November 2013 volume 1, issue 2
Gl bal
education news
A selection of International Articles and Interest Stories in Higher Education
Silver kills bacteria SOURCE: MARK LORCH (Ars Technica)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-silverkillsbacteria he use of silver in medicine is as old as Western medicine itself. Hippocrates is known to have used it to treat ulcers and wounds, the Romans knew of its healing properties, and its usage continues up until today. In the antibiotic age, interest in silver may have waned, but with urgent need to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria, there has been a resurgence in its use. A paper published in the journal Science Translation Medicine sheds some light on silver’s success against bacteria as bacteria has been unable to develop a resistance against it. The most important finding is that silver—unlike most antibiotics—works in more than one way. Firstly, silver sticks very strongly to sulphur groups, found in parts of proteins. These groups normally bond to each other, holding the proteins together and keep them folded up in their correct shape. But if silver interacts with sulphur, then the protein cannot fold correctly, and thus it cannot do its job. Secondly, silver interferes with how bacteria use iron which is often held in place within proteins by binding to sulphur. Since silver also interacts with sulphur, it blocks the iron from doing so. And thirdly, silver causes bacteria to produce toxic substances known as reactive oxygen species. These go on to cause damage inside the cell, harming the DNA, proteins, and even the membrane that surround cells. The result of this is that silver causes severe damage to bacteria’s basic biochemistry. In addition, the membranes and walls that surround the bacteria are leakier after the silver treatment, which allows conventional antibiotics inside the cells and causes them to break down. James Collins of Boston University, who led the research, showed that with added silver, less antibiotic drug is needed to kill the bugs. This may be a great result, but it gets better. Silver also reverses antibiotic resistance of E. coli bacteria, making them, once more, susceptible to tetracycline. When silver was added to standard antibiotics such as gentamicin and vancomycin, Collins could treat E. coli infections in the bladder and abdomens of mice. Finally, Collins showed that the mice themselves remain unharmed by silver. If he is able to repeat this work in humans, he may actually have a “silver bullet” for antibiotic resistance.
Stress and dad’s sperm SOURCE: ANOUK VLEUGELS http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-stessanddadssperm
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or the first time, researchers have found that stress can leave an epigenetic mark on sperm, which altering the offspring’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, a part of the brain that deals with responding to stress. The experiment was conducted with preadolescent and adult male mice, in which stress was induced (by confronting the mice with fox urine or foreign objects). Their offspring, both male and female, turned out to have abnormally low reactivity to stress. This can be both an extreme high or very low reactivity which means that an organism cannot respond to changes in its environment. In people, this might cause stress-related mental disorders. “It didn’t matter if dads were going through puberty or in adulthood when stressed before they mated. We’ve shown here for the first time that stress can produce long-term changes to sperm that reprogram the offspring HPA stress axis regulation,” said lead author Tracy Bale, associate professor of neuroscience. “These findings suggest one way in which paternal-stress exposure may be linked to such neuropsychiatric diseases.” The scientists also examined the role of a series of microRNA (miRs) in the sperm – so-called non-coding RNA molecules that contribute to the expression of genes in the offspring, after fertilization. The results showed that in stressed male mice, there was a significant increase in expression of nine miRs. According to the researchers dads may be able to “prepare” their offspring for certain environmental threats. “Next, we are examining the mechanism whereby these sperm miRs act at fertilisation, and then we can think about using them as biomarkers in human diseases,” said Bale. “And then we can begin to predict who has been exposed to what, and to think about prevention or treatment down the road.”
Human eye less mysterious SOURCE: ROSE PASTORE (Popular Science)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-humaneyelessmysterious
he newest addition to our human anatomy may just be 15 microns thick, but its discovery will make eye surgery safer and simpler. As reported in the journal Ophthalmology, Harminder Dua, a professor at the University of Nottingham, recently found a new layer in the human cornea by injecting air into eyes and then used an electron microscope to scan each separated
layer. This new layer has now been named as “Dua’s layer”. Dua’s team believes that a tear in this layer is the cause of corneal hydrops, a disorder that leads to fluid buildup in the cornea. According to Dua, knowledge of the new layer could dramatically improve outcomes for patients undergoing corneal grafts and transplants. “This is a major discovery that will mean that ophthalmology textbooks will literally need to be re-written,” says Dua. “From a clinical perspective, there are many diseases that affect the back of the cornea which clinicians across the world are already beginning to relate to the presence, absence or tear in this layer.”
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GLOBAL EDUCATION NEWS
July 2013, issue 1
Education technology catching on SOURCE: THE ECONOMIST
http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-educationtechnology
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n a school in Chicago, 40 children between the ages of five and six sit learning in a classroom. In front of each of them is a computer running software called Reading Eggs. Some are reading a short story and others are building sentences with words they are learning. Now and then a child will be taken aside for reading periods with their teachers. The director of North Kenwood-Oakland School says this sort of teaching, blending software with human intervention, helps pupils learn faster. On top of that, she feels that the school gains an accurate, continuous record of each child’s performance as the data is collected and analysed via the programmes. The idea that technology can revolutionise education is not new. In the 20th century we were told that every new invention would have big implications for schools. Companies promoting typewriters, moving pictures and film projectors etc, have all promised to improve student performance. These claims were not entirely false: some motivated children made use of new technologies to learn things they would have otherwise missed.
Over the course of the 20th century studies have found that mass education produced populations more literate, numerate and productive than any the world had seen before. Teaching programs such like this one that monitor children’s progress can perform a role more like that of the private tutors and governesses employed long ago in wealthier households. Data derived from each child’s responses can be used to tailor what he sees or hears next on the computer screen. The same data also allow continual assessment of his abilities and shortcomings, letting schools, teachers and parents understand both the pupil himself and the way human beings learn. As the Council on Foreign Relations reported recently, America continues to slip down the international rankings in education, falling during the past three decades from first to tenth in the educational level of those leaving high school, and from third to 13th for college students. Education technology could reverse this trend—if it is not jinxed by politics, bureaucracy and outdated institutional structures. Countries where it is not now have the chance to race ahead.
MOOC-skeptical provosts SOURCE: RY RIVARD (Iside Higher Ed) http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-MOOC-skeptical-provosts
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he provosts of Big 10 universities and the University of Chicago are in high-level talks to create an online education network across their campuses, which collectively enroll more than 500,000 students a year. These provosts from some of America’s top research universities have concluded that they – not corporate entrepreneurs and investors -must drive online education efforts. The plans and concerns are outlined in a position paper that comes just as education technology companies, including Coursera and 2U, are working to expand or deepen their ties to universities, including universities in the Big 10-related group of provosts known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation.
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GLOBAL EDUCATION NEWS
Low skilled lawyers get help SOURCE: NICOLA JENVEY (University World News)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-newlawyersgethelp
n a joint statement, the South Africa Law Deans’ Association (SALDA), the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) and the General Council of the Bar (GCB) stated their consensus on changing the current four-year undergraduate LLB degree to a five-year qualification. This was due to the suggestion that law degrees should be shaken up in a propose to adequately equip the country’s new lawyers for the demands for the working world. South Africa changed its LLB degree from a postgraduate qualification to a four-year undergraduate degree in 1998. The idea behind this was to make legal education more accessible but University of Cape Town Law Dean Professor Pamela Schwikkard told The Times newspaper that it was not clear whether the four-year degree had achieved its goal. She estimated that only 20% of students enrolling for the four-year degree completed it within the required timeframe, and added that those students had the least amount of time to develop literacy, numeracy and life skills and were thus “less sought after than the privileged few who embark on the LLB as a second undergraduate degree.” Law society spokesperson Barbara Whittle said a national task team consisting of representatives from SALDA, the LSSA, GCB, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, the Department of Higher Education and Training and the Society of Law Teachers of Southern Africa would monitor the process and facilitate liaison between university law faculties and the profession. Commenting on the issue on Pierre de Vos’s blog, http:// constitutionallyspeaking.co.za, fourth-year LLB student Eric wrote: “I fully understand what they are trying to achieve with this, we are not getting any practical experience, but only excessive amounts of theoretical knowledge. Spreading the course over five years will ensure a more rounded education and in turn, a more rounded and equipped lawyer.”
Universities in Wales boost UK’s economy SOURCE: GARETH EVANS (Wales Online)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-walesboostoureconomy
he 12th annual Higher Education – Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey shows how Wales’ universities are defying financial constraints to develop their expertise and facilities. The survey found that Welsh universities continue to reach beyond their UK weighting of roughly 5% in several areas of activity – and have improved their overall share in others. In 2011-12, Wales performed above its UK weighting in areas such as collaborative research regeneration income and development programmes and granted software licences. Active university spinout and staff start-up companies that have survived at least three years and those launched by graduates were also highlighted. On the community side, nearly 10% of staff days spent on both free and chargeable social, community and cultural public events were through Welsh universities. And although Wales had just 2.3% of the UK’s cumulative patent portfolio, in the same period the number of new patent applications in Wales increased by 89%. Dr David Blaney, chief executive of university funding body HEFCW, said: “Universities in Wales continue to make an impact locally and worldwide. They are creating businesses, generating business and providing
services and information for businesses. “They do this in addition to the teaching and research that people often consider to be their focal points. Their contribution and impact at all levels are to be applauded. “Although Wales performs below its expected weighting in some areas, even here there have been some year-on year improvements, within the context of similar improvements at UK level.”
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GLOBAL EDUCATION NEWS
July 2013, issue 1
Internationalisation at home SOURCE: HANNEKE TEEKENS (University World News) http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-internationalisation
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t was about 15 years ago that the term ‘internationalisation at home’ was coined when a group of people – I was among them – started to talk and publish about it” says Hanneke Teekens. “In essence ‘internationalisation at home’ is about inclusion, diversity and reciprocity in international education, crossing borders by reaching out to ‘otherness’”. Internationalisation at home quickly became an important policy in many universities, but the European Commission also used the idea in its policy documents, as did universities in various other parts of the world. Over the past decades, the internationalisation of higher education has seen tremendous growth. This is especially clear when one looks at the everincreasing number of mobile students – they have now reached over four million a year. However, this big number represents less than 2% of enrolment worldwide. Young people seek a degree for their own personal gain. International education is an instrument of self-interest and increasingly part of a career path and a way to define a lifestyle. Talent is a mobile commodity. “This brings me to a more fundamental thought”, says Teekens. “What is the aim of higher education, and the goal of its internationalisation? You can sell and buy a degree, but providing education is more than offering courses. Unless students are motivated to truly engage and participate, little learning will happen.” When we take a closer look at the number of mobile students at universities it becomes evident that international education is foremost a business in English-speaking countries. They own a global market share of over 65% and talk about the ‘industry’ when referring to the internationalisation of higher education. Big economic and financial interests are at stake. This is equally true for countries where students do not pay fees, like Germany. Graduates are ambassadors for life. Soft power is an important dimension of the quest for talent. Graduates are seduced to stay on after finishing degrees to contribute to the economy of their study destination. Is global internationalisation contributing to a situation of mass higher education around the world whereby we are all overqualified and undereducated? These are big questions for everyone involved in higher education.
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Number sense and math in adults and kids SOURCE: AURELIE (Coffee Break Science) http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-numbersenseandmath
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f someone offers you a bag of candies and there are two to pick from, you will most likely estimate which bag contains the most candies and pick that one. To do that, you use something called the approximate number system (ANS), which is the cognitive system that gives rise to basic numerical intuitions. The ANS generates nonverbal representations of numerosity not only in humans but also in animals. Researchers were interested to find out the relationship between ANS and school maths and how the precision of ANS vary in humans depending on their age. To try to answer such questions, the research team needed to gather data from a huge number of people across a wide age range. They set up a Web-based experiment and posted an ANS test online which was designed to assess the precision of an individual’s number sense. Before taking the test, participants filled out a questionnaire, reporting on their age and their own sense of how well they performed relative to their peers in various school subjects. The researchers used a simple method to assess the participants’ number sense: they asked the subjects to judge which of two arrays of dots was more numerous. More precisely, the ANS dots test was made of 300 trials and took about 8 minutes to complete. Participants who stated that they were poor in certain subjects, scored lower marks while those who stated that they were better in subject, scored higher. This relationship appeared to be independent of the age of the participant. Despite the observation of developmental improvements as people aged, there remained large individual differences. The researchers thus found that about 1 in 8 adults had a number sense less precise than a typical 11-year old.
GLOBAL EDUCATION NEWS
World’s richest 8% earns half the planets income SOURCE: ERIC ZUESSE (Salon)
http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-halftheplanetsincome
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ranko Milanovic, lead research economist at the World Bank, will soon be reporting in the journal Global Policy, the first calculation of global income-inequality. Shockingly, he has discovered that the top 8% of global earners are drawing 50% of all of this planet’s income. Wealth-inequality is always far higher than incomeinequality, and therefore a reasonable estimate of personal wealth throughout the world would probably be somewhere on the order of the wealthiest 1% of people owning roughly half of all personal assets. “Among the global top 1%, we find the richest 12% of Americans, and between 3% and 6% of the richest Britons, Japanese, Germans and French,” said Milanovic. He also noted that global inequality is much greater than the inequality within an individual country as the stark inequality between countries adds to the inequality within any one of them. He also pointed out that because most people live in extremely poor and hot countries (which are mainly within 3000 miles of the equator), even without global warming being an issue, the world will be much more heated now. For example, the World Bank’s list of GDP per capita (in current US$) shows that in 2011 the annual-income figure ranged from $231 in Democratic Republic
8% = 50% of Congo at the Equator, to $171,465 in Monaco within Europe. The secondpoorest and second-richest countries respectively were $271 in Burundi at the Equator, and $114,232 in Luxembourg within Europe. For comparison, the U.S. was $48,112, and China was $5,445. Those few examples indicate how widely per-capita income ranges between nations, and how more heat means more poverty.
Why aren’t top journalists rich?
SOURCE: ALEX MAYYASI (Priceonomics)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-topjournalists
t’s no secret that technology disrupted journalism’s business model. This disruption has also seemed to create more losers than winners within journalism. To recap, the first blow was online alternatives like Craigs List taking away newspapers’ classifieds business, which represented around 50% revenue. The next blow was the inability of newspapers to replace print advertising money with digital advertising money as readers go online. An editor at The Atlantic has declared that “So far, there isn’t a single [business] model for our kind of magazine that appears to work.” To understand why newspaper supports are worried, look at how technology has changed the music industry. Online distribution has been as big a shock to its revenues as it has been for newspapers: file sharing and digital music contributed to the music industry’s revenues being cut in half from 2000 to 2010. But at the same time, it has been part of a trend that has made musicians at the top of the hierarchy richer at the expense of the rank and file. In terms of concert revenue, for example, the top 1% of earners – big name artists increased their share from 26% in 1982 to 56% in 2003. News, like music, can be jointly consumed. The readership of a newspaper can increase from ten thousand to ten million without the authors needing to do any more work. Over the past generation, journalists have gained the ability to easily reach a global audience. This is where the question on why top journalists are not making huge amounts of money stems from.
It’s worth noting that op-ed writers are most well-known journalists. They’re picture is always printed, they write with a signature style, and papers advertise their faces and perspectives. Reporters, in contrast, write in an anonymous “this is news” tone fitting an institution that did not introduce by-lines until the 1920s. This lack of individuality may be in line with “objective” journalism, but it also contributes to consumers turning to blogs as substitutes.
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GLOBAL EDUCATION NEWS
Injuries for pedestrians SOURCE: JEFF GRABMEIER (Sciencedaily)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-injusriesforpedestrians
ore than 1,500 pedestrians were estimated to be treated in emergency rooms in 2010 for injuries related to using a cell phone while walking, according to a new study in the United States. And shockingly, the number of such injuries has more than doubled since 2005. “If current trends continue, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of injuries to pedestrians caused by cell phones doubles again between 2010 and 2015,” said Jack Nasar, co-author of the study and professor of city and regional planning at the Ohio State University. “The role of cell phones in distracted driving injuries and deaths gets a lot of attention and rightly so, but we need to also consider the danger cell phone use poses to pedestrians.” Nasar conducted the study with Derek Troyer, a former graduate student at Ohio State. It appeared in the August 2013 issue of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention. The researchers used data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, a database maintained by the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), which samples injury reports from 100 hospitals around the country. Findings showed that in 2004, an estimated 559 pedestrians were treated in emergency rooms for injuries received while using a cell phone. The number dropped to 256 in 2005, but has risen every year since then. Nasar said he believes the number of injuries to distracted pedestrians are much higher than these statistics suggest. He compared CPSC estimates for injuries related to drivers distracted by cell phones with actual data from emergency rooms across the country. “Recent research examining increases in traffic accidents related to cell phone use suggests that the number of crash-related injuries in emergency rooms is actually about 1,300 times higher than CPSC national estimates,” he said. As might be expected, young people are most likely to be injured by distracted walking. The 21- to 25-year-old age group led the way with 1,003 total injuries during the seven years covered by this study and just behind them were the 16- to 20-year-olds with 985 total injuries. Nasar said he believes the best way to reverse these numbers is to start changing norms for cell phone use in our society. And that starts with parents. “Parents already teach their children to look both ways when crossing the street. They should also teach them to put away their cell phone when walking, particularly when crossing a street.”
July 2013, issue 1
Plan to clean up online cheating SOURCE:
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-cleanupcheatingonline n a special issue of the journal of Research & Practice in Assessment on “MOOCs & Technology,” an article by Curry School of Education assistant professor J. Patrick Meyer and doctoral student Shi Zhu looks at ways to address cheating in MOOCs. As in any course taught, the goal for professors teaching MOOCs is for their students to learn without cutting corners. With thousands of students enrolled in an individual course, course instructors must use more sophisticated methods to combat cheating, Meyer and Zhu write. The authors suggested that one strategy to reduce cheating for MOOCs is to use different tests covering the same content. “Cheating by obtaining test items or answer keys in advance of the test can be countered by the use of multiple test forms,” Meyer said. “However, this practice comes with its own complications. In order for the course to be fair they all must have the same level of difficulty and learning. “Principles of fair and equitable measurement require that all of the test forms have a common scale so that scores have the same meaning and interpretation,” he said. In their article, “Fair and Equitable Measurement of Student Learning in MOOCs: An Introduction to Item Response Theory, Scale Linking, and Score Equating,” Meyer and Zhu discuss how “item response theory” helps to counter cheating. “Item response theory is a type of measurement that is more complicated than methods instructors use for [standard] classroom tests,” Meyer said. “This type of measurement is used heavily in large-scale testing, such as the high-stakes testing in K-12 education.” What makes this type of testing difficult for use in MOOCs is that largescale testing is usually managed by companies that employ professionals with specialized knowledge of item response theory. Instructors of MOOCs typically do not have this level of expertise. In an effort to introduce this theory to a larger audience, the article seeks to introduce readers to the concept and explain methods for placing test forms on a common scale. Research & Practice in Assessment’s special issue offers some of the first analyses of actual MOOC data, and showcases the scholarship of faculties from the American Council on Education, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the University of Virginia, Texas A&M University, New York University, James Madison University and Tulane University.
Social media linked to narcissism SOURCE: ANOUK VLEUGELS (United Academics)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-socialmedia-narcissism
ccording to a new study published by researchers at the University of Michigan, social media may be the perfect way to express our narcissism. “Among young adult college students, we found that those who scored higher in certain types of narcissism posted more often on Twitter,” said Panek, leading author of the research. ”But among middle-aged adults from the general population, narcissists posted more frequent status updates on Facebook.” For the first part of the study, 496 young college students were asked to answer questions concerning their social media use. They also took a
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personality assessment test measuring different aspects of narcissism, including exhibitionism, self-sufficiency and superiority, to name a few. The results showed that the students who were more narcissistic, spent more time posting stuff on Twitter. “Young people may over-evaluate the importance of their own opinions,” said Panek. Facebook, however, seemed to attract the narcissistic adults in the second part of the study (testing 93 people with an average age of 35). To them, Facebook functioned as a mirror: “”It’s about curating your own image, how you are seen, and also checking on how others respond to this image,” said Panek. “Middle-aged adults usually have already formed their social selves, and they use social media to gain approval from those who are already in their social circles.” Although the study found a connection between narcissism and social media use, the researchers could not determine whether a causal relationship exists.
GLOBAL EDUCATION NEWS
Blogging as an academic genre SOURCE: RAY CAREY (ELFA Project) http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-researchblogging
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esearch blogging has become an object of research in its own right. One area of interest for linguists is research blogging as an academic genre and means for communicating scientific knowledge. ELFA project director Anna Mauranen recently published an article on this linguistic aspect of research blogging in the Nordic Journal of English Studies. As a pilot study for the WrELFA corpus (Written English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings), her research focused on two well-established blogs and especially their comment threads, where ongoing scientific controversies were being discussed. “I’ve been collecting samples from research blogs for the WrELFA corpus,” says Ray Carey. “This has familiarised me with the blogging conventions of 35 researchers who use English as a second/foreign language. In the process of compiling over 250,000 words of research blogs and comments, I’ve gotten a bird’s-eye view of blogging as a scientific genre.” Some bloggers mix in their personal interests – psychiatrist Dr Shock likes to blog about chocolate, and string theory physicist Lubos Motl is an ardent global warming activist. Moreover, it’s not unusual to find posts dealing with challenges of professional life, reporting from conferences attended or promotion of one’s own lab. These personal elements all seem to fit within the research blog genre, especially insofar as they come together as forms of professional self-representation. In a sense, research blogging can be seen as emerging from an “academic community”, broadly speaking, but Anna observes that especially in relation to followers and commenters of a blog, it is the community that arises out of the genre, and this community is likely more diverse than would be found in the non-virtual world. She also points out that active researchers mix with interested non-experts in the blogosphere. This too impacts the community-forming function of blogs, which in turn can influence the nature of the genre.
Different playing surfaces and their effects SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY
http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-playingsurfaceseffects
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study is being performed by Disa Hatfield, URI assistant professor of Kinesiology to find out if different playing surfaces affect athletic performance. Hatfield and her students chose four surfaces that are currently being tested, these include a hard metal plate, artificial grass, and grass planted on either a sandy loam or
on peat soil. These surfaces are being tested by 42 volunteer subjects who are asked to jump in five different ways to measure the height of each jump, the power they produce, and their landing pattern. The volunteers are also filmed so the researchers can examine the angles of their legs, knees and ankles as they land to analyze injury risk. “We expect performance to be a little better on the artificial turf, but we may also get more ankle and knee movements on the landing because of the harder impact,” says Hatfield. She also stated that many people, especially women, experience knee
valgus - which is associated with a high risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. “The problem is that maintaining artificial turf is much cheaper and easier than maintaining live grass. The cost factor is much less,” she said. “But I’m hoping that we’ll be able to show a decreased injury risk on natural surfaces, which have a higher capacity to absorb impacts.” While the professional athletic venues may be one driver of the research, Hatfield believes her data will be equally useful to recreational venues where the majority of amateur and recreational athletes exercise and compete. Hatfield will spend the summer and fall analyzing the data that is being collected this spring, and she hopes to have results to report at the end of the year. Her research is being funded in part by the New England Regional Turfgrass Foundation and with guidance from turfgrass scientists W. Michael Sullivan at URI and Jason Henderson at the University of Connecticut.
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GLOBAL EDUCATION NEWS
July 2013, issue 1
Rise of altmetrics SOURCE: JENNIFER HOWARD (Chronicle of Higher Education)
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http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-almetrics
teven B Roberts, an assistant professor at the University of Washington who studies the effects of environmental change on shellfish, added something unexpected to his dossier – evidence of his research’s impact online. Roberts listed how many people viewed his laboratory’s blog posts, tweeted about his research, viewed his data sets on Figshare, downloaded slides of his presentations and talked about his work on social media platforms. The strategy was part of “an attempt to quantify online science outreach”, he explained in his promotion package. Adding altmetrics to CVs may not be common yet. But interest in altmetrics is growing fast, as scholars begin to realise that it’s possible to track and share evidence of online impact, and publishers rush to develop altmetric services to help them document that impact. The term “altmetrics” has only been around since 2010, when Jason Priem, a doctoral candidate in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, used it in a tweet. Of course there are some worries about this method, such as how easy it is
to game the altmetrics and whether they are sophisticated enough to capture the true impact of views and shares. Supporters acknowledge that gaming is a risk but point out that any kind of metric is vulnerable to corruption. Altmetrics use has been most notable so far among scientists and librarians, for whom ‘quant culture’ has long been a fact of life. Jason Baird Jackson, director of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University, says that metrics can be harder for humanists to understand or get behind. “In many humanities fields, those scholars have intuitions and beliefs about the most important journals,” Jackson says, but they don’t know much about impact factors. “They don’t know which to be more nervous about,” altmetrics or all metrics. “Any kind of metric entails the risk of promoting short-sightedness,” he says. “I think the humanists are particularly sensitive to this.” In the past year, altmetrics has become “a serious matter that people are getting their head around,” Jackson says. “For many of our department chairs, this is a totally new world.”
e-Learning through public-private partnerships SOURCE: MAURITS VAN ROOIJEN (University World News) http://tinyurl.com/uwcgen-e-learning
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ue to all the recent changes in the British market, e-learning is certainly something that all higher education leaders should be considering as an alternative tool for expanding global reach, improving access and increasing revenue. “Our colleagues from the business world say that when a market is stagnated, one of the best solutions is to expand your zone of operation and explore new regions. But when it comes to higher education, an industry that relies a lot on infrastructure and personnel, moving into transnational education can easily hit huge obstacles,” says Professor Maurits van Rooijen of Global University Systems BV and Rector and CEO of the London School of Business and Finance. “Purists argue that e-learning will never replace traditional education. I totally agree with them” he says. “Some of our most forward-thinking universities already understand that e-learning is not here to replace education as we know it. It is here to complement it. Personally, I see e-learning as one of the most revolutionary inventions since Gutenberg created the printing press. It is indeed a fantastic way to expand access to education at a global level.” He believes that one of the advantages of investing in e-learning is the ease of which the market can be tapped. It is not only a great source of revenue but also fulfils the key aims of many organisations, such as promoting access and widening participation in people. He notes that access is associated with social responsibility yet the economy cannot waste talent due to someone living in a remote town without the means to study abroad. As global educators, he feels that it is their role to see that education is seen as an export. “It is our job to point out to the world’s leaders that investing wisely in our young human resources is pivotal to guaranteeing the world’s future prosperity,” he says.