From jilloneill at nfais.org Wed Aug 1 09:43:45 2012 From: jilloneill at nfais.org (jilloneill at nfais.org) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 09:43:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [nfais-l] Draft of NISO/NFAIS Recommended Practice on Supplemental Materials, Part B Issued Message-ID: <1343828625.453611971@webmail.nfais.org> NISO and NFAIS Issue Draft for Public Comment of Second Part of Recommended Practice on Supplemental Materials for Journal Articles Baltimore, MD & Philadelphia, PA ? July 30, 2012 ? The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the National Federation for Advanced Information Services (NFAIS) have issued a new Recommended Practice on Online Supplemental Journal Article Materials, Part B: Technical Recommendations (NISO RP-15-201x) for public comment until September 15, 2012. Although supplemental materials are increasingly being added to journal articles, there is no recognized set of practices to guide in the selection, delivery, discovery, or preservation of these materials. To address this gap, NISO and NFAIS jointly sponsored a working group to establish best practices that would provide guidance to publishers and authors for management of supplemental materials and would solve related problems for librarians, abstracting and indexing services, and repository administrators. The Supplemental Materials project has two groups working in tandem: one to address business practices and one to focus on technical issues. The draft currently available for comment includes the recommendations from the Technical Working Group; the Business Group draft recommendations were issued earlier this year. Following the current public comment period, the two parts will be finalized and combined into the final Recommended Practice. ?The Technical Recommendations are consistent with the distinction made in Part A between Integral Content, which is essential for the full understanding of the journal article, and Additional Content, which provides relevant and useful expansion of the article?s content,? stated David Martinsen, Senior Scientist, Digital Publishing Strategy, American Chemical Society, and Co-chair of the NISO/NFAIS Supplemental Journal Article Materials Technical Working Group. ?Integral Supplemental Materials essential for understanding the article constitute part of the scholarly record and should be preserved at the same level as the article. The recommendations provide guidance to ensure such materials will be available in conjunction with, and as long, as the relevant journal article.? ?Ensuring effective access, use, and long-term preservation of supplemental materials to journal articles requires up-front planning about persistent identifiers, metadata, file formats, and packaging,? explained Alexander (?Sasha?) Schwarzman, Content Technology Architect with OSA ? The Optical Society, and Co-chair of the NISO/NFAIS Supplemental Journal Article Materials Technical Working Group. ?These technical recommendations for handling of supplemental materials simplify much of that planning and decision-making, and will also ensure a standardized approach across publishers and publishing platforms.? ?In support of the recommendations, the Working Group has also developed a metadata schema, a tag library, and tagged examples,? said Nettie Lagace, Associate Director for Programs. ?This supporting documentation, which is also available for review during the comment period, should be very helpful to implementers of this Recommended Practice.? Recommended Practice on Online Supplemental Journal Article Materials, Part B: Technical Recommendations, the supporting documentation, and an online commenting form are available from the NISO website at: [http://www.niso.org/workrooms/supplemental] www.niso.org/workrooms/supplemental. Publishers, authors, librarians, abstracting and indexing services, and repository administrators are all encouraged to review and comment on this draft. About NISO NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of an information standard. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). More information about NISO is available on its website: [http://www.niso.org/] www.niso.org. About NFAIS Founded in 1958, NFAIS is a membership organization of more than 60 of the world's leading producers of databases and related information services, information technology, and library services in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, business, and the arts and humanities. For more information on NFAIS and its member organizations, contact Jill O'Neill, Director of Communication and Planning ([file:///C:/Users/CAH/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/1VJSU7DI/jilloneill at nfais.org] jilloneill at nfais.org or (215)-893-1561) or visit the NFAIS web site ([file:///C:/Users/CAH/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/1VJSU7DI/www.nfais.org] www.nfais.org). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From blawlor at nfais.org Wed Aug 1 14:36:54 2012 From: blawlor at nfais.org (Bonnie Lawlor) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 14:36:54 -0400 Subject: [nfais-l] NFAIS Annual Conference - Mrk you Calendar Message-ID: <014e01cd7014$a00f3360$e02d9a20$@org> MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR THE 2013 NFAIS ANNUAL CONFERENCE February 24 - 26, 2013 Hyatt at the Bellevue Broad and Walnut Streets Philadelphia, PA 19102 In Search of Answers: Unlocking New Value from Content Each new generation of information products and services has slowly progressed along the path from delivering information towards the ultimate goal of delivering answers. Now at last the keys to unlocking much greater value from content may be at hand. The convergence of existing and emerging technologies for the mining, linking, analysis, measurement, and management of large quantities of global information across multiple media and data formats has produced an unprecedented toolkit which, if creatively applied, empowers publishers, librarians and users to develop new products and services and to expose, enhance, and create new layers of value along the entire information distribution chain. But how are these tools being used? How are content providers and librarians applying analytics and metrics to find the answers they need to improve the quality and relevance of all aspects of their business - products, services, client outreach, and business models? What new skill sets and infrastructures are required to leverage product opportunities in the world of textual, non-textual, and user-generated content? How is content being combined, mined, and analyzed to unearth new information and reveal the nuances of existing information? Can the overlay of tags, ontologies and links help unlock the value of content? What value-adds are users and other third parties creating and why are they creating them? To what extent are publishers making their content available to those who want to add value and what are the resulting business models? How are search technologies, user interfaces, and visualization tools evolving to engage users and provide answers at their point of need? Can tools such as sentiment and predictive analytics, the Internet of Things, and expert recommendations be more effectively used to provide targeted, relevant search results? How do advances in mobile and cloud computing influence the creation of added value? And will unlocking the value of content ultimately impact business models and practices? The 55th NFAIS Annual Conference will discuss these issues and more. No matter what role you play in the information community - content or technology provider, librarian, educator, or other information professional - this meeting is for you. It will provide you with an ideal opportunity to network with peers who are experimenting with content and technologies with the ultimate goal of unlocking new value from content and making the global delivery of quantifiable information for decision-making a reality! Save the date. Registration will open soon! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jilloneill at nfais.org Tue Aug 7 12:19:59 2012 From: jilloneill at nfais.org (jilloneill at nfais.org) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 12:19:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [nfais-l] NISO Announcement re ANSI/NISO Z39.98-2012 Message-ID: <1344356399.73628969@webmail.nfais.org> NISO and DAISY Consortium Publish Authoring and Interchange Framework Standard New standard defines how to create universally accessible electronic publications The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the DAISY Consortium announce the publication of the new American National Standard Authoring and Interchange Framework (ANSI/NISO Z39.98-2012). The standard defines how to represent digital information using XML to produce documents suitable for transformation into different universally accessible formats. The standard is a revision, extension, and enhancement ofSpecifications for the Digital Talking Book (DTB), commonly referred to as the DAISY standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005(R2012)). The DAISY Consortium is the Maintenance Agency for both standards. ?The A&I Framework is a modular, extensible architecture to permit the creation of any number of content representation models, each custom-tailored for a particular kind of information resource,? states Markus Gylling, Chief Technology Officer at the DAISY Consortium and Technical Chair of the DAISY Revision Working Group. ?It also provides support for new output formats, which can be added and implemented as the need arises. The standard does not impose limitations on what distribution formats can be created from it; e-text, Braille, large print, and EPUB are among formats that can be produced in conformance with the standard.? ?Organizations in the DAISY community and in the mainstream of publishing have been looking for an XML framework that is powerful and flexible,? states George Kerscher, Secretary General for the DAISY Consortium and Administrative Chair of the DAISY Revision Working Group. ?The Authoring and Interchange Framework not only meets this need, it expands the possibility of what can be produced for the existing community of users of DAISY books and also enlarges the potential audience of both developers and users of resources that conform to this standard. New applications using this standard could include electronic magazines as well as digital books, text to speech rendering for e-readers, and multimedia publications.? ?Although the new A&I Framework standard is intended to replace the Digital Talking Bookstandard,? explains Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director, ?feedback during trial use of the standard indicated that content providers and device manufacturers would need a transition period of several years due to the significance of the changes in the standard. To meet this need, the existing DTB standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.86) was reaffirmed for another five years and the A&I Framework was assigned a new standard number (ANSI/NISO Z39.98).? The A&I Framework standard will be of interest to any organization using an XML authoring workflow, developers and publishers of universally accessible digital publications, and agencies interested in creating profiles for new document types to integrate into distribution formats, such as EPUB. Both the A&I Framework standard and the Digital Talking Book standard are available for free download from the NISO website ([http://daisy.niso.org/] daisy[http://daisy.niso.org/] .[http://daisy.niso.org/] niso[http://daisy.niso.org/] .[http://daisy.niso.org/] org) and the DAISY website ([http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] www[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] .[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] daisy[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] .[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] org[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] /[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] daisy[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] -[http://www.daisy.org/daisy-standard] standard). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jilloneill at nfais.org Mon Aug 13 12:51:02 2012 From: jilloneill at nfais.org (jilloneill at nfais.org) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:51:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [nfais-l] ATLA - Job Postings Message-ID: <1344876662.215612777@webmail.nfais.org> Posted by Request NFAIS member organization ATLA has two job openings in their downtown Chicago, IL offices. If you have an interest in either of these openings, please be sure to use the contact information available via the job listing links for each position. Do not respond to the NFAIS listserv. Production Manager The American Theological Library Association (ATLA) seeks qualified applicants for a position as Production Manager for ATLA's products. The Production Manager is responsible for the accurate and timely delivery of data sets to ATLA's vendors on a set production cycle for ATLASerials(r) (ATLAS(r)), ATLA Religion Database(r) (ATLA RDB(r)), and ATLA Catholic Periodical and Literature Index(r) (ATLA CPLI(r)) as well as ATLA's partner products New Testament Abstracts (NTA) and Old Testament Abstracts (OTA). This includes responsibility for digitization, data processing, data integrity, and quality of records as well as the maintenance of all data files. S/he is also responsible for integrating specific sets of retrospective data into the production database, enhancing existing products, and helping develop "proofs of concept" for new products. The Production Manager reports to the Director of ATLA's Products Department and supervises the digitization, IT, and QA teams (approx. 7 people). Full description here: [https://www.atla.com/Members/development/jobs/Pages/ATLA-Production-Manager.aspx] https://www.atla.com/Members/development/jobs/Pages/ATLA-Production-Manager.aspx Communications Specialist The American Theological Library Association (ATLA) seeks qualified applicants for a position as Communications Specialist within the Member Programs Department. The Communications Specialist is responsible for planning, writing, designing and editing print and electronic communications and materials reflecting the association's membership and activities. This position manages relationships and projects with members, vendors, consultants, and colleagues as appropriate. The Communications Specialist reports to the Director of Member Programs. Full description here: [https://www.atla.com/Members/development/jobs/Pages/ATLA-Communications-Specialist.aspx] https://www.atla.com/Members/development/jobs/Pages/ATLA-Communications-Specialist.aspx Jill O'Neill Director, Planning & Communication NFAIS Email: jilloneill at nfais.org Voice: 215/893-1561 Web: [http://www.nfais.org] http://www.nfais.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jilloneill at nfais.org Fri Aug 24 16:13:29 2012 From: jilloneill at nfais.org (jilloneill at nfais.org) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:13:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [nfais-l] Hot Topics in Big Data Message-ID: <1345839209.0516397@webmail.nfais.org> Hot Topics in Big Data: What You Need to Know Now! A One-Day Workshop Co-sponsored by CENDI and NFAIS Hosted by FEDLINK at the Library of Congress The Mumford Room, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20540 Tuesday, December 11, 2012 * 9:00 am - 4:30 pm * WHO SHOULD ATTEND? This one-day workshop will appeal to anyone concerned with effectively managing, analyzing, and using large volumes of structured and/or unstructured content - librarians, publishers, scientists and scholars, technologists, and other information professionals. If you need to know more about the key issues and current trends in handling Big Data, what tools are emerging for data mining and analytics, the new skill sets required for data management and curation, and how some institutions are living up to the challenges presented by the growth of scholarly and scientific data, this meeting is for you. Registration will open August 22nd to accommodate those who need to pay before the new fiscal year begins. THE FOCUS OF THE DAY Dr. George Strawn, Director of the National Coordination Office for the U.S. multi-agency Networking and Information Technology Research Development (NITRD) Program, will open the day with a compelling overview of the Big Data landscape - the growth of content, its impact on storage and use capacity, and the many issues that have to be addressed now - skill sets, policies, analytic tools, and more. This will be followed by case studies from organizations such as the World Data System and the Earth Science Information Partnership who will discuss how they have been impacted by the growth of data, the challenges they now face in content management, new systems and policy requirements, workflow issues, etc., and how they are adapting to change. After lunch (which will be provided), speakers from the research and publishing communities (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the American Chemical Society, and Nature Publishing) will address developments related to data citation, data linking, and the handling of journal article supplemental materials, covering issues of interest to librarians, content providers and users. In addition, there will be a session focused on the emerging skill sets required to handle large volumes of data with a principal of the McKinsey Global Institute discussing the results of a recent study on this issue. The day will close with Dennis Gannon, Director, Cloud Research, Microsoft Research Connections, providing an overview of the field of data analytics - successful applications, opportunities, and challenges - along with some new initiatives in this field that you can expect from Microsoft. Other speakers are being confirmed so the day will be full of interesting presentations and discussions. Speakers have been chosen for their expertise in the subject matter to be addressed. Plan on joining us for an informational and thought-provoking day. REGISTRATION AND UPDATED INFORMATION As the agenda firms up, it will be made available online. Online registration is now open at [http://cendi.gov/activities/12_11_2012_CENDI_NFAIS_FEDLINK.html] http://cendi.gov/activities/12_11_2012_CENDI_NFAIS_FEDLINK.html. Watch for future communiqu?s on this timely and informative event, but for NOW - mark December 11th on your calendar!!! FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT: Jill O?Neill Kathryn Simon Director, Communication and Planning Administrative Coordinator, CENDI Secretariat NFAIS c/o Information International Associates, Inc. 1518 Walnut Street, Suite 1004 104 Union Valley Road Philadelphia, PA 19102-3403 Oak Ridge, TN 37830 (215) 893-1561 Voice (865) 298-1234 Voice (215) 893-1564 Fax (865) 481-0390 Fax jilloneill at nfais.org ksimon at iiaweb.com CENDI (http://www.cendi.gov) CENDI, the Federal STI Managers Group, was formally created in 1985 when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by four charter U.S. government agencies (Commerce, Energy, NASA, and Defense). From this small core of STI managers, CENDI has grown to its current membership of 12 major science agencies involved in the dissemination and long-term management of scientific and technical information. NFAIS (http://www.nfais.org) Founded in 1958, the National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS?) is a global, non-profit membership organization serving all those who create, aggregate, organize, and otherwise provide ease of access to and effective navigation and use of trustworthy, high-quality information. To improve member capabilities and contribute to their ongoing success, NFAIS provides opportunities for education, advocacy, and a forum in which to address common interests. FEDLINK (http://www.loc.gov/flicc/) The mission of the Federal Library Information Network (FEDLINK) is to foster excellence in federal library and information services through interagency cooperation and to encourage efficient and effective procurement of information resources. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jilloneill at nfais.org Tue Aug 28 10:30:51 2012 From: jilloneill at nfais.org (jilloneill at nfais.org) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2012 10:30:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [nfais-l] NFAIS Enotes: Milking the MOOC Message-ID: <1346164251.831812421@webmail.nfais.org> NFAIS Enotes, 2012 Written and Compiled by Jill O?Neill Milking the MOOC This past June at the University of Virginia (U.VA.), two powerful women wrestled over the direction of the university with regard to the delivery of education in online environments. U.VA. Board of Visitors Rector, Helen Dragas, had hinted to the Board that the university might be in danger of losing prestige as well as significant philanthropic opportunities due to President Teresa Sullivan?s sedate pace in embracing online learning market initiatives such as EdX ([https://www.edx.org/] https://www.edx.org/) and Coursera ([http://www.coursera.org/] http://www.coursera.org). Over the course of two weeks, university administrators, faculty, and students wrangled, demonstrated, and finally (after the cross-intervention of an embarrassed state governor) reconciled. The conflict was noted by many experts as indicative of significant challenges facing higher education in this country. Funding challenges for facilities, teaching and research, technological shifts, shifting student expectations and heightened demand for STEM curricula were those cited by The New York Times in its numerous stories covering the events. One quote in the Times that caught my eye was from Molly Corbett Broad of the American Council on Education, ??there are rising expectations that universities will transform themselves very quickly, if not overnight. Somehow, they?re supposed to achieve dramatic improvement in learning productivity and at the same time reduce costs by using educational technology.? (see: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/education/public-universities-see-familiar-fight-at-virginia.html] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/education/public-universities-see-familiar-fight-at-virginia.html). The National Research Council issued its report, Research Universities and the Future of America, which largely echoed those concerns, particularly with regard to the need for increased funding and upgrading of the cyber-infrastructure, thereby improving productivity as well as cost-efficiency (see: [http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/bhew/researchuniversities/index.htm] http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/bhew/researchuniversities/index.htm). The Wall Street Journal, with one of the many headlines that fueled the battle at U.VA., stressed that ?the substitution of technology (which is cheap) for labor (which is expensive) can vastly increase access to an elite caliber education.? To its credit, the WSJ did acknowledge that it was still early days yet and that even the likes of Harvard and MIT didn?t know exactly what they were doing in this realm. (The Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2012, Page A17). The paper was speaking most particularly of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses). A short primer on MOOCs. There are two schools of thought about such online learning environments. The older school is considered to be the Connectivist school, currently led by such educators as Dr. George Siemens and Dr. Stephen Downes. These educators introduce their online courses as follows: This is an unusual course. It does not consist of a body of content you are supposed to remember. Rather, the learning in the course results from the activities you undertake and will be different for each person. In addition, this course is not conducted in a single place or environment. It is distributed across the web. We will provide some facilities. But we expect your activities to take place all over the Internet. We will ask you to visit other people?s web pages and even to create some of your own (see: [http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/open-online-courses-as-new-educative-practice] http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/open-online-courses-as-new-educative-practice). Learners are presented with content, but are largely expected to explore and learn from their experiences in that exploration, exchanging with other students their own discoveries and building collaboratively in a highly decentralized fashion. To borrow from Dr. Siemens? explanation, learners ?are expected to create, grow, expand domain and share personal sense making through artifact creation.? A more detailed formal discussion of the connectivist approach may be found at: [http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/06/03/what-is-the-theory-that-underpins-our-moocs/] http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/06/03/what-is-the-theory-that-underpins-our-moocs/. What is key to remember is the underlying philosophy that the most effective learning is self-directed, fueled by personal interest and motivation, with an emphasis on social networked learning. The second school of thought is the Stanford or instructivist model. This model tends to be more traditional in the sense of imparting information via video lectures with embedded quizzes and/or exercises for purposes of assessment. It is in assessment that the two approaches actually differ. Ideally, as far as Connectivists are concerned, it is the learner as an individual who assesses the actual level of learning/accomplishment acquired. But as MOOC pioneer Dr. Stephen Downes admits, there are other approaches, specifically the Big Data Learning Analytics approach where automated systems track and measure, and Downes? own approach to assessment, network clustering. As you might expect, given the emphasis on social networked learning, this is defined as ?in a network of interactions in a community, expertise constitutes a cluster of activity and a person?s learning can be assessed as a form of proximity to that cluster.? His network clustering and the learning analytics approach are not mutually exclusive (see: [http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2012/04/rise-of-moocs.html] http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2012/04/rise-of-moocs.html). The Stanford model tends to favor the learning analytics approach of assessment. By tracking the real achievers who complete the full MOOC offering (MOOCs can experience up to 97% attrition by those who initially enroll), the founder of commercial MOOC platform Udacity ([http://www.udacity.com/] http://www.udacity.com/), Sebastian Thrun, expects that his organization will be funded in large part by connecting the elite with high-paying technology companies seeking talent. There are some interested parties still negotiating on the models and shapes for MOOCs (see: [http://researchity.net/2012/08/14/what-is-and-what-is-not-a-mooc-a-picture-of-family-resemblance-working-undefinition-moocmooc/] http://researchity.net/2012/08/14/what-is-and-what-is-not-a-mooc-a-picture-of-family-resemblance-working-undefinition-moocmooc/ and [http://lisahistory.net/wordpress/2012/08/three-kinds-of-moocs/] http://lisahistory.net/wordpress/2012/08/three-kinds-of-moocs/). (Note: Both of these are worth reading). What differentiates MOOCs from open courseware initiatives, such as that launched by MIT ten years ago, is the level of interaction with others during the learning process. For example, I have sampled a course from the Yale Open University catalog where the available instruction consisted of streaming videos of lectures, transcripts of those lectures, and a few course hand-outs. As it turned out, Yale University Press subsequently published the edited transcripts of the lectures in book form. The educational decision in this instance was determining how I wanted to learn, whether by watching videos and skimming the transcripts or by reading the published book. Given that the course was a mix of history, theology and literature, either option was manageable. The upside was that the learning could move ahead according to my schedule and inclination for engagement. The downside was that it was a solitary learning experience. While I might be personally confident that I?d grasped newly-introduced concepts appropriately, there was no one to tell me otherwise. Contrast that with the experience of the Coursera offering, Introduction to Fantasy & Science Fiction, in which I have participated for several weeks. The Coursera platform has numerous technical gremlins permeating its discussion forums and wikis. Editable forms for submitting assignments don?t operate properly; servers aren?t consistently up to handling the load created by 40,000 users. Syncing sound and picture during the video lectures represents far more of a challenge than it ought. But none of this has been overly disconcerting or unmanageable. What has been challenging is the peer assessment, key to the learning process in any MOOC. How did this work (or not work)? In my experience, the student submitted an essay of 270-320 words by noon of Tuesday. By 12:05, those essays (essentially the length of a single email or blog entry) were made available to four other enrolled students who were asked to give feedback based on form and content, assigning a numerical rating between 1 (low) and 3 (high). Feedback was due within 48 hours; once that time frame had elapsed (mid-day Thursday), the original author could access the comments provided by others and see where his or her submission might be improved. Those students who had assessed the material were subsequently provided with a table that showed them in turn how their grading compared with others in the course; students had been coached that 1?s and 3?s shouldn?t be assigned to more than 30% of the essays in any given unit. However, this type of process represented a challenge across a student population of more than 10,000 students whose language skills ranged from the most basic grasp of English to those whose vocabulary hinted at a far greater mastery. Eavesdropping in on- and off-site groups indicated general unhappiness with the process, simply because there were such inconsistencies in what one?s so-called peers offered as feedback. (Experiences of five random students taking the same course may be read on this LibraryThing thread: [http://www.librarything.com/topic/140136] http://www.librarything.com/topic/140136; discussion specifically oriented towards assessment begins roughly around posting #71). Another Coursera offering was on the topic of Internet History, Technology and Security by University of Michigan faculty, Dr. Charles Severance. This course depends heavily on video because many of the experts who helped to launch and develop the Internet are still with us. Filmed interviews between Severance and those experts are about as good a textbook on the topic as one might find. The numerous learning resources included both proprietary content from IEEE as well as content from the Open Web. In this course, the instructor inserts no-credit quiz questions during many of the videos with the understanding that the graded mid-term and final exams would determine a participant?s pass/fail status. Note that both of these Coursera offerings are supposed to award instructor-generated certificates or letters of completion. At some later point, Coursera founders suggest that they themselves will issue such certifications, most likely at a cost of ?tens of dollars.? Coursera is, as a start-up platform provider, out in front in many respects, having signed contracts with a number of high profile universities. One example of the business agreement offered can be seen in this executed version with the University of Michigan (see: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/400864/coursera-fully-executed-agreement.pdf] https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/400864/coursera-fully-executed-agreement.pdf). Academics have been raising serious objections to MOOCs as educational delivery vehicles, particularly in the wake of Coursera?s July announcement that it had recruited twelve additional institutions of note to its roster of courses (including Duke University, Rice University, Princeton and the University of Illinois ? Urbana Champaign). Ian Bogost of Georgia Tech had a field day in his blog entry, entitled MOOCs are Marketing, saying ?Coursera is marketing. Buying in associates an institution with a vague signal of futurism and reinvention, associates a purportedly "elite" institution with its elite brethren, and buys some time while the whole thing shakes out. Facebook page? Check. Twitter account? Check. Coursera courses? Check.? (see: [http://www.bogost.com/blog/moocs_are_marketing.shtml] http://www.bogost.com/blog/moocs_are_marketing.shtml). Another excellent point made later in his essay returns to that The Wall Street Journal headline referenced earlier about replacing expensive labor with cheap automation. Says Bogost: This is the biggest and most insidious misconception, the one that pervades every conversation about online education. The fundamental problem isn't one of cost containment, it's one of funding - of understanding why the cost-containment solution appeared in the first place. We collectively "decided" not to fund education in America. Now we're living with the consequences. Lost on those who mount such defenses is the fact that running these online courses costs more rather than less money in the short term (Georgia Tech's Coursera faculty are taking on the task on top of their normal work), and doesn't produce any direct revenue for anyone, not even Coursera.? It?s hard to fault that logic. It?s hard to see this burst of activity surrounding MOOCs as anything more than the marketing signal Bogost has flagged. Coursera is using these courses as a beta-test for its platform while institutions are using these courses as a beta-test for alternate approaches to attracting and retaining students. This is not about education. It?s about big data -- the massive data sets revealing cross-cultural student behavior and usage that may be aggregated through these online learning environments. The Chronicle of Higher Education had an interview (see: [http://chronicle.com/article/A-Conversation-With-2/132953/] http://chronicle.com/article/A-Conversation-With-2/132953/) with two academics who developed the personalized learning software, Knewton. When asked what data Knewton collected, one of the academics replied ?Knewton's capturing in the hundreds of thousands of data per user per day. We're capturing what you're getting right, what you're getting wrong, what answers you're falling for if you get something wrong, what concepts are in that answer choice that you're falling for. We're also capturing when you log into the system; how much you do; what tasks you do; what you don't do; what was recommended that you do that you didn't do, and vice versa. Your time on task for every little task, whether it's reading something or doing a practice question or watching something. Your click rate?how fast you're clicking on stuff.? What makes Knewton of real interest is that once data-mined, the system builds a profile for each student and delivers recommendations as to the next learning activity to which that student should be directed for purposes of maximum retention. According to the Chronicle, this software is already being used by Pearson. More detail on how data-gathering is impacting on the entire student learning process in higher education is offered up in an expanded version of the Chronicle piece for the New York Times (see? [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/colleges-awakening-to-the-opportunities-of-data-mining.html] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/education/edlife/colleges-awakening-to-the-opportunities-of-data-mining.html). Well worth a read! Robert F. Bruner, the Dean of the Darnden Business School at the University of Virginia, acknowledged (after the dust had settled somewhat) that his graduate school would be delivering a course in January of 2013 through the Coursera platform. The longest part of his blog entry is devoted to the question uppermost in the minds of many, ?Is this sustainable?? Echoing Ian Bogost?s concerns, he wrote, ?In my previous blog post, I argued, ?online is more likely to spawn losses for the traditional not-for-profit colleges and universities - this stems from the cost of creating digital content and reinventing programs.? The operative phrase is ?more likely?Who bears the cost of this? The universities, not the aggregators. These developments promise tremendous value to the world and to students everywhere. The outcome could be a very positive paradigm shift for access to quality education and lifelong learning. But, for that value to be realized, many losses will be incurred and no one is going to go down without a fight.? (see: [http://blogs.darden.virginia.edu/deansblog/2012/07/course-courser-coursant-cours/] http://blogs.darden.virginia.edu/deansblog/2012/07/course-courser-coursant-cours/). Big Data is nearly as much of a buzzword currently as MOOC. But the surge of interest in both indicates significant changes ahead in the academic marketplace served by NFAIS members. Whatever long-standing irritations currently exist between the academic community and the organizations that serve and support the information needs of that community will have to be tabled or resolved if we?re to ensure that scholarship and learning successfully transition to a more sophisticated plain of existence. 2012 NFAIS Supporters Access Innovations, Inc. Accessible Archives, Inc. American Psychological Association/PsycINFO CAS CrossRef Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc. Defense Technical Information Center EBSCO Publishing Getty Research Institute The H. W. Wilson Foundation Information Today, Inc. IFIS OCLC Philosopher?s Information Center ProQuest RSI Content Solutions Silverchair Information Systems TEMIS, Inc. Thomson Reuters IP & Science Thomson Reuters IP Solutions Unlimited Priorities LLC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jilloneill at nfais.org Thu Aug 30 12:49:35 2012 From: jilloneill at nfais.org (jilloneill at nfais.org) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:49:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [nfais-l] Multiple Screen Usage Message-ID: <1346345375.85911818@webmail.nfais.org> NFAIS members may want to view the embedded slide presentation at: [http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/29/if-content-is-king-multiscreen-is-the-queen-says-new-google-study/] http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/29/if-content-is-king-multiscreen-is-the-queen-says-new-google-study/. The presentation is one from Google about a recent study that they did about how and when users are accessing content on the variously-sized screens on multiple devices. The study looked at 1600 participants in Los Angeles, Boston, and Austin. The truly interesting statistics begin on about slide #12. Jill O'Neill Director, Planning & Communication NFAIS Email: jilloneill at nfais.org Voice: 215/893-1561 Web: [http://www.nfais.org] http://www.nfais.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: