EDUCAUSE | Faculty and Contributed by Organizations or Campuses

Ithaka’s 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education

ckeller — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:51:48 -0500

Ithaka's 2006 survey of faculty members sought to determine their attitudes related to online resources, electronic archiving, teaching and learning and related subjects. This study affords the opportunity to develop trend analysis of many measurements collected in the 2003 and 2000 faculty surveys. As in the past, Ithaka developed a robust set of disciplinary and other demographic analyses that have allowed them to learn more about how best to serve the needs of different types of faculty members. Findings include;

Attitudes towards the possibility of a transition away from print format, both for scholarly journals and monographs
Perceptions of libraries and their value, including specific library functions, and how these perceptions are changing
Preferences in research practices, including disciplinary differences and changes over time
Attitudes towards archiving of both print and electronic resources
Preferences that lead authors to choose among scholarly journals in which to publish their articles, as well as attitudes towards digital repositories

Open Doors and Open Minds: What Faculty Authors Can Do to Ensure Open Access to Their Work Through Their Institution

ckeller — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:29:28 -0500

Recently, on February 12, 2008, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard University took a landmark step. The faculty voted to adopt a policy requiring that faculty authors send an electronic copy of their scholarly articles to the university’s digital repository and that faculty authors automatically grant copyright permission to the university to archive and to distribute these articles unless a faculty member has waived the policy for a particular article. Essentially, the faculty voted to make open access to the results of their published journal articles the default policy for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University.

Inspired by the example set by the Harvard faculty, this White Paper is addressed to the faculty and administrators of academic institutions who support equitable access to scholarly research and knowledge, and who believe that the institution can play an important role as steward of the scholarly literature produced by its faculty. This paper discusses both the motivation and the process for establishing a binding institutional policy that automatically grants a copyright license from each faculty member to permit deposit of his or her peer-reviewed scholarly articles in institutional repositories, from which the works become available for others to read and cite.

Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: An In-depth Study of Faculty Needs and Ways of Meeting Them

elilly — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:50:23 -0500

The Center for Studies in Higher Education, with generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is conducting research to understand the needs and desires of faculty for in-progress scholarly communication (i.e., forms of communication employed as research is being executed) as well as archival publication. In the interest of developing a deeper understanding of how and why scholars do what they do to advance their fields, as well as their careers, our approach focuses on fine-grained analyses of faculty values and behaviors throughout the scholarly communication lifecycle, including sharing, collaborating, publishing, and engaging with the public. Well into our second year, we have posted a draft interim report describing some of our early results and impressions based on the responses of more than 150 interviewees in the fields of astrophysics, archaeology, biology, economics, history, music, and political science.

Our work to date has confirmed the important impact of disciplinary culture and tradition on many scholarly communication habits. These traditions may override the perceived “opportunities” afforded by new technologies, including those falling into the Web 2.0 category. As we have listened to our diverse informants, as well as followed closely the prognostications about the likely future of scholarly communication, we note that it is absolutely imperative to be precise about terms. That includes being clear about what is meant by “open access” publishing (i.e., using preprint or postprint servers for work published in prestigious outlets, versus publishing in new, untested open access journals, or the more casual individual posting of working papers, blogs, and other non-peer-reviewed work). Our work suggests that enthusiasm for technology development and adoption should not be conflated with the hard reality of tenure and promotion requirements (including the needs and goals of final archival publication) in highly competitive professional environments.

Assessment From the Faculty Point of View

ckeller — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:39:55 -0600

Anthropologists say professors should stop looking at measuring outcomes as an external threat and start taking ownership of the process.

Exploring Burnout among University Online Instructors: An Initial Investigation

ckeller — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:43:10 -0500

Burnout has been identified as a significant issue among those in instructional positions. The purpose of the present research was to identify and describe the status of burnout among higher education online instructors. The population for this study included responses of 76 online instructors employed by baccalaureate granting institutions within the United States. A demographic survey and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES) were used to collect data from respondents. Data analysis
revealed online instructors possessed an average score on the emotional exhaustion subscale, high degree of depersonalization, and low degree of personal accomplishment

Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communication:Survey Findings from the University of California

ckeller — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:37:08 -0500

This paper reports the results of over 1,100 responses to a late 2006 survey of UC faculty attitudes and behavior with regard to several key issues in scholarly publishing and scholarly communication. The report is timed to inform Universitywide discussions - many of them prompted by a series of faculty white papers - about strategic responses to challenges and opportunities in the evolution of scholarly publishing and communication. The survey also provides important insight into how the University's eScholarship publishing services (including those offered in partnership with the UC Press) can meet faculty needs.

Office Hours: Coming to a Computer Near You

ckeller — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:07:37 -0500

Harvard University has begun experimenting with virtual office hours this semester. TAs will begin holding real-time, online help sessions for students this week. Using free, Java-based software, students can log on, chat with each other (via text or microphone) and even “raise their hands” with the click of a button, which adds them to a queue on the teaching fellow’s computer.

Navigating the Mammoth University

ckeller — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:59:52 -0500

The University of Minnesota has expanded its orientation for new faculty members from several hours to 3 days. The faculty are given information on the library systems and invited to attend faculty development workshops in teaching and learning along with information on other various aspects and programs the university has to offer.

University of Michigan Technology Transfer Policy

ckeller — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:48:30 -0500

This Policy defines the ownership, distribution, and commercialization of rights associated with Intellectual Property developed at or received by the University of Michigan, and describes the general obligations associated with the technology licensing process.

Faculty Database System: Content Management for Faculty Information

drupal — Sat, 26 May 2007 17:17:34 -0500

Duke University's dean of arts and sciences commissioned the Faculty Database System (FDS) as an institutional content management system after learning of the tool's initial implementation in the mathematics department. The tool's ability to address several ongoing operational needs involving faculty curriculum vitae (CV) and related staff and graduate student data was matched by its ease of use and syndication capabilities. Specifically, FDS was conceived as a means of providing the following functionalities: - Single point of entry for faculty CV data - Up-to-date departmental Web sites - Templates to standardize display of faculty Web pages - Easy and secure use by faculty and staff - Incentives for faculty to update their CV information on a timely basis - Conduit for faculty access to institutional and external databases (e.g., enterprise directory, PubMed) to use data from reference sources - Discipline-specific formatting conventions - Top-down and bottom-up policies and configurations - Ability to export to different formats and create customized reports - Streamlining of annual faculty evaluation process - Syndication of information across departments and the university - Accommodation of as many hierarchical levels of units as needed - Archive of data for future use and longitudinal reports

Institutional Repositories: Evaluating the Reasons for Non-use of Cornell University's Installation of DSpace

drupal — Thu, 03 May 2007 16:47:52 -0500

This article reports on a three-part evaluative study of institutional repositories. We describe the contents and participation in Cornell's DSpace and compare these results with seven university DSpace installations. Through in-depth interviews with eleven faculty members in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, we explore their attitudes, motivations, and behaviors for non-participation in institutional repositories.

2006–07 Salary Survey Executive Summaries

drupal — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:54:30 -0500

The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources have several salary surveys, including Administrative Compensation, National Faculty Salary Survey, and Mid-Level Executives.

The Invisible Professor and the Future of Virtual Faculty

drupal — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:19:38 -0500

"Traditional professors are disappearing from online classrooms as distance learning has altered their roles and responsibilities, as well as their professional status, job security, workload, rewards, and intellectual freedom. This article delineates some of the most significant challenges and suggests that distance learning has created new questions about the future of virtual faculty."

Penn Eyes Stricter Hiring Policies for Faculty

drupal — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:15:19 -0600

"After a spate of recent alleged misconduct, the school may start background checks of prospects."

UCLA Appointment

drupal — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:08:44 -0600

Policy on UCLA faculty appointments, includes Guide to Critical Functions & Background Checks and Background Check Authorization Form.

Criminal background checks for all campus jobs?

drupal — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:21:24 -0600

"The University System of Georgia is planning to require all newly hired faculty and staff members to undergo criminal background checks, a policy that has drawn fire from an organization that represents professors in the state."

AAUP Comments on Faculty Background Checks

drupal — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:58:08 -0600

The American Association of University Professors press release for a report titled "Verification and Trust: Background Investigations Preceding Faculty Appointments".

The Tablet PC For Faculty: A Pilot Project

drupal — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:06:29 -0500

This paper describes a pilot project with the purpose of evaluating the usefulness of tablet PCs for university professors. The focus is on the value of tablets primarily with respect to teaching and learning (and not for research or administrative work). Sixty-four professors, distributed across the various schools of a university, were provided with tablet PCs and were trained in their use. A survey was distributed to the participants at the end of the semester. There were 59 respondents, and of these 45 used the tablet in at least one of their classes. This paper describes the pilot project and the survey results. We observed that a) only a fraction of faculty are motivated to use tablet technology: roughly a third of faculty expressed an interest in replacing their notebook computer with a tablet computer and b) generally, participating faculty did indeed use tablet functionality in their classes and were convinced that this use resulted in a meaningful impact on teaching and learning.

Digital Assessments

drupal — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:46:14 -0500

Blackboard, one of the leading providers of course management systems to higher education, is working on an online course assessment application for colleges and universities. Assessment is becoming increasingly important for accreditation and for accountability, and most observers see online evaluations as the best option. Online assessment currently takes a number of forms, from loosely regulated sites for students to rate faculty to more formal course-evaluation applications. Creating such systems is costly, however, and institutions that have developed them have spent considerable time and money to make them workable for administrators who need data and for faculty and students who use them. Blackboard's system is expected to focus on evaluating the course as opposed to the professor, and officials from the company said the application could eventually grow to include centralized testing, though this would not be part of the initial version.

Be Polite, E-Polite

drupal — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 13:33:05 -0500

Two faculty members at the University of Oregon have added "netiquette" to the syllabus. The article is about how close e-mail has brought students and professors. So close, that students take the liberty of filling professors's in-boxes with everything from criticisms of classmates to grade venting and questions about how to shop for school supplies.

Addressing Faculty Concerns About Distance Learning

drupal — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 15:31:17 -0600

Despite the rapid growth of distance learning programs, faculty are often resistant to moving their courses into a distance learning format. This article synthesizes the common sources of concern among resistant faculty as identified in the literature, the mechanisms to bridge those concerns, and evaluates the effectiveness of the administrative solutions for faculty support that have sought to address them.

Campus Copyright Rights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations

drupal — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:03:21 -0600

The American Association of Universities produced a new white paper designed to help colleges and universities navigate copyright issues. "Campus Copyright Rights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations" presents information on copyright law and how it applies to traditional published works, digital materials, educational materials produced on campus, and library usage of copyrighted material.

"IM here" Reflections on Virtual Office Hours

drupal — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 15:45:55 -0600

AOL Instant messenger (IM) was used over four semesters as an additional way for students to contact us during office hours. Since college students primarily use IM as a way to interact socially with their friends and family, we were curious if students would use IM to contact us, who would use it, how often they would use it, and what the content of the IM interactions would be. After two years of collecting all IM exchanges with students, we found that students did use IM to contact us on a regular basis. Both male and female students in roughly equal numbers used IM. In addition, a majority of the exchanges were task related; that is, questions and comments relating to a particular course or assignment. Results, personal reflections, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Copyright Shouldn't Silence Creativity

drupal — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 10:39:47 -0600

The author discusses a professors claim that note-taking services may violate professors' copyrights.

Education & Government Salary Surveys

drupal — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 12:27:34 -0500

Links to various salary surveys focusing mostly on higher education faculty.

Professors Online: The Internet’s Impact on College Faculty

drupal — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 16:25:47 -0500

This paper reports on findings from a nationwide survey of Internet use by U.S. college faculty. The survey asked about general Internet use, use of specific Internet technologies (e–mail, IM, Web, etc.), the Internet's impact on teaching and research, its impact on faculty–student interactions, and about faculty perceptions of students' Internet use. There is general optimism, though little evidence, about the Internet's impacts on their professional lives. The findings show that institutions of higher education still need to address three broad areas (infrastructure, professional development, and teaching and research) to assist faculty to continue to make good use of the Internet in their professional work.

University as Author?

drupal — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:43:30 -0500

"The Kansas Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Kansas Board of Regents has to negotiate its intellectual property policy in the future, or whether it can simply hand down a decree – even one that asserts ownership of all faculty work."

Managing Virtual Adjunct Faculty: Applying the Seven Principles of Good Practice

drupal — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 11:39:27 -0500

Since the publication of the Seven Principles of Good Practice in 1987 by Chickering and Gamson, distance education has become a major delivery method for higher education. Virtual adjunct faculty have largely carried higher education into the cyber classroom. Adjunct faculty have always been broadly used in higher education, especially in the community college setting. Nationally, adjuncts teach 30-50% of all credit courses. At community colleges, adjuncts compose about 60% of all faculty (Gappa and Leslie, 1993).

Florida Community College at Jacksonville (FCCJ) has one of the largest distance learning programs in the state of Florida with yearly enrollments of more than 35,000. About 80% of all online course offerings are taught by virtual adjuncts. About 70% of the active 250 adjuncts teaching in the program reside in the state of Florida , and the other half in assorted states. This paper offers best practices for the support and management of online adjunct faculty within the framework of the Seven Principles for Best Practice.

Transitioning from Brick and Mortar to Online: A Faculty Perspective

drupal — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 10:49:50 -0500

This article presents faculty perspectives and experiences on transitioning a traditional brick-and-mortar program to an online degree program.

Understanding Faculty to Improve Content Recruitment for Institutional Repositories

drupal — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:49:26 -0600

"With the generous funding of a 2003 Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Leadership grant, the University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries endeavored to explore the apparent misalignment between the benefits and services of an IR with the actual needs and desires of faculty. Specifically, the grant sought to understand the current work practices of faculty in different disciplines in order to see how an IR might naturally support existing ways of work. This yearlong research has revealed some of the reasons why current IR systems are more useful to faculty in theory than in practice and has resulted in modifications to the University of Rochester's implementation of the DSpace code [7] to better align the repository with the existing work practices of faculty. Moreover, the findings have caused a complete rethinking of how we should explain and promote our IR."

The Roles of Mentors in Electronic Learning Environments

drupal — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 15:49:20 -0600

This article describes the roles of mentors to meet the need for mentors in electronic learning (eLearning) environments. The existing literature has documented factors impeding effective eLearning and the multiplicity of the faculty's roles that demands too much time on the faculty within eLearning environments. This article argues for the need for mentors to assist instruction and facilitate learning within eLearning environments. The roles of mentors built around the multiple roles of the faculty are then identifi ed as teaching assistants, social connectedness initiators, and technical supporters. A guideline for mentors outlining mentors' roles, responsibilities, and contributions was proposed. This guideline may be adopted by mentors as a fundamental job-aid in practicing mentoring. An example of implementation of mentors in an eLearning environment, which resulted in higher learning achievement, was also presented. In conclusion, it is suggested that mentors should be employed within eLearning environments for assisting students overcoming eLearning barriers and achieving effective learning within eLearning environments.

Faculty & Technology: Rewarding TET

drupal — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 15:30:47 -0500

Despite rapid adoption of technology-enhanced and teaching (TET) in higher education, institutions may unwittingly be thwarting faculty use of the tools.

From Campus to Web: The Changing Roles of Faculty From Classroom to Online Teaching

drupal — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:05:17 -0500

The objective of this research is to study the transition and self-perception of a sample group of Israeli faculty currently intergrating online teaching within campus-based teaching.

Faculty Self-Study Research Project: Examining the Online Workload

drupal — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 13:37:32 -0500

Concerns about faculty workload in the online environment are a reported deterrent to participation in online teaching. To date, such concerns have been based primarily on anecdotal evidence rather than empirical research. This paper describes a project in which six faculty members teaching courses through the Penn State World Campus conducted studies of the comparative workload in the online environment. Results of the studies indicated that faculty workload for teaching these online courses, as measured by time on task, was comparable to or somewhat less than that for face-to-face courses. However, a differential "chunking" of productive time contributed in some cases to a perception of increased workload. The success of the project suggests it is a replicable model for investigating various elements of the faculty experience in the online environment.

A Report on Librarian-Faculty Relations from a Sociological Perspective

drupal — Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:39:08 -0500

This paper reviews social science and library studies literatures on librarian-faculty relations, and presents a preliminary sociological analysis of these relations. The authors find an asymmetrical disconnection between both groups: Librarians and faculty identify a disconnection that keeps the two separated, but only librarians view this disconnection as problematic.

The Rights Stuff: Ownership in the Digital Academy

drupal — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:38:11 -0500

Drawing on examinations of intellectual property policies at some thirty North American institutions and interviews with faculty, administrators and legal counsel, The Rights Stuff cuts to the heart of the controversy to determine what is at stake for creators of intellectual property and for the institutions that employ them.

The Gatorade Fallacy

drupal — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:30:08 -0500

This article discusses the issue of who owns online courses and course materials? Faculty or the University?

Ownership of Copyrighted Works Created at or in Affiliation with the Univeristy of Michigan

drupal — Wed, 01 Oct 2003 11:54:33 -0500

This policy applies to works produced by University faculty, staff, students, other members of the University community, and contractors.

Intellectual Property Rights Policy

drupal — Thu, 24 May 2001 17:11:34 -0500

Proposed Intellectual Property rights management Policy. (4/01)

Responsible Computing: A Handbook for Faculty and Staff

drupal — Thu, 26 Apr 2001 11:00:38 -0500

This online Handbook is an attempt to produce a responsible computing manual for faculty and staff and many of the policies listed within are under review or subject to change based on interpretations of state and federal laws. Includes a link to the "When I go to U.Va...." video, used to encourage security and responsible computing at UVA.

Faculty Mobile Computing at Rensselaer

drupal — Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:06:49 -0600

This presentation will discuss A key to the success of Rensselaer's Mobile Computing program, integrating laptop computers into the curriculum. In preparation the first year of the program, Rensselaer provided 144 faculty with IBM ThinkPads identical to the students' model. Computing and Information Services (CIS) shared the cost of the laptops with the academic departments and the Office of the Provost. Academic Computing Services (ACS) worked with the faculty and other support organizations to identify and obtain software, offered training, and helped develop courseware.

Back to the Future - The Learning MarketSpace

drupal — Tue, 02 Jan 2001 15:58:38 -0600

Newsletter discussing the issue of intellectual property ownership of online course materials. Who owns the copyright, professors who create them or the universities they work for?

Web-Based Course Intellectual Property Rights

drupal — Thu, 16 Nov 2000 17:54:32 -0600

Draft recommendations of Intellectual Property Rights of web-based course material created and developed by instructors at Stevens Institute of Technology. Includes a preamble , Definitions and Distinctions of material development, Concepts and Model Agreements. Includes appendix C., Model Agreement Between Developer of an Entirely Online Course and The Stevens Institute of Technology

Who Owns Online Courses and Course Materials? Intellectual Property Policies for a New Learning Environment

drupal — Fri, 22 Sep 2000 11:29:43 -0500

On February 17-18, 2000, a group of fourteen higher education leaders gathered at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami, Florida, to participate in an invitational symposium. The topic was "Who Owns Online Courses and Course Materials? Intellectual Property Policies for a New Learning Environment." This was the second of the recently created Pew Symposia in Learning and Technology, whose purpose is to conduct an ongoing national conversation about issues related to the intersection of learning and technology.

The monograph is available on the Center's Web site (including a downloadable PDF version). A limited supply of printed copies are available and may be obtained by contacting Ms. Pat Bartscherer at bartp@rpi.edu or 518-695-5320.

Distance Education and Teaching Issues: Are Teacher Training and Compensation Keeping Up with Institutional Demands?

drupal — Fri, 10 Sep 1999 17:05:31 -0500

During March and April of 1998, a survey was distributed to 60 faculty at Arkansas State who had taught at least one course by compressed video to distance sites for the university. The purpose of this study was to determine how teachers, currently using distance education methods for course delivery, viewed the strengths and weaknesses of the method and its approach to educational instruction. Secondly, this study sought to determine whether teachers felt they had been sufficiently trained in adjusting their curriculum and instructional design to meet the needs of the distance learner. This study also investigated what methods faculty members utilized in the delivery of their courses. Finally, the affects on workload and compensation were assessed to determine whether teaching loads are still being determined in the traditional way by this university.

Space, Collaboration, and the Credible City: Academic Work in the Virtual University

drupal — Tue, 06 Oct 1998 13:07:42 -0500

This is an article from the electronic journal, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (vol.1, no.1) in a special issue on collaborative universities. This article discusses the issues of physical and electronic space in telecommunication-based academic collaboration and how physical space impacts work. The article outlines a history of city space and university space, and then concludes with considerations on how the collaborative university can preserve the pleasures of physical space, while leveraging the efficiencies of telecommunications.