EDUCAUSE | Faculty

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.

Spotlight On Identity Management: The Evolving Definition of "Student": Identity Management at Duke University

djacobs — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:01:32 -0500

The meaning of "student" is evolving at Duke University in response to many institutional and faculty outreach efforts. This trend is mirrored at many of Duke’s peer institutions. We see the concept of "learners" expanding beyond traditionally enrolled college students to include community participants, youth enrolled in talent programs, and continuing education students. At the same time, the realm of academic services faculty use for teaching has grown beyond traditional institutionally provided services such as Blackboard to encompass Flickr, blogs, Twitter, and any new technology available to faculty for free. How can we address the expansion in student population and in resources? How do you extend your institution’s computing resources to people outside your campus? How do you extend your local service concepts and policies to the end-user commodity-driven applications that are within any faculty’s reach? Lynne O'Brien and Klara Jelinkova will discuss the issues, concepts, and solutions surrounding identity management proposed and implemented at Duke University.

Tune In April 18 for a Free Web Seminar on Identity Management at Duke University

pkurkowski — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:04:50 -0500

The EDUCAUSE Live! Spotlight on Identity Management series is a six-month series that will feature one or two speakers from a campus that have analyzed or solved a problem in a way that many people will find instructive.

The meaning of "student" is evolving at Duke University in response to many institutional and faculty outreach efforts. This trend is mirrored at many of Duke's peer institutions. In this free seminar on April 18, The Evolving Definition of “Student”: Identity Management at Duke University, presenters Klara Jelinkova, Director, Computing Systems, and Lynne O’Brien, Director, Academic Technology and Instructional Services, Duke University, will discuss the issues, concepts, and solutions surrounding identity management proposed and implemented at Duke University.

The event is free, but registration is required and virtual seating is limited. Register now.

Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy

elilly — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:49:15 -0500

The default design of commercial course management systems limits instructional creativity and pedagogical approaches, particularly for novice users

Deploying Videoconferencing a New Way: Action Research for Collaboration Technologies

drupal — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:23:24 -0500

A new "action research" model for fostering the use of videoconferencing for faculty collaboration will be demonstrated and described. The project team provided behavior models that engaged the faculty directly rather than focusing on training and techniques. Evaluating the project's success using survey and interview data will also be presented.

How to Use What We Know: 21st-Century Faculty and Students

drupal — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:35:40 -0500

What do faculty really want from faculty development efforts designed to help them teach with technology? How can institutions best meet faculty needs in this area? This presentation will share results from longitudinal studies of faculty, students, and technology at the University of Minnesota and will discuss the impact of these results on our faculty development efforts.

Library Course Pages: Customized Library Resources for Learners

drupal — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:29:57 -0500

Providing library resources to the learner, at the point of need, is the focus of the University of Wisconsin Colleges Library Course Page Project. Each course has a dynamically created library course page, which provides learners with these materials. We will present features and implementation information, as well as how the program has been received.

Training Brick-and-Mortar Supervisors to Effectively Evaluate Online Courses and Teaching

drupal — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:13:44 -0500

The dean, division director, or department chair responsible for faculty performance evaluation may never have taught or taken an online course. Unions may stipulate that the same evaluation form be used for online and on-site evaluations. Learn how one college trained nontechnical evaluators to assess distance learning.

Tune in March 25 for a Free Web Seminar on Teaching with Digital Collections in Undergraduate Curriculum

pkurkowski — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:35:38 -0500

Many academic digital collection projects are focused on special collections and college archives. Such projects seek to bring collections "out of the basement" and enable greater access to valuable and specialized research materials. However, undergraduate students and faculty often have very different needs and expectations of these digital materials than experienced researchers or the general public.

What does it take to implement a digital asset management system that not only improves access to collections but also allows faculty to integrate digital materials into their teaching? In this free March 25 EDUCAUSE Live! web seminar, Teaching with Digital Collections in the Undergraduate Curriculum, presenters Marianne Colgrove, Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Director of Web Support Services, Reed College, and Dena Hutto, Director of Reference and Instruction, Reed College Library, will share their experiences in implementing a CONTENTdm-based digital image collection for the classics and humanities.

Those unable to attend may wish to visit the archives after the event or browse related EDUCAUSE resources on DAMS, Digital Collections, Learning Objects, and Teaching.