Technology in our daily lives: How to implement digital humanities projects in the classroom.
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Heat maps in excel
Worth looking at for presenting geographical data Power Map for Excel–February update for Office 365 http://blogs.office.com/2015/02/10/power-map-excel-february-update-office-365-2/
FW: Democratizing Higher Education is Now Available for Pre-order
Dear Colleagues,
The new HETL book titled, Democratizing Higher Education: International Comparative Perspectives, by Routledge is now available for pre-order. See http://routledge-ny.com/books/details/9781138020955/
A few reviews on the book:
"This timely book helpfully reminds us that higher education was once (and might yet be again?) considered and discussed in terms of its wider contribution to culture and civilisation, as well as to social inclusiveness and equity, all in the context of a (re-)discovered core ethos of political, ethnic, and social justice."
--David Palfreyman, Director of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, Oxford University
"Through the authors' compelling case studies on social, cultural, economic and political issues in diverse communities, the reader can quickly understand the commonalities to all quality higher education programs across international borders. Applause to Blessinger and Anchan for providing an excellent resource that presents significant ideas with a trajectory for higher education systems."
--Barbara Cozza, Associate Professor, St. John's University
"A democratically engaged society demands a citizenry that can critically think and challenge the forces that oppose it. Higher education is key. This volume offers a global look at how several nations strive to make higher education a reality for all its citizens as well as the challenges they face in doing so. It is a must-read for any student or professor of international higher education studies."
--Jill Alexa Perry, Executive Director, Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate
Kind regards,
--
Dr. Patrick W. Blessinger, @DrBlessinger
Executive Director & Chief Research Scientist, International HETL Association
Adjunct Faculty, School of Education, St. John's University, New York City
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education
Senior Scholar, Institute for Meaning-Centered Educationz
Article re-examining Kolb
This looks interesting - if you have read it could you leave a comment here
Learning and Teaching journal
FW: Studies in Higher Education: latest articles on Taylor & Francis Online
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FW: Cultural Studies of Science Education, Vol. 10, Issue 1 – New Issue Alert
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Academic effectiveness and e-learning
My friend +Sandra Sinfield commented on my first post - referred to stepping back from e-learning to think about Office. I think the way forward for many academics is to move forward with both. What I find exciting about the new developments from Google and Microsoft in on-line document tools is that they break down that distinction even more.
For some years I have been working with academics who do not see themselves as doing e-learning but are interesting improving their work effectiveness. What I stress is that many of the tools that help me to be effective - also enable me to share things with a variety of audiences, from my calendar for arranging meetings to my current documents, bookmarks, reading etc.
Often I use blogs for purely selfish reasons - they are a very effective way of storing information - sharing is an added extra - or is it the other way round, I forget.
FW: Top 10 articles of 2014 from @SAGEEdResearch
Free access to trending articles in Educational Research
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FW: ephemera CFP: The labour of academia
Call for papers for an ephemera special issue on:
Issue Editors: Nick Butler, Helen Delaney and Martyna Śliwa
It is well known that the purpose of the contemporary university is being radically transformed by the encroachment of corporate imperatives into higher education (Beverungen, et al., 2008; Svensson, et al., 2010). This has inevitable consequences for managerial interventions, research audits and funding structures. But it also impacts on the working conditions of academic staff in university institutions in terms of teaching, research, administration and public engagement. Focusing on this level of analysis, the special issue seeks to explore questions about how the work of scholars is being shaped, managed and controlled under the burgeoning regime of 'academic capitalism' (Rhoades and Slaughter, 2004) and in turn to ask what might be done about it.
There is a case to be made that the modern university is founded on principles of rationalization and bureaucratization; there has always been a close link between money, markets and higher education (Collini, 2013). But the massification of higher education in recent years, combined with efforts to reduce the reliance on state funding, has led to the university being managed in much the same way as any other large industrial organization (Morley, 2003; Deem, et al., 2007). This is particularly pronounced in an economy that privileges knowledge-based labour over other forms of productive activity, which underlines Bill Readings' (1996: 22) point that the university is not just being run like a corporation – it is a corporation. We witness this trend in the increasing prominence of mission statements, university branding and cost-benefit analysis (Bok, 2009). We also see it in the introduction of tuition fees, which turns students into consumers, universities into service-providers, and degree programmes into investment projects (Lawrence and Sharma, 2002). Universities are now in the business of selling intangible goods, not least of all the ineffable product of 'employability' (Chertkovskaya, et al., 2013).
In parallel, there has been a marked intensification of academic labour in recent years, manifested in higher work-loads, longer hours, precarious contracts and more invasive management control via performance indicators such as TQM and the balanced scorecard (Morley and Walsh, 1996; Bryson, 2004; Archer, 2008; Bousquet, 2008; Clarke, et al., 2012). The personal and professional lives of academic staff are deeply affected by such changes in the structures of higher education, leading to increased stress, alienation, feelings of guilt and other negative emotions (Ogbonna and Harris, 2004).
While many scholars suffer under these conditions, others find themselves adapting to the tenets of academic enterprise culture in order to seek out opportunities for career development and professional advancement. The consequences for the quality of scholarship, however, may be far from positive. Indeed, recent studies suggest that academics may be more willing to 'play the publication game' at the expense of genuine critical inquiry (Butler and Spoelstra, 2014). There is a palpable sense that 'journal list fetishism' (Willmott, 2011) is coming to shape not only patterns of knowledge production in higher education but also how academics are coming to relate to themselves and their own research. These trends suggest that the Humboldtian idea of the university – which measures the value of scientific-philosophical knowledge (Wissenschaft) according to the degree of cultivation (Bildung) it produces – has been superseded by a regime based on journal rankings, citation rates, impact factors and other quantitative metrics used to assess and reward research 'output' (Lucas, 2006).
Some scholars have pointed to the possibilities for resistance to the regime of academic capitalism. Rolfe (2013) suggests that what is required is the development of a rhizomatic paraversity that operates below the surface of the neoliberal university. This would serve to reintroduce the 'non-productive labour of thought' (2013: 53) into university life, thereby emphasizing quality over quantity and critique over careerism. Efforts such as Edu-factory may also point towards fruitful directions for the future of higher education beyond neoliberal imperatives (Edu-factory Collective, 2009). In this special issue, we seek to diagnose the state of the contemporary university as well as uncover potentialities for dwelling subversively within and outside the 'ruins of the university' (Readings, 1996; Raunig, 2013). Towards this aim, we invite submissions that consider the following questions:
· What are the new and emerging discourses of academic work?
· What is being commodified under conditions of academic capitalism and what are the consequences?
· How are current trends shaping the way academics relate to themselves, their research, peers, students, the public and other stakeholders?
· How does alienation and exploitation occur in the academic labour process?
· In what ways do gender, race, sexuality, age and class matter to the study of academic labour?
· What is happening to academic identity, ethos and ideals in the contemporary university?
· How do academics cope with the demands and tensions of their work?
· How can we theorise the historical shifts surrounding academic labour?
· How is the academic labour market being polarized?
· What are the varieties of academic capitalism in different terrains?
· How do we account for the historical shift in academic labour?
· What are the rewards and riches of contemporary academic labour?
· How can we imagine alternative choices, collectives, discourses and identities in the university?
· Is it worth defending the current conditions of academic work?
Deadline for submissions: 28th February 2015
All contributions should be submitted to one of the issue editors: Nick Butler (nick.butler@fek.lu.se), Helen Delaney (h.delaney@auckland.ac.nz) or Martyna Śliwa (masliwa@essex.ac.uk). Please note that three categories of contributions are invited for the special issue: articles, notes, and reviews. All submissions should follow ephemera's submissions guidelines (www.ephemerajournal.org/how-submit). Articles will undergo a double blind review process. For further information, please contact one of the special issue editors.
References
Archer, L. (2008) 'The new neoliberal subjects? Young/er academics' constructions of professional identity', Journal of Education Policy, 23(3): 265-285.
Beverungen, A., S. Dunne and B.M. Sørensen (2008) 'University, failed', ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 8(3): 232-237.
Bok, D. (2009) Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bousquet, M. (2008) How the university works: Higher education and the low-wage nation. New York: NYU Press.
Bryson, C. (2004) 'What about the workers? The expansion of higher education and the transformation of academic work', Industrial Relations Journal, 35(1): 38-57.
Butler, N. and S. Spoelstra (2014) 'The regime of excellence and the erosion of ethos in critical management studies', British Journal of Management, DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12053.
Chertkovskaya, E., P. Watt, S. Tramer and S. Spoelstra (2013) 'Giving notice to employability', ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 13(4): 701-716.
Clarke, C., D. Knights, and C. Jarvis (2012) 'A labour of love? Academics in business schools', Scandinavian Journal of Management, 28(1): 5-15.
Collini, S. (2013) 'Sold out', London Review of Books, 35(20): 3-12.
Deem, R., S. Hillyard and M. Reed (2007) Knowledge, higher education, and the new managerialism: The changing management of UK universities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Edu-factory Collective (2009) Towards a global autonomous university. New York: Autonomedia.
Lawrence, S. and U. Sharma (2002) 'Commodification of education and academic labour: Using the balanced scorecard in a university setting', Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 13(5): 661-677.
Lucas, L. (2006) The research game in academic life. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International.
Morley, L. (2003) Quality and power in higher education. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International.
Morley, L. and V. Walsh (eds.) (1996) Breaking boundaries: Women in higher education. London: Taylor & Francis.
Ogbonna, E. and L.C. Harris (2004) 'Work intensification and emotional labour among UK university lecturers: An exploratory study', Organization Studies, 25(7): 1185-1203.
Readings, B. (1996) The university in ruins. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Rolfe, G. (2013) The university in dissent: Scholarship in the corporate university. London: Routledge.
Rhoades, G. and S. Slaughter (2004) Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: JHU Press.
Raunig, G. (2013) Factories of knowledge, industries of creativity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Svensson, P., S. Spoelstra, M. Pedersen and S. Schreven (2010) 'The excellent institution', ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 10(1): 1-6.
Willmott, H. (2011) 'Journal list fetishism and the perversion of scholarship: reactivity and the ABS list', Organization, 18(4): 429-442.