, and procedures
that contribute to successful and robust online learning initiatives."

Volume I: "A Resource for Campus Leaders" reports the results of 231
interviews conducted with administrators, faculty, and students on
online learning programs and initiatives.
http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=1877

Volume II: "The Paradox of Faculty Voices: Views and Experiences with
Online Learning" reports on the results of a survey of over 10,700
faculty respondents which included a mix of tenure and non-tenure
track, full- and part-time, and those who have and those who have not
taught online.
http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=1879

The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), formerly
the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges
(NASULGC), was founded in 1887 and represents 186 public research
universities in the United States. For more information, contact: APLU,
1307 New York Avenue, NW,  Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005-4722 USA;
tel: 202-478-6040; fax: 202-478-6046; Web: http://www.aplu.org/

Articles providing an overview and summary of the study:

"Strong Faculty Engagement in Online Learning APLU Reports"
A PUBLIC VOICE: APLU'S ONLINE NEWSLETTER, August 31, 2009
http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1347

"Going For Distance"
INSIDE HIGHER ED, August 31, 2009
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/31/survey

"Professors Embrace Online Courses Despite Qualms About Quality"
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, August 31, 2009
http://chronicle.com/article/Professors-Embrace-Online/48235/

......................................................................

TEACHING WITH WEB 2.0 TOOLS MASHUPS

"It would be foolish to ignore the tremendous opportunities the Social
Web offers to education. Societal growth is profoundly dependent upon
the success of teaching and learning. Societies are founded on the
propagation and dissemination of knowledge, and formal learning has
become the prime gateway to knowledge. Teachers should therefore
continue to explore new and dynamic ways of providing excellent
pedagogical opportunities, with emerging social software tools assuming
greater importance."

In "Learning Space Mashups: Combining Web 2.0 Tools to Create
Collaborative and Reflective Learning Spaces" (FUTURE INTERNET, vol. 1,
no. 1, 2009, pp. 3-13), Steve Wheeler reports on two studies "where
tools [wikis and blogs] used for different pedagogical purposes were
brought together in combinations to create even more dynamic and
interactive experiences for learners." Students in the studies viewed
the wiki as a community collaboration space and the blog as their
personal reflective space. Wheeler argues that, despite the differences
in the two tools, such "mashups" of Web 2.0 tools warrant further
research. The paper is available at
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/1/1/3/pdf

Future Internet [ISSN 1999-5903], a quarterly Open Access journal on
Internet technologies and the information society, is published by
Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI). For more
information, contact: Future Internet Editorial Office, Molecular
Diversity Preservation International, Kandererstrasse 25, CH - 4057,
Basel, Switzerland; tel: +41 61 683 77 34; fax: +41 61 302 89 18;
email: futureinternet at mdpi.org; Web:
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternet

......................................................................

STUDY FINDS THAT ONLINE EDUCATION BEATS THE CLASSROOM

"Earlier studies of distance learning concluded that these technologies
were not significantly different from regular classroom learning in
terms of effectiveness. Policy-makers reasoned that if online
instruction is no worse than traditional instruction in terms of
student outcomes, then online education initiatives could be justified
on the basis of cost efficiency or need to provide access to learners
in settings where face-to-face instruction is not feasible. The
question of the relative efficacy of online and face-to-face
instruction needs to be revisited, however, in light of today’s online
learning applications, which can take advantage of a wide range of Web
resources, including not only multimedia but also Web-based
applications and new collaboration technologies."

The U.S. Department of Education's report, "Evaluation of
Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review
of Online Learning Studies" (2009), provides a summary of a literature
search of more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning
published from 1996 through July 2008. Analysis of these studies found
that "on average, students in online learning conditions performed
better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."

The report is available at 
http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-
practices/finalreport.pdf

As a publication of the U.S. government, the report is in the public
domain; authorization to reproduce this report in whole or in part is
granted.

......................................................................

FUTURE OF SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING

In 2006, the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) created a task force to
assist in "exploring issues related to scholarly journal publishing in
[U.S.] humanities and social science (HSS) associations." Each of the
eight collaborating associations selected a representative journal for
detailed review. Among the study's findings was that "a shift to an
entirely new funding model in the pure form of Open Access
(author/producer pays) in which the costs of publishing research
articles in journals are paid for by authors or a funding agency, and
readers have access free online, is not currently a sustainable option
for any of this group of journals based on the costs provided." 

The report of the study, "The Future of Scholarly Journals Publishing
Among Social Science and Humanities Associations," is available at
http://www.nhalliance.org/bm~doc/hssreport.pdf

Founded in 1981, the National Humanities Alliance is a non-profit
organization to "advance national humanities policy in the areas of
research, education, preservation and public programs." For more
information, contact:  National Humanities Alliance, 21 Dupont Circle
NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 202-296-4994; fax:
202-872-0884; Web: http://www.nhalliance.org/

See also: 

"Reinventing Academic Publishing Online. Part I: Rigor, Relevance and
	Practice"  by Brian Whitworth and Rob Friedman

FIRST MONDAY, vol. 14, no. 8, August 3, 2009
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/
2609/2248

"While current computing practice abounds with innovations like online
auctions, blogs, wikis, twitter, social networks and online social
games, few if any genuinely new theories have taken root in the
corresponding 'top' academic journals. Those creating computing
progress increasingly see these journals as unreadable, outdated and
irrelevant. Yet as technology practice creates, technology theory is if
anything becoming even more conforming and less relevant. We attribute
this to the erroneous assumption that research rigor is excellence, a
myth contradicted by the scientific method itself. Excess rigor
supports the demands of appointment, grant and promotion committees,
but is drying up the wells of academic inspiration."

......................................................................

RECOMMENDED READING

"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or
that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or
useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits
subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas at unc.edu for
possible inclusion in this column. 

"Perishing Without Publishing" By Rob Weir 

INSIDE HIGHER ED, August 12, 2009
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/instant_mentor/weir11

"As one who has served (and is serving) as an associate editor for
actual paper journals, let me share some bad practice observations that
could sandbag your career -- and this advice almost all applies to any
online peer-reviewed journal too." 
	-- Rob Weir

"How to Generate Reader Interest in What You Write" By Philip Yaffe

UBIQUITY, June 23 - 29, 2009
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/volume_10/v10i7_yaffe.html

" Unfortunately, most would-be authors cling to the myth that if they
just put in enough effort, people will automatically want to read what
they write."
	-- Philip Yaffe

......................................................................

INFOBITS RSS FEED

To set up an RSS feed for Infobits, get the code at
http://lists.unc.edu/read/rss?forum=infobits

......................................................................

To Subscribe

TL INFOBITS is published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill Information Technology Services Teaching and Learning division.
ITS-TL supports the interests of faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill who
are using technology in their instruction and research. Services
include both consultation on appropriate uses and technical support.

To subscribe to INFOBITS, send email to listserv at unc.edu with the
following message:

SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS firstname lastname

substituting your own first and last names.

Example: SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS Stuart M. Kaminsky

or use the web subscription form at 

http://mail.unc.edu/lists/read/subscribe?name=infobits

To UNsubscribe to INFOBITS, send email to listserv at unc.edu with the
following message:

UNSUBSCRIBE INFOBITS

INFOBITS is also available online on the World Wide Web at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/ (HTML format) and at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/text/index.html (plain text format).

If you have problems subscribing or want to send suggestions for future
issues, contact the editor, Carolyn Kotlas, at kotlas at email.unc.edu

Article Suggestions

Infobits always welcomes article suggestions from our readers, although
we cannot promise to print everything submitted. Because of our
publishing schedule, we are not able to announce time-sensitive events
such as upcoming conferences and calls for papers or grant
applications. 

While we often mention commercial products, publications, and Web
sites, Infobits does not accept or reprint unsolicited advertising
copy. Send your article suggestions to the editor at
kotlas at email.unc.edu

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2009, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ITS
Teaching and Learning. All rights reserved. May be reproduced in any
medium for non-commercial purposes.

Message sent using MelbPC WebMail Server