Rethinking Tenure, Part VI: Sabbaticals Outside of Tenure

Posted on January 27, 2012 by alex

A response to a short University Affairs piece about sabbaticals. In a way, a followup on my previous posts about tenure.

Here goes…

Glad you were able to explain the situation in a way your friends could understand. As with many explanation, the important thing is to match it with the context. Many people have a hard time understanding what research entails, even if you describe the whole process (I’m teaching field research, these days). So it’s nice that the match happened.

Thing is, even within academia, some people seem to have misconceptions about sabbaticals, Not that they’re taken to be vacations, but they became so associated with a reward system that they seem not to have their own purpose, anymore.

I’m part-time faculty, so I don’t get sabbaticals in that same sense. And, among the many sources of bitterness among contingent faculty members is the fact that we don’t get the opportunity to apply for sabbaticals. Unlike many of my colleagues, I’m not bitter about my position outside of the tenure-track. And while I understand the importance of sabbaticals, I perceive them as one option among others, to make possible a certain type of academic work. Sabbaticals might even blind some people into misunderstanding their own work.

These are issues with PTR (“Promotion, Tenure, Reappointment”). In that context, the formula used to calculate rewards in the tenure system has become something more of a bureaucratic requirement, and less of a reflection of that work. The percentages themselves are often misleading, as many a professor integrates several of these activities together. When it becomes reality, the dream of cross-fertilization between teaching and research makes percentages more of an accounting exercise than an assessment of the actual work being done. Attempts at making one’s work more efficient often pushes professors to focus their teaching and service work on things which can contribute to their “research output”. And the very categorization of academic work in these three little boxes has been the object of much discussion. Academics typically want to be free to do the work they want to do and are in fact so driven by intrinsic motivation that they’re likely to work more when they’re free to decide how they spend their time.

Something I’ve noticed at institutions where research is the primary thing (for instance, at “Research I” universities in the US) is that not-insignificant number of faculty members have a tendency to publish a rather large number of very similar papers, as if publication were its own goal. At more “comprehensive” institutions (including Concordia, but also a satellite campus in a state university system in the US), it’s not uncommon for faculty members to frequently publish book-length accounts on diverse topics, even though books are often considered as not counting for PTR purposes.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the overwhelming majority of research professors “keep publishing the same article over and over again”. But there is an intriguing pattern in terms of the research focus whereby it may become more about lines in an annual report, whereas research by professors who primarily teach may be more of a “labour of love”.

In other words, while an article can certainly require a lot more work than a book, there has been a tendency for certain research-heavy professors to focus on numerical output instead of on breadth. In the process, the “dissemination” goal of publication may get lost. Not blaming these faculty members, in this. They’re caught in a very constraining system. But the effect remains that some of them may “go through the motions, because they have to” instead of developing the type of research career which is likely to benefit society as a whole.

So, back to sabbaticals… One reason they function in context may be that they allow a sort of “reset”. They bring research back to its roots in deep curiosity and passion for knowledge. Sure, much of it has to do with the time needed to conduct a research project. In field research, it’s obvious that extended field trips are qualitatively different from short stints in the field. In many situations, it is in fact impossible for a scholar to accomplish her work while teaching in even the shortest and least time-consuming of contexts. You simply cannot be in two places at the same time.
But I sincerely think (based on diverse contacts with colleague) that much of the effect felt subjectively by researchers during sabbaticals has more to do with putting things in their proper perspective. During these extended periods of time devoted to their research work, researchers are allowing themselves to explore. While they do have a responsibility to bring back something rather impressive from their time spent away from their more quotidian departmental lives, this pressure is somewhat more indirect, and is less likely to constrain them to “think in the short term”. Chances are relatively high that, during her sabbatical, a given scholar will have an epiphany, will make an life-changing discovery, will go through an actual shift in paradigm, or will cause a sudden leap in scholarship. Any of these things depends on a large amount of work but, mostly, they require a lot of freedom. And freedom is almost the “currency of academia”.

Which brings me back to my own situation outside of the tenure system.
While tenure (and sabbaticals which depend on it) may be associated with academic freedom, there are other ways to be free in academic contexts. One approach which is rarely discussed is to act more as a “free agent” and less as “departmental property”. Belonging to an academic department brings many benefits but it can also be quite constraining. On the opposite end, “contract teaching” can sound extremely constraining but also brings about its own type of freedom. While a tenured professor who goes on sabbatical may accomplish impressive work because she’s free to do so, contingent academic workers are also contributing important work because they are free to work outside of departmental routine. It may well be that, taken on its own, the work of a given adjunct may be much less impressive than that of any full professor. But, in aggregate, contingent academic labour allows for a different type of contribution to knowledge and social change. The same can be said about many non-academics, of course. Several of them could take advantage of a sabbatical, once in a while. In fact, I’ve done a bit of work for a foundation (Carold Institute) which provides for something like a sabbatical for non-academics in the form of a fellowship in support of leaders in community organizations and in diverse spheres of voluntary action.

The fact that sabbaticals are restricted to tenured faculty members isn’t just a matter of rewards and privilege. It’s also about putting research work in its proper context.

Required Readings for SOCI 221: Sociology of Cyberspace

Posted on August 1, 2011 by alex

Partly as a way to test a plugin, but also as a post that I might reuse in the future…

Weekly Schedule

Week	Date	Texts
1	September 12
2	September 19	Christian[1], Berman[2]
3	September 26	Sassen[3], Perkins[4]
4	October 3	Beer[5], MW Bell[6]
(Thanksgiving: No Class, October 10)
6	October 17	Kelty[7], Cool[8]
Midterm (October 24)
8	October 31	Silver[9], D. Bell[10]
9	November 7	Palfrey[11], Prensky[12], Tapscott[13]
10	November 14	Bennett[14], Selwyn[15]
11	November 21	Rheingold[16], Surowiecki[17], Hunt[18]
12	November 28	Warschauer[19], Halford[20]
13	December 5	Westermann[21], Hindman[22]
14	December 6	Kendall[23], Hofmann[24]

[1] Christian, B.. (2011). The Migratory Soul. In The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive (pp. 38-73). Doubleday.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{christian2011,
    abstract = {320 pages},
    author = {Christian, Brian},
    booktitle = {The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive},
    chapter = {3},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600445},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-1},
    keywords = {1, offline, soci-221, soci221-1, soci221-w2},
    pages = {38--73},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Doubleday},
    title = {The Migratory Soul},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-1},
    year = {2011}
}

[2]

Berman, J., & Bruckman, A.. (2001). The Turing Game: Exploring Identity in an Online Environment. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 7(3), 83-102.
[Bibtex]

@article{berman2001turing,
    author = {Berman, Joshua and Bruckman, Amy S.},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600444},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/135485650100700307},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-2},
    doi = {10.1177/135485650100700307},
    journal = {Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies},
    keywords = {2, online, soci-221, soci221-2, soci221-w2},
    number = {3},
    pages = {83--102},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{The Turing Game: Exploring Identity in an Online Environment}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-2},
    volume = {7},
    year = {2001}
}

[3]

Sassen, S.. (2002). Towards a Sociology of Information Technology. Current Sociology, 50(3), 365-388.
[Bibtex]

@article{sassen2002itech,
    author = {Sassen, Saskia},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600457},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011392102050003005},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-3},
    doi = {10.1177/0011392102050003005},
    journal = {Current Sociology},
    keywords = {3, online, soci-221, soci221-3, soci221-w3},
    number = {3},
    pages = {365--388},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Towards a Sociology of Information Technology}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-3},
    volume = {50},
    year = {2002}
}

[4]

Perkins, R., & Neumayer, E.. (2010). Is the Internet Really New After All? The Determinants of Telecommunications Diffusion in Historical Perspective. The Professional Geographer, 63(1), 55-72.
[Bibtex]

@article{perkins2011internet,
    author = {Perkins, Richard and Neumayer, Eric},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600454},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2010.500994},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-4},
    doi = {10.1080/00330124.2010.500994},
    journal = {The Professional Geographer},
    keywords = {4, online, soci-221, soci221-4, soci221-w3},
    number = {1},
    pages = {55--72},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Is the Internet Really New After All? The Determinants of Telecommunications Diffusion in Historical Perspective}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-4},
    volume = {63},
    year = {2010}
}

[5]

Beer, D., & Burrows, R.. (2007). Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations. Sociological Research Online, 12(5), 17.
[Bibtex]

@article{beer2007sociology,
    author = {Beer, David and Burrows, Roger},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600440},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5153/sro.1560},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-5},
    doi = {10.5153/sro.1560},
    journal = {Sociological Research Online},
    keywords = {5, online, soci-221, soci221-5, soci221-w4},
    number = {5},
    pages = {17},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-5},
    volume = {12},
    year = {2007}
}

[6] Bell, M.. (2008). Toward a definition of “virtual worlds”. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 1(1), 1-5.
[Bibtex]

@article{bell2008virtual,
    author = {Bell, Mark W.},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600442},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-6},
    journal = {Journal of Virtual Worlds Research},
    keywords = {6, online, soci-221, soci221-6, soci221-w4},
    number = {1},
    pages = {1--5},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Toward a definition of ``virtual worlds''}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-6},
    volume = {1},
    year = {2008}
}

[7] Kelty, C.. (2008). Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists. In Two bits: The cultural significance of free software (pp. 64-94). Duke University Press Books.
[Bibtex]

@incollection{kelty2008reformers,
    abstract = {378 pages},
    author = {Kelty, Christopher M.},
    booktitle = {Two bits: The cultural significance of free software},
    chapter = {2},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600451},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-8},
    keywords = {8, online, soci-221, soci221-8, soci221-w6},
    pages = {64--94},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Duke University Press Books},
    title = {{Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-8},
    year = {2008}
}

[8] Cool, J.. (2008). Cyborganic and Social Change: The Power and Limits of Community. In Communities of innovation: Cyborganic and the birth of networked social media (pp. 351-380). University of Southern California.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{cool2008change,
    abstract = {410 pages},
    author = {Cool, Jennifer C.},
    booktitle = {Communities of innovation: Cyborganic and the birth of networked social media},
    chapter = {7},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600446},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-7},
    keywords = {7, online, soci-221, soci221-7, soci221-w6},
    pages = {351--380},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {University of Southern California},
    title = {{Cyborganic and Social Change: The Power and Limits of Community}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-7},
    year = {2008}
}

[9] Silver, D.. (2000). Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000.. In Web. studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age (pp. 19-30). Oxford University Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{silver2000looking,
    abstract = {264 pages},
    author = {Silver, David},
    booktitle = {Web. studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age},
    chapter = {2},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600459},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-9},
    keywords = {9, online, soci-221, soci221-9, soci221-w8},
    pages = {19--30},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Oxford University Press},
    title = {{Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000.}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-9},
    year = {2000}
}

[10] Bell, D.. (2002). Storying Cyberspace 1: Material and Symbolic Stories. In An Introduction to Cybercultures (pp. 6-29). Routledge.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{bell2002,
    abstract = {256 pages},
    author = {Bell, David},
    booktitle = {An Introduction to Cybercultures},
    chapter = {2},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600441},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-10},
    keywords = {10, offline, soci-221, soci221-10, soci221-w8},
    pages = {6--29},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Routledge},
    title = {{Storying Cyberspace 1: Material and Symbolic Stories}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-10},
    year = {2002}
}

[11] Palfrey, J., & Gasser. (2008). Identities. In Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives (pp. 17-37). Basic Books.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{palfrey2010,
    abstract = {288 pages},
    author = {Palfrey, John and Gasser, U.},
    booktitle = {Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives},
    chapter = {1},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600453},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-11},
    keywords = {11, offline, soci-221, soci221-11, soci221-w9},
    pages = {17--37},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Basic Books},
    title = {{Identities}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-11},
    year = {2008}
}

[12]

Prensky, M.. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.
[Bibtex]

@article{prensky2001horizon,
    author = {Prensky, Marc},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600455},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10748120110424816},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-12},
    doi = {10.1108/10748120110424816},
    journal = {On the Horizon},
    keywords = {12, online, soci-221, soci221-12, soci221-w9},
    number = {5},
    pages = {1--6},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {MCB UP Ltd},
    title = {{Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-12},
    volume = {9},
    year = {2001}
}

[13] Tapscott, D.. (2009). Making the World a Better Place: At Ground Level. In Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing your world (pp. 278-288). McGraw-Hill Professional.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{tapscott2009,
    abstract = {384 pages},
    author = {Tapscott, Don},
    booktitle = {Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing your world},
    chapter = {10},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600461},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-13},
    keywords = {13, offline, soci-221, soci221-13, soci221-w9},
    pages = {278--288},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {McGraw-Hill Professional},
    title = {{Making the World a Better Place: At Ground Level}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-13},
    year = {2009}
}

[14]

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L.. (2008). The `digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), 775-786.
[Bibtex]

@article{bennett2008debate,
    author = {Bennett, Sue and Maton, Karl and Kervin, Lisa},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600443},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-14},
    doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x},
    journal = {British Journal of Educational Technology},
    keywords = {14, online, soci-221, soci221-14, soci221-w10},
    number = {5},
    pages = {775--786},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{The `digital natives' debate: A critical review of the evidence}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-14},
    volume = {39},
    year = {2008}
}

[15]

Selwyn, N.. (2009). The digital native — myth and reality. Aslib Proceedings, 61(4), 364-379.
[Bibtex]

@article{selwyn2009myth,
    author = {Selwyn, Neil},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600458},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00012530910973776},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-15},
    doi = {10.1108/00012530910973776},
    journal = {Aslib Proceedings},
    keywords = {15, age-groups, aslib-proceedings, children, digital-communication-systems, internet, new-information, online, paper-type-general-review, soci-221, soci221-15, soci221-w10, youth},
    number = {4},
    pages = {364--379},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{The digital native -- myth and reality}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-15},
    volume = {61},
    year = {2009}
}

[16] Rheingold, H.. (2003). The Evolution of Reputation. In Smart mobs: the next social revolution (pp. 113-132). Basic Books.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{rheingold2003smart,
    abstract = {288 pages},
    author = {Rheingold, Howard},
    booktitle = {Smart mobs: the next social revolution},
    chapter = {5},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600456},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-16},
    keywords = {16, offline, soci-221, soci221-16, soci221-w11},
    pages = {113--132},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Basic Books},
    title = {The Evolution of Reputation},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-16},
    year = {2003}
}

[17] Surowiecki, J.. (2004). Science: Collaboration, Competition, and Reputation. In The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations (pp. 158-172). Doubleday Books.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{surowiecki2004wisdom,
    abstract = {320 pages},
    author = {Surowiecki, James},
    booktitle = {The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations},
    chapter = {8},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600460},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-17},
    keywords = {17, offline, soci-221, soci221-17, soci221-w11},
    pages = {158--172},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Doubleday Books},
    title = {{Science: Collaboration, Competition, and Reputation}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-17},
    year = {2004}
}

[18] Hunt, T.. (2010). Embrace the Chaos. In The Power of Social Networking: Using the Whuffie Factor to Build Your Business (pp. 204-242). Crown Business.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{hunt2010,
    abstract = {320 pages},
    author = {Hunt, Tara},
    booktitle = {The Power of Social Networking: Using the Whuffie Factor to Build Your Business},
    chapter = {8},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600450},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-18},
    keywords = {18, offline, soci-221, soci221-18, soci221-w11},
    pages = {204--242},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Crown Business},
    title = {{Embrace the Chaos}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-18},
    year = {2010}
}

[19] Warschauer, M.. (2004). Social Resources: Communities and Institutions. In Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide (pp. 153-198). MIT Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{warschauer2004,
    abstract = {274 pages},
    author = {Warschauer, Mark},
    booktitle = {Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide},
    chapter = {6},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600462},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-19},
    keywords = {19, offline, soci-221, soci221-19, soci221-w12},
    pages = {153--198},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:50},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {MIT Press},
    title = {{Social Resources: Communities and Institutions}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-19},
    year = {2004}
}

[20]

Halford, S., & Savage, M.. (2010). Reconceptualizing Digital Social Inequality. Information, Communication & Society, 13(7), 937-955.
[Bibtex]

@article{halford2010inequality,
    author = {Halford, Susan and Savage, Mike},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600447},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2010.499956},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-20},
    doi = {10.1080/1369118X.2010.499956},
    journal = {Information, Communication \& Society},
    keywords = {20, online, soci-221, soci221-20, soci221-w12},
    number = {7},
    pages = {937--955},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Reconceptualizing Digital Social Inequality}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-20},
    volume = {13},
    year = {2010}
}

[21] Westermann, D.. (2011). Discussion. In Mom, Dad, Let`s Be (Facebook) Friends: Exploring Parent/Child Facebook Interaction from a Communication Privacy Management Perspective (pp. 65-84). Kent State University.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{westermann2011discussion,
    abstract = {101 pages},
    author = {Westermann, David A.},
    booktitle = {Mom, Dad, Let`s Be (Facebook) Friends: Exploring Parent/Child Facebook Interaction from a Communication Privacy Management Perspective},
    chapter = {5},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600463},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-21},
    keywords = {21, online, soci-221, soci221-21, soci221-w13},
    number = {May},
    pages = {65--84},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:50},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Kent State University},
    title = {{Discussion}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-21},
    year = {2011}
}

[22] Hindman, M.. (2010). Blogs: The New Elite Media. In The myth of digital democracy (pp. 102-128). Princeton University Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{hindman2010myth,
    abstract = {196 pages},
    author = {Hindman, Matthew S.},
    booktitle = {The myth of digital democracy},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600448},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-22},
    keywords = {22, offline, soci-221, soci221-22, soci221-w13},
    pages = {102--128},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Princeton University Press},
    title = {{Blogs: The New Elite Media}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-22},
    year = {2010}
}

[23] Kendall, L.. (2002). Class, Race, and Online Participation. In Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online (pp. 180-216). University of California Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{kendall2002,
    abstract = {309 pages},
    author = {Kendall, Lori},
    booktitle = {Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online},
    chapter = {7},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600452},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-23},
    keywords = {23, offline, soci-221, soci221-23, soci221-w14},
    pages = {180--216},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {University of California Press},
    title = {{Class, Race, and Online Participation}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-23},
    year = {2002}
}

[24] Hofmann, D.. (2011). Indigeneity and CMC. In Virtually tribal/tribally virtual: Shareholders in indigeneity (pp. 203-228). University of Otago.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{hofmann2011cmc,
    abstract = {283 pages},
    author = {Hofmann, Daniel A.},
    booktitle = {Virtually tribal/tribally virtual: Shareholders in indigeneity},
    chapter = {9},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600449},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-24},
    keywords = {24, online, soci-221, soci221-24, soci221-w14},
    pages = {203--228},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {University of Otago},
    title = {{Indigeneity and CMC}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-24},
    year = {2011}
}

Alphabetical List

Westermann, D.. (2011). Discussion. Chapter 5 in Mom, Dad, Let`s Be (Facebook) Friends: Exploring Parent/Child Facebook Interaction from a Communication Privacy Management Perspective (pp. 65-84). Kent State University.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{westermann2011discussion,
    abstract = {101 pages},
    author = {Westermann, David A.},
    booktitle = {Mom, Dad, Let`s Be (Facebook) Friends: Exploring Parent/Child Facebook Interaction from a Communication Privacy Management Perspective},
    chapter = {5},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600463},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-21},
    keywords = {21, online, soci-221, soci221-21, soci221-w13},
    number = {May},
    pages = {65--84},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:50},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Kent State University},
    title = {{Discussion}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-21},
    year = {2011}
}

Warschauer, M.. (2004). Social Resources: Communities and Institutions. Chapter 6 in Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide (pp. 153-198). MIT Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{warschauer2004,
    abstract = {274 pages},
    author = {Warschauer, Mark},
    booktitle = {Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide},
    chapter = {6},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600462},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-19},
    keywords = {19, offline, soci-221, soci221-19, soci221-w12},
    pages = {153--198},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:50},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {MIT Press},
    title = {{Social Resources: Communities and Institutions}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-19},
    year = {2004}
}

Tapscott, D.. (2009). Making the World a Better Place: At Ground Level. Chapter 10 in Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing your world (pp. 278-288). McGraw-Hill Professional.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{tapscott2009,
    abstract = {384 pages},
    author = {Tapscott, Don},
    booktitle = {Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing your world},
    chapter = {10},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600461},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-13},
    keywords = {13, offline, soci-221, soci221-13, soci221-w9},
    pages = {278--288},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {McGraw-Hill Professional},
    title = {{Making the World a Better Place: At Ground Level}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-13},
    year = {2009}
}

Surowiecki, J.. (2004). Science: Collaboration, Competition, and Reputation. Chapter 8 in The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations (pp. 158-172). Doubleday Books.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{surowiecki2004wisdom,
    abstract = {320 pages},
    author = {Surowiecki, James},
    booktitle = {The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations},
    chapter = {8},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600460},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-17},
    keywords = {17, offline, soci-221, soci221-17, soci221-w11},
    pages = {158--172},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Doubleday Books},
    title = {{Science: Collaboration, Competition, and Reputation}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-17},
    year = {2004}
}

Silver, D.. (2000). Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000.. Chapter 2 in Web. studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age (pp. 19-30). Oxford University Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{silver2000looking,
    abstract = {264 pages},
    author = {Silver, David},
    booktitle = {Web. studies: Rewiring Media Studies for the Digital Age},
    chapter = {2},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600459},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-9},
    keywords = {9, online, soci-221, soci221-9, soci221-w8},
    pages = {19--30},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Oxford University Press},
    title = {{Looking Backwards, Looking Forward; Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000.}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-9},
    year = {2000}
}

Selwyn, N.. (2009). The digital native — myth and reality. Aslib Proceedings, 61(4), 364-379.
[Bibtex]

@article{selwyn2009myth,
    author = {Selwyn, Neil},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600458},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00012530910973776},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-15},
    doi = {10.1108/00012530910973776},
    journal = {Aslib Proceedings},
    keywords = {15, age-groups, aslib-proceedings, children, digital-communication-systems, internet, new-information, online, paper-type-general-review, soci-221, soci221-15, soci221-w10, youth},
    number = {4},
    pages = {364--379},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{The digital native -- myth and reality}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-15},
    volume = {61},
    year = {2009}
}

Sassen, S.. (2002). Towards a Sociology of Information Technology. Current Sociology, 50(3), 365-388.
[Bibtex]

@article{sassen2002itech,
    author = {Sassen, Saskia},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600457},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011392102050003005},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-3},
    doi = {10.1177/0011392102050003005},
    journal = {Current Sociology},
    keywords = {3, online, soci-221, soci221-3, soci221-w3},
    number = {3},
    pages = {365--388},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Towards a Sociology of Information Technology}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-3},
    volume = {50},
    year = {2002}
}

Rheingold, H.. (2003). The Evolution of Reputation. Chapter 5 in Smart mobs: the next social revolution (pp. 113-132). Basic Books.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{rheingold2003smart,
    abstract = {288 pages},
    author = {Rheingold, Howard},
    booktitle = {Smart mobs: the next social revolution},
    chapter = {5},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600456},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-16},
    keywords = {16, offline, soci-221, soci221-16, soci221-w11},
    pages = {113--132},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Basic Books},
    title = {The Evolution of Reputation},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-16},
    year = {2003}
}

Prensky, M.. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.
[Bibtex]

@article{prensky2001horizon,
    author = {Prensky, Marc},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600455},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10748120110424816},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-12},
    doi = {10.1108/10748120110424816},
    journal = {On the Horizon},
    keywords = {12, online, soci-221, soci221-12, soci221-w9},
    number = {5},
    pages = {1--6},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {MCB UP Ltd},
    title = {{Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-12},
    volume = {9},
    year = {2001}
}

@article{perkins2011internet,
    author = {Perkins, Richard and Neumayer, Eric},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600454},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2010.500994},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-4},
    doi = {10.1080/00330124.2010.500994},
    journal = {The Professional Geographer},
    keywords = {4, online, soci-221, soci221-4, soci221-w3},
    number = {1},
    pages = {55--72},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Is the Internet Really New After All? The Determinants of Telecommunications Diffusion in Historical Perspective}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-4},
    volume = {63},
    year = {2010}
}

Palfrey, J., & Gasser. (2008). Identities. Chapter 1 in Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives (pp. 17-37). Basic Books.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{palfrey2010,
    abstract = {288 pages},
    author = {Palfrey, John and Gasser, U.},
    booktitle = {Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives},
    chapter = {1},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600453},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-11},
    keywords = {11, offline, soci-221, soci221-11, soci221-w9},
    pages = {17--37},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Basic Books},
    title = {{Identities}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-11},
    year = {2008}
}

Kendall, L.. (2002). Class, Race, and Online Participation. Chapter 7 in Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online (pp. 180-216). University of California Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{kendall2002,
    abstract = {309 pages},
    author = {Kendall, Lori},
    booktitle = {Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online},
    chapter = {7},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600452},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-23},
    keywords = {23, offline, soci-221, soci221-23, soci221-w14},
    pages = {180--216},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {University of California Press},
    title = {{Class, Race, and Online Participation}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-23},
    year = {2002}
}

Kelty, C.. (2008). Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists. Chapter 2 in Two bits: The cultural significance of free software (pp. 64-94). Duke University Press Books.
[Bibtex]

@incollection{kelty2008reformers,
    abstract = {378 pages},
    author = {Kelty, Christopher M.},
    booktitle = {Two bits: The cultural significance of free software},
    chapter = {2},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600451},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-8},
    keywords = {8, online, soci-221, soci221-8, soci221-w6},
    pages = {64--94},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Duke University Press Books},
    title = {{Protestant Reformers, Polymaths, Transhumanists}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-8},
    year = {2008}
}

Hunt, T.. (2010). Embrace the Chaos. Chapter 8 in The Power of Social Networking: Using the Whuffie Factor to Build Your Business (pp. 204-242). Crown Business.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{hunt2010,
    abstract = {320 pages},
    author = {Hunt, Tara},
    booktitle = {The Power of Social Networking: Using the Whuffie Factor to Build Your Business},
    chapter = {8},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600450},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-18},
    keywords = {18, offline, soci-221, soci221-18, soci221-w11},
    pages = {204--242},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Crown Business},
    title = {{Embrace the Chaos}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-18},
    year = {2010}
}

Hofmann, D.. (2011). Indigeneity and CMC. Chapter 9 in Virtually tribal/tribally virtual: Shareholders in indigeneity (pp. 203-228). University of Otago.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{hofmann2011cmc,
    abstract = {283 pages},
    author = {Hofmann, Daniel A.},
    booktitle = {Virtually tribal/tribally virtual: Shareholders in indigeneity},
    chapter = {9},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600449},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-24},
    keywords = {24, online, soci-221, soci221-24, soci221-w14},
    pages = {203--228},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {University of Otago},
    title = {{Indigeneity and CMC}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-24},
    year = {2011}
}

Hindman, M.. (2010). Blogs: The New Elite Media. in The myth of digital democracy (pp. 102-128). Princeton University Press.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{hindman2010myth,
    abstract = {196 pages},
    author = {Hindman, Matthew S.},
    booktitle = {The myth of digital democracy},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600448},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-22},
    keywords = {22, offline, soci-221, soci221-22, soci221-w13},
    pages = {102--128},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Princeton University Press},
    title = {{Blogs: The New Elite Media}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-22},
    year = {2010}
}

Halford, S., & Savage, M.. (2010). Reconceptualizing Digital Social Inequality. Information, Communication & Society, 13(7), 937-955.
[Bibtex]

@article{halford2010inequality,
    author = {Halford, Susan and Savage, Mike},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600447},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2010.499956},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-20},
    doi = {10.1080/1369118X.2010.499956},
    journal = {Information, Communication \& Society},
    keywords = {20, online, soci-221, soci221-20, soci221-w12},
    number = {7},
    pages = {937--955},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Reconceptualizing Digital Social Inequality}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-20},
    volume = {13},
    year = {2010}
}

Cool, J.. (2008). Cyborganic and Social Change: The Power and Limits of Community. Chapter 7 in Communities of innovation: Cyborganic and the birth of networked social media (pp. 351-380). University of Southern California.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{cool2008change,
    abstract = {410 pages},
    author = {Cool, Jennifer C.},
    booktitle = {Communities of innovation: Cyborganic and the birth of networked social media},
    chapter = {7},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600446},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-7},
    keywords = {7, online, soci-221, soci221-7, soci221-w6},
    pages = {351--380},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {University of Southern California},
    title = {{Cyborganic and Social Change: The Power and Limits of Community}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-7},
    year = {2008}
}

Christian, B.. (2011). The Migratory Soul. Chapter 3 in The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive (pp. 38-73). Doubleday.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{christian2011,
    abstract = {320 pages},
    author = {Christian, Brian},
    booktitle = {The Most Human Human: What Talking with Computers Teaches Us About What It Means to Be Alive},
    chapter = {3},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600445},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-1},
    keywords = {1, offline, soci-221, soci221-1, soci221-w2},
    pages = {38--73},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Doubleday},
    title = {The Migratory Soul},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-1},
    year = {2011}
}

@article{berman2001turing,
    author = {Berman, Joshua and Bruckman, Amy S.},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600444},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/135485650100700307},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-2},
    doi = {10.1177/135485650100700307},
    journal = {Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies},
    keywords = {2, online, soci-221, soci221-2, soci221-w2},
    number = {3},
    pages = {83--102},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{The Turing Game: Exploring Identity in an Online Environment}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-2},
    volume = {7},
    year = {2001}
}

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L.. (2008). The `digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), 775-786.
[Bibtex]

@article{bennett2008debate,
    author = {Bennett, Sue and Maton, Karl and Kervin, Lisa},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600443},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-14},
    doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x},
    journal = {British Journal of Educational Technology},
    keywords = {14, online, soci-221, soci221-14, soci221-w10},
    number = {5},
    pages = {775--786},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{The `digital natives' debate: A critical review of the evidence}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-14},
    volume = {39},
    year = {2008}
}

Bell, M.. (2008). Toward a definition of “virtual worlds”. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 1(1), 1-5.
[Bibtex]

@article{bell2008virtual,
    author = {Bell, Mark W.},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600442},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-6},
    journal = {Journal of Virtual Worlds Research},
    keywords = {6, online, soci-221, soci221-6, soci221-w4},
    number = {1},
    pages = {1--5},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Toward a definition of ``virtual worlds''}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-6},
    volume = {1},
    year = {2008}
}

Bell, D.. (2002). Storying Cyberspace 1: Material and Symbolic Stories. Chapter 2 in An Introduction to Cybercultures (pp. 6-29). Routledge.
[Bibtex]

@inbook{bell2002,
    abstract = {256 pages},
    author = {Bell, David},
    booktitle = {An Introduction to Cybercultures},
    chapter = {2},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600441},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://lar.me/soci221-10},
    keywords = {10, offline, soci-221, soci221-10, soci221-w8},
    pages = {6--29},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    publisher = {Routledge},
    title = {{Storying Cyberspace 1: Material and Symbolic Stories}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-10},
    year = {2002}
}

Beer, D., & Burrows, R.. (2007). Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations. Sociological Research Online, 12(5), 17.
[Bibtex]

@article{beer2007sociology,
    author = {Beer, David and Burrows, Roger},
    citeulike-article-id = {9600440},
    citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5153/sro.1560},
    citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://lar.me/soci221-5},
    doi = {10.5153/sro.1560},
    journal = {Sociological Research Online},
    keywords = {5, online, soci-221, soci221-5, soci221-w4},
    number = {5},
    pages = {17},
    posted-at = {2011-08-01 14:57:49},
    priority = {0},
    title = {{Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations}},
    url = {http://lar.me/soci221-5},
    volume = {12},
    year = {2007}
}

ATT7: Prewrite

Posted on October 4, 2010 by alex

I have this simple policy: you submit something at least one week in advance in one of my courses, I give you feedback so that you can improve this assignment and submit it again by the due time.

Here’s how I’m stating it in my syllabi, this semester:

Extra credit will not be given in this class. However, if you submit a written assignment at least one week in advance of its due date, I will be able to provide you with feedback on your assignment and allow you to rewrite it based on this feedback. Rewriting an assignment does not guarantee a better grade but should enhance your learning process and might allow you to improve your grade.

In class, I often do contextualize it in the “no extra credit” frame. And I spend some time explaining how it works in my teaching philosophy, including the comparison with my approach to marking and grading.

The feedback I give on “prewrites” is usually very elaborate. One reason I’m posting this is that I sent feedback on a few prewrites. In the case of one 3000 word assignment, my feedback was 1700 words. (This blogpost contains 654 words.) In the case of some short assignment submission (say, 300 words or less), I’m sure I’ve sent feedback which was actually longer than the assignment itself.

I call it a “prewrite” because, in my head at least, it seems to conjure appropriate connotations. It’s fairly idiosyncratic a policy, at least the way I spell it out, but I know colleagues do very similar things.

One peculiarity of my “prewrite” policy is that it’s very dissimilar to the way I grade assignments.

Because, when I grade assignments for a course, I actually give very short feedback. For several reasons, I don’t annotate every page. I basically summarize my comments in a “holistic” fashion (after all, I’m an ethnographer). That “holistic feedback” tends to be mostly positive. I emphasize the high points of the assignment. [dramatic-rendition]“Oh, I see that you emphasized this one point from the material. That’s a good start as it can lead you to talk about these other things we’ve been discussing…”[/dramatic-rendition]. My actual comments are frequently more subtle and they’re not passive-aggressive (at least, not in the way I intend or perceive them), but they seem to have the intended effect: let students know what was appropriate and help them find ways to improve, either in the next assignment, in the rest of their academic careers, or even during the rest of their lives.

I do the same thing for any kind of grade apart from that given on exam answers. It can be on a final paper, on a self-assessed grade for contributions (yes, I do grade contributions), on a project plan, etc. I even use the abbreviated marks described previously on open answers to exam questions, but without this more “textual” feedback.

To a limited extent, I might scale up this feedback on assignments when I perceive some extra effort may have been made or when I feel that my evaluation requires some justification. But, overall, the type of feedback I give on an assignment which wasn’t a prewrite will might be around three or four sentences. Of course, I’m always ready to provide more feedback. Still, from what I’ve seen, extended feedback is rarely request. Even when students ask for additional comments, sometimes in a rather confrontational manner, the extra feedback I give them isn’t necessarily appreciated or even understood in the most appropriate frame of mind. Which might give you some idea why my “normal” feedback is so limited. (Additional reasons provided upon request.. )

But this blogpost wasn’t meant to be about “normal” feedback. It’s about prewrites and what they can do.

Simply put, I love it when I get to give feedback on a prewrite. To me, it means that the student is taking an actual interest in the learning process. Sure, the prospect of potentially increasing her/his grade is likely the main motivation. Sure, in some cases, students get “more than they bargained for.” They thought it was a way to get their grade raised automatically by virtue of submitting the assignment ahead of time. (These students probably have a rather big surprise when they receive my feedback, especially since I can then be brutally honest as to what could have been done. Not that implementing changes based on my feedback is likely to take a lot of time. But those students who seem to misunderstand my prewrite policy as an easy way to increase their grades are also those who make no change whatsoever to their assignments.)

Still, most students who submit prewrites are actually looking for feedback and are taking an active part in the learning process.

Whatever reasons a student has in mind submitting a prewrite, the effect is the same. Whether it’s based on a misinterpretation or on a genuine desire to enhance her/his learning experience, as long as the student reads my feedback, s/he ends up focusing on the work instead of on getting the highest grade in the most effortless manner (or on ensuring s/he gets the grade s/he thinks s/he deserve as an “entitled” student). Even if it were just for this, I’d be happy to get these prewrites.

But there’s more. Not only “a lot more” but something qualitatively more significant.

The feedback I give clearly has an impact on the work being done. It’s all good and well to get students to take an active part in the learning process. Some would even take this for granted. But there’s something about providing “extended feedback which is likely to be taken into consideration” which is worth more than any amount of time I’m able to spend on it.

See, by providing this kind of effect, I’m often able to help students achieve something special. It’s not about me, but it relates to my work. And there’s little more satisfying than this kind of work. “Teaching moments” in the classroom come close or even reach the same level of satisfaction. But that’s because the same basic idea is at stake: in the classroom as on paper (or online), you’re helping create something. And this something is often more than students thought they were able to create.

This is one of the situations in which I perceive myself as a sherpa. And I specifically think about Tenzing Norgay.

(As an anthropologist, I take solace in the fact that Norgay is credited, along with Hillary, as being one of the two human beings who first set foot at the top of Mount Everest. Given the structure of the world in the mid-twentieth Century, I wouldn’t expect Norgay to have received praises. In fact, mountaineering is specifically a domain in which credit may be given to people in a rather arbitrary way. But, at least if the version of the story I’ve heard about is accurate, the fact that Tenzing Norgay can be celebrated means a lot to me. It also makes me think of those cinematographers who accompany people during great feats. The fact that they get to those same spots carrying a lot of equipment often makes me wonder if they’re not the real heroes. But I digress especially far since I don’t want this to be about heroism..)

Of course, I don’t compare myself to Tenzing Norgay. But I find inspiration in what he accomplished. He not only accomplished a great feat himself (something I don’t see myself capable of) but he enabled somebody else’s great feat (something I perceive very highly).

With students who are “at the top of their game,” serving as a sherpa can be very satisfying because the results can reveal intellectual prowess. But, even though it means “improving something which was already good,” it’s relatively easy to do because these students have stimulation, motivation, and possibly drive, not to mention mad sk1||z.

The situation at the other extreme can be as satisfying but it’s also more “touching” and less impressive. You get a student whose “game,” for whatever reason, isn’t at the very top. Someone who probably wouldn’t get a very high grade in the course if it weren’t for your help. And, despite your help, this student may not achieve the type of proficiency that your grading scheme puts at the top. Yet this student improves her/his work through concerted effort with you. In other words, you’re not helping Hillary climb Mount Everest. But it’s a bit as if you were helping a paralympian climb the Matterhorn. Sure, other people have been there. In fact, some people set records on doing it quickly. In my mind, though, at least in terms of “overcoming some preconceived notions of what can be done,” what you’re helping someone do is more significant than setting a new world record.

As is often the case when I think about teaching, I get to reminisce about my father’s career as a high school teacher for students with learning disabilities. On numerous occasions, my father was able to help students get over significant hurdles. One occasion I remember quite vividly is when he helped a well-motivated student complete three years in one. Part of the reason I remember this is that I was present during some study sessions my father did with that student. I vaguely remember her, but I can say that this is an occasion for me to be proud of my father. And it surely had a large impact on my perception of teaching.

But what probably had a deeper impact and is more impressive in so many ways is something I rarely discuss: my mother’s career. For most of her working life, including while she was working on the more administrative side of things, my mother was an occupational therapist helping adults and children suffering from MR. [Having a hard time with the English term. The French «déficience intellectuelle» seems to me more appropriate..]

Many of the people with whom my mother worked had Down Syndrome. Probably more than the physical handicap to which I alluded, in the “paralympian climing the Matterhorn” idea, Down Syndrome sets a very strict limit to what the person can or cannot do. While we’ve all heard cases of “physical disabilities” being overcome to the extent that the person may accomplish feats a “normally able” person is unlikely to accomplish, Down Syndrome may prevent some rather normal tasks from ever being undertaken. This description of Down Syndrome may be wholly inaccurate, as I’m not an expert in the field (unlike my mother who has been spending the past few weeks among Swiss mountains, including the Matterhorn). And I certainly don’t want to understate the challenges facing those with physical disabilities. But my limited experience with Down Syndrome adults and children left in me a lasting impression. Close to helplessness. Making rather mundane tasks into monumental achievements.

It takes more than courage and determination to overcome significant hurdles such as a mental or physical handicap. Whatever the case may be, the inspiration to not take for granted some of the simplest things in life runs deep.

Of course, the students who take my courses in a university setting are as far as you could get from suffering from MR. Though there have been differences in terms of specific accomplishments, it doesn’t escape me that people who go to universities represent but a fraction of society as a whole and that, in a certain sense, the distinction implied bears some relationship to possessing intelligence which is often ranked much higher than average. [My perspective on intelligence isn't one which puts people on a linear scale, so I'm hard-pressed to find a way to express this which makes sense in my mind and addresses some common perceptions about university students.]

The part of my mother’s career which most directly inspires my teaching, with the sherpa analogy in mind, is precisely that ability isn’t a given and that there isn’t a direct correlation between assumed ability and potential achievement.

It might be one reason behind my rather strong negative reactions to the infamous “sense of entitlement” perceived on some campuses (“campi” is allegedly frowned upon). Comparing a university student’s achievements to those of someone with Down Syndrome may seem exceedingly strange (and even, given social stigma on MR, very insulting). Using extreme examples about mental abilities to show the importance of intellectual humility and intellectual honesty is very tricky. But if it helps people become more thoughtful about the specificity of university work, the risk is worth it.

I’ve already been on long tangents and I should probably cut this up in two or more posts. But I need to go.

RERO!

Infiltrating Academia with BuddyPress?

Posted on August 27, 2010 by alex

[This is truly a placeholder. I did a session at WordCamp Montréal and have been using this post to share slides and other relevant information.]

BuddyPress, the social network based on WordPress, is becoming more and more common in academic environments where it is used for organization, communication and learning. In this discussion we will go beyond the practical and into the human side of things to consider what effects social software might be having in the world of academia. Can we use our tools to get people to think differently? Does the use of open tools help bring openness to the context where they are used? Are BuddyPress and WordPress the best tools for the job? This talk will take the form of a guided discussion including the entire audience.

Audio Recording

(Apologies for the poor sound quality. It was recorded directly from the mixing board used in the PA system, but I wasn’t able to set the recording in the way I should have.)

Audio Recording from my WordCamp Session

Infiltrating Academia with BuddyPress audio

Slides

iWork.com

PDF

Infiltrating Academia with BuddyPress?

View more presentations from Alexandre Enkerli.

From LMS to BuddyPress to ScholarPress

Scholarly Writing?

University’s Future?

Notes

Key BuddyPress Features for Education and Academia

Blogging
- Low-stakes writing
- Peer-feedback
Hosted Microblogging
- P2
- Link Sharing
- À la StatusNet/Tumblr
- Rich/Media-Enhanced
Forums
- bbPress
- Peer-Learning
- Constructivist strategies
Groups
- Teamwork
Podcasting
- PodPress
- LectureCast
Social network
- Latent function of formal education
- Social networking for career and life
- Profiles
- Mentions
- DMs
- Contacts
Teaching tools
- Syllabus
- Schedule
- Assignments
- Bibliography
- Anciliary material

Issues

Openness
Control
Walled garden
Ownership
Beyond institution
Lifelong Learning
Personal Learning Network

Rethinking Tenure, Part V: Broadening the Scope

Posted on August 18, 2010 by alex

Can’t We Cool Off?

Like the child of parents who are committing divorce, I just wish people would stop fighting, talking past each other, and having knee-jerk reactions.

Not that I want people to agree or get along, but it sometimes feel that debates and disagreements focus too much on some specific problems (or on some specific positions and even on some specific people) instead of looking at things in as broad a way as possible. Sure, the issues involved may be “serious” and “important.” But it’s too easy to get caught up in those issues and think that any form of thinking has two sides or that these issues are all that matters. As Michel Rivard sings: «Une toute personnelle fin du monde» (“A Very Personal End of the World”).

What else is there?

Even in the divorce case, it’s not “think of the kids.” And, despite what some teachers say, “higher” education clearly isn’t about “kids.” So, as I talk about universities, it’s not about a specific group of people. It’s about the whole picture, the whole set of alternatives. Not limiting your options to what is being presented, as in the proverbial nine-point “box.”

Call me a holist (it’s allowed in my field), but I can’t help thinking about broader ways to approach things.

Questions about Tenure

More specifically…

How can we think about tenure in a broader way? What are the implications of the tenure system? Can other systems provide something similar to what the tenure system provides? Aren’t there shifts in what’s needed from tenure? Is there more than one alternative option to the tenure system? Aren’t there broader changes related to tenure? What are the constituencies involved when we talk about the tenure system? Is it just something happening between administrators and professors? In business, the questions about stakeholders are used to open up discussions. So, who are the stakeholders in the tenure system? Would it be enough to add non-tenure employees, students, and “society” or “governments” to administrators and professors? Isn’t the tenure system involved in a much broader set of issues, which include not only tuition fees and costs for textbooks but social expectations in terms of post-secondary education and even the meaning of life outside the Ivory Tower?

A Bit of Context

The trigger for this new post in an already-overextended series and the reason for my long preamble is a post by blogging dean “Dean Dad” (DD) meant as a response to a proposal by the New Faculty Majority (NFM), “The National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity.”

Confessions of a Community College Dean: A Response to The New Faculty Majority.

“Program for Change: 2010-2030″ | A Discussion Covened by NFM.

Avoiding the Debate?

Despite my blogging from this starting point, I would actually prefer not to enter the latent or actual debate between “higher ed” administrators and contract-based faculty members. Previous posts in this series, especially the first one, contain enough about my opinions about the specific situation of non-tenured faculty. And I specifically don’t want to wedge myself between NFM and DD. I haven’t read the full NFM proposal and my reaction to DD’s post isn’t about specific “points of contention.” Personally, I would both disagree and agree with several points made on both “sides.” But, in my mind, it’s not about agreement or disagreement. And it’s not about me.

In fact, I don’t feel that connected to either side. Though I’m officially working as a part-time faculty member and I certainly empathize and sympathize with my colleagues who are unsatisfied with such a position, I have a hard time seeing this as a “side.”

«C’est la lutte finale!»

At Concordia, I’m represented by a union which has as its specific mission to defend the interest of part-time faculty members. In fact, my union has scored some significant victories in the recent past and it seems that “my side” is adequately represented. But, by analogy with nationalism and patriotism, I wish I could be a “citizen of the World” instead of belonging to just one society.

I don’t have anything against unions. Not only was I raised in union-friendly Quebec but unions have been a relatively significant part of my own environment. Besides, the underlying point of the previous post in this series was that unions are a very appropriate way to solve labour issues, including what “academic freedom” ends up being, in a number of contexts.

Yet I think that union-mindedness can become a bit too focused, in some specific contexts. In my mind, there’s room for thinking outside of the debates and even conflicts between “union and management” (I’d say «syndicat et patronat», so much has union-speech infiltrated my life). So, to come back to my preamble: who’s involved, here? Is it a back-and-forth between employees and employers? Is it all about working conditions?

“Think about Textbook Publishers!”

Textbook publishers aren’t that directly impacted by issues related to tenure (apart, maybe, from longtime textbook adoption commitments by individual professors they bribdo business with). But they do have a stake in the current university system. Not that they contribute significantly to the operational income for “higher learning” institutions. But textbook publishers are part of “the whole picture.”

Why do I mention them here? Several reasons. One is that discussions about tenure often revolve around money, including the money spent on faculty salaries and money spent as tuition fees. The cost of textbooks is something many (undergraduate) students may need to put in their budgets. In fact, if one is to follow “the money trail” in some educational systems, an important path in that trail probably leads to publishers. Not that textbook publishing is “where the money is.” But, after teaching courses in which students spent more on textbooks than was spent on my salary, I got to think about that part of the money picture.

But part of what leads me to think about textbook publishers has less to do with textbook costs and more to do with transitions in educational systems.

I originally thought about mentioning journalism. The advantage would have been widespread awareness of a current journalism crisis. Not that I know the financials for textbook publishers, but people don’t usually talk about a “crisis” when they talk about textbook publishers. At least, not on the side of publishers.

Yet textbook publishers, like newspaper publishers, have to adapt to new realities. Large-scale corporate concentration, longterm shifts in business practices, the cost of paper and… the Internet. If textbook publishers aren’t adapting, they might end up with significant problems. I happen to think that publishers tend to have too narrow a focus and that they will eventually run into significant problems. But even if I’m wrong, the idea remains that a broad focus can help. (And, yes, I sound like a broken record but it’s not a song which is being heard so clearly, so redundancy may help.)

“The New Realities”

So, going back to the tenure system… Universities will “need to adapt to new realities.” From the trenches, you can hear some people talk about this. But I mostly get the impression that many people in academic contexts are either ignoring the broad isuses or focusing too specifically on a subset of what “the new realities” might be.

In the US especially, people tend to talk about “for-profits.” Usually, people are against “for-profits” (at least, among people and blogs I read). The core idea, though, is that a shift is happening and that “for-profits” are part of the new realities. And what are “for-profits,” you ask? From what I gather (just heard recently about this), they’re accredited institutions of higher learning which deviate from some norm as to what colleges and universities should be like. So, it sounds like a variation on the dichotomy between “private” and “public” institutions with a shift in emphasis on the motives instead of the way these institutions are financed. The way they’re described, “for-profits” sound quite different from private universities. But the implied distinction (between “for-profits” and “not-for-profit?”) resonates in some of the same ways.

Online courses are also among “the new realities.” In this context, rarely do people connect these courses with the history of distance education. What puts online courses as part of “the new realities” isn’t really about the context in which learning happens but about some shifts in roles and goals. Part of this is connected to “for-profits” as there’s an embedded business model in people’s minds when people discuss online courses. In a way, an increase in online courses transforms these courses into products, regardless of pedagogical approaches used.

Then there’s the increase in the number of courses taught by “adjunct and contingent faculty.” It’s probably the reason behind the NFM name: the majority of faculty members is found on the contract-based side instead of the tenure side. The shift is perceived as being mostly negative, since “adjuncts obviously have worse conditions than people in the tenure system.” Besides, ranking systems clearly state, “courses taught by tenured faculty members are inherently better.” (Yes, there was a bit of sarcasm in here….)

There are obvious connections between the adjunct-teaching “new reality” and the previous issues. For one thing, adjuncts teaching online may get even less protection than with offline courses. And one issue people have with “for-profits” is that they mostly hire people through contracts.

What these connections tell me is that we’re talking about a complex system, with numerous parts which are interacting in non-obvious ways. It doesn’t sound like a complicated causal model with a clear set of causes and a clear set of results. Especially if we consider a number of issues which aren’t frequently discussed within the walls of institutions of “higher learning.”

Alternative Learning

For an example of something infrequently discussed within the Ivory Tower: how about learning outside formal institutions of higher learning?

When a similar issue is raised (outside of the Ivory Tower), it’s often in rather provocative terms.

Bill Gates: The Internet Will Replace Universities – PSFK.

With the “money quote”:

Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university.

Haven’t listened to Gates’s whole speech but this specific quote, reproduced in a number of places, seems to imply a rather narrow perspective on learning.

Problem is, the counterpoint from universities isn’t that well-composed. “What’s the role of the university when you can get content online? The campus experience! Grades! Credentials!” I love improvisation but these reactions sound like someone trying to catch up with chord changes.

And catching up is perhaps not the most efficient way to adapt and cope to “new realities.”

Not only is the Web making it possible to attend lecture and to get learning “content,” but the world in which we live offers some new opportunities for “learning outside the school”: homeschooling, self-learning, informal learning, personal learning networks, etc. Sure, steady jobs still tend to be associated with degrees that people get, and even grades matter in some contexts. But there also seems to be an increase in contractual hiring outside the “CV and interview” system. No, getting jobs without presenting a CV isn’t likely to become an appropriate solution for everyone. But happy lives achieved without seals of approval from formal institutions represent a challenge many a university system.

Through all of this, what needs to be rethunk about tenure isn’t just tenure itself. It’s how the whole university system fits in a new context. Tenure is just a sore thumb, sticking out in a mangled hand.

ATT6: Marking Scheme

Posted on August 10, 2010 by alex

Been thinking about my “scheme” for marking assignments. It’s something I’ve designed based on some comments I was frequently making on those assignments. Basically, all of these comments are positive but they’re set in a hierarchical structure, with “insight” at the top and concision at the bottom.

IF: Insightful
OC: Original and Creative
HP: Honest and Personal
TR: Thoughtful and Reflexive
EX: Appropriate Examples
ED: Elaborate and Detailed
CSF: Concise and Straightforward

In some ways, “TR” is the baseline. A “TR” paper is one which shows that the student has “done the work.” Nothing more, nothihng less.

The three marks above TR are “added value.” Not only has the student given back what was expected, but s/he put her-/himself in the work, did something unique, or even reached a high level of insight.

The three marks below “TR” are a way to emphasise the positive while pointing out some potential problems. An assignment with appropriate examples is useful, but it may not reach the expected level of understanding. Long papers filled with lots of details require some effort, but may miss the point of the assignment. And some very short but clear assignments at least show an ability to be concise, even if they don’t do much more.

These “marks” are usually combined in some way and student work can be “TR and ED” or “CSF and TR.” Order counts, with the first mark being the most important. Outstanding work will usually have “IF” as the first mark and often has two other comments. Suboptimal work is often “CSF and EX.”

Obviously, I also provide some more elaborate comments about some key points in the assignments. These range from “interesting emphasis on concept X but bear in mind that this was about concepts X and Y” to “you’ve clearly understood the issues and you’ve really managed to do something unique with this paper.” Even in those fleshed out comments, I might end up reusing the same comment, if similar issues happened in assignments by diverse students. Generic work may get generic comments and outstanding work often gets very specific comments.

As I assess an assignment, I have something close to “sliders” in mind, with something resembling VU meters. (Not literally, but the image works.) The balance between the abbreviated qualities may shift as I work with the text: “It seems to be mostly TR but maybe there’s a nugget of creativity, somewhere” or “It starts out in a very unique way but let’s check if this originality carries through.” When something reaches a high level of insight (relative to the context, of course), it can “peak out the master” and, unless the rest of the text causes a radical drop in quality, the “IF” level will remain as part of the overall assessment.

The correspondance between the abbreviated marks and points/grades isn’t linear. I typically mark all assignments before I add the actual grades, so I get a good idea about the range in quality. I usually don’t work by direct comparison, but I also won’t grade down papers just because they’re not “publishing quality.”

In fact, as may be obvious from these marks, there are many things which don’t usually matter, to me, in an assignment. For instance, the only elements of form which do matter have to do with getting the message across and displaying a thorough understanding of the material. My assignments are about insight, not about production value. More specifically, I typically don’t “grade language,” though I could do so and have done so on occasion. In most cases, I’d rather not have students too self-conscious about their mastery of normative language.

I realize how idiosyncratic my “scheme” may be, but it’s worked quite well in several of my courses. For one thing, it helps bring home the point that I’m looking for insight. And it can help me explain that length matters very little.

Owning Your Words

Posted on August 3, 2010 by alex

Seems like I’m coming late to this discussion, but author Michael Erard (FoaF of mine) is helping me catch up:

Plagiarism, the Meme Michael Erard – Home.

Part of that conversation was sparked by a piece Erard wrote in 2002 and published a few weeks ago:

Cheater Cheater by Michael Erard – The Morning News.

According to the author, that piece generated some strong reactions, including some apparently-visceral ones. (I try to avoid these, as much as possible.)

More recently, the New York Times published the following:

Lines on Plagiarism Blur for Students in the Digital Age – NYTimes.com.

[Sidenote: I have a problem with journalism (not with journalists, just with their work). As may surprise some people, the NYT appears to me to be part of that problem, not of its solution. And this piece by Trip Gabriel reminds me of diverse things I dislike about journalism. Not that Gabriel's work is bad or that he's a bad journalist. But I find in this piece a representation of something problematic with journalism that would take me too long to articulate here. Still, there's some interesting insight in this piece.]

One thing I find useful in this NYT article is the admission that there might be different approaches to plagiarism and academic integrity. This is something which is discussed among teachers, but it’s the first time I see it in MSM. The very idea that we can expand the conversation about these issues is quite refreshing. Eventually, it might even help us hash out some of these issues in a less visceral and even dispassionate fashion. But I’m not holding my breath on this one.

Another thing I find useful in that “blurred lines” piece is a small set of quotes from fellow ethnographer Susan D. Blum. (Though I was apparently living in South Bend, IN when Dr. Blum became Kellogg fellow for international studies, I don’t recall meeting her.) What Blum says is not only anthropologically relevant but resonates strongly with things I’ve noticed, My summary from these short quotes: values surrounding plagiarism are best understood in a context in which individual ownership of ideas is emphasized; there might be a shift in these values through a much broader cultural change. If I hear Blum correctly, she isn’t taking the usual “techno-determinism” route (“it all happened because of this strange newfangled thing they call the Interwebs”), nor does she assign the causal relationship the other way around (“a shift to a more anonymous culture made it possible for the Internet to expand, in the last twenty years”). Instead, she’s describing a broad phenomenon, based on an understanding of some historical developments of so-called “Western” culture.

Seems to me that Jacques Attali would have fascinating things to say about this. Part of this impression is based on his work on the political economy of music which, in my mind, prefigured what has since been known as the “Napster Revolution.” But I also recall a (French) tv show about plagiarism in which he had some fascinating things to say about the developments of what RMS admonished us not to call “intellectual property.”

I have a lot more to say about all of this, including my own experience with a cheating student and diverse things about Erard’s work on this. But I got to leave. So it’s just a teaser, at this point.

Rethinking Tenure, Part IV: Labour Issues

Posted on July 27, 2010 by alex

Previous Parts in this Series:

Part of the reason I’ve decided to revisit this issue is that the first parts of this series seem to be getting just a bit of traction. As we say in French: «il faut battre le fer pendant qu’il est chaud» (“Strike while the iron is hot.” meaning that we should take advantage of the momentum we get).

Specifically, Vanessa Vaile over at New Faculty Majority has posted a short but enthusiastic comment on the first parts of this series. As I thrive on feedback (at least, in social media and in teaching), it gave me the push to do a follow up.

Vanessa mentions the COCAL conference, a meeting about “contingent academic labour.” Now, to be honest, while I knew it was happening in Quebec City this summer (during a meeting of Concordia’s part-time faculty union, our president had discussed it), I hadn’t really looked into it. Not that I’m not interested in the issue, but I’m not into formal conferences, anymore.

And (he says sheepishly), I’m worried that my position might not be well-received among (opinion) leaders in this movement. It’s one thing to post my thoughts on these issues and potentially debate them, in writing or face-to-face. It’s quite another to be directly confronted for a significant period of time by what might be a number of vocal activists of what I’ve described as “career part-timers.” I’m all for thoughtful debates and I can stand up and discuss these things publicly. But I do have an issue when things quickly become heated. I may be way off, here, but in my (admittedly limited) experience with groups of “career part-timers,” the heat source has usually not been too far away, when members of these groups meet.

Now, let me stress that I’m not dismissing anything that any kind of part-timer, “career” or otherwise, does. I certainly understand the concerns with precarity and working conditions. I’ve been lucky enough to have been well-represented by strong unions at a number of places where I’ve thought and I do want to involve myself in some activities related to the responsibilities and rights of “contingent academic workers.” I just happen to think that the core issue isn’t so much with part-time work by itself (though I really wish we’d think about alternate models, including long-term contracts). Put bluntly, I’d say that the whole academic system could afford some rethinking. Which could have a huge impact on those who are currently part of the “contingent academic labour force” and those who will be member of the “academic labour” (contingent or not) in the future.

While this long preface has to do with part-timers, I’m really thinking about tenure. Not that tenure should necessarily disappear. But we might as well put some things in perspective. This is what this series is about. Not the defence of one group of people against another (I’d side with learners, if I were allowed to do so). Not a proposal to save academia in its current form. Not even a recipe for building the replacement to the current academia. Just some thoughts about things we may be taking for granted.

So…. I have been thinking about labour issues as I was writing the previous parts in this series. I didn’t mention these labour issues that frequently, but they influence much of what I say about tenure.

“In today’s job world” (at least, what I know of it), academic tenure seems quite unusual a system. Almost anomalous. As mentioned elsewhere, it’s similar to some employment in the public sector, especially in terms of “job security.” But academic tenure is it’s own thing. It’s “kind of special.”

Part of it has to do with prestige. Not only that “university[ref]Partly because, in Quebec, colleges are a separate programme between high school and university, I use “university” for just about any institution of higher education, including some which are called “college.” So, a professor at Bridgewater State College or Tufts College is a “university professor,” in the way I describe things.[/ref] professor” is among the professions with the highest social status in a number of social contexts (between dentist and architect, according to Davis et al. 2007). But there’s a gap between any other kind of academic work (graduate student, senior researcher, etc.) and the prestige associated with a university professor.

More so than a number of other professional groups, the group represented by university professors is often perceived as a select club. At least in the sense that membership doesn’t follow a similar set of guidelines as that of, say, lawyers or engineers. In that sense, other professions have more of a guild system while “academic tenure” is more similar to a club.

(It should be noted that multiple efforts are being made to make this “club” more open to representatives of a number of socially marginalized groups. I don’t mean to say that “the faculty club is still an old boys’ club” since I don’t have data on this. But, even in this case, the process seems quite specific to academic tenure. Sure, complaints about discriminatory hiring may refer to similar rules whether they concern administrators or professors. But it still seems, to me, that the way complaints and claims are discussed shifts, when it’s about academic tenure. )

The contrast between academic tenure and other professional systems seems especially obvious, to me, when thinking about the fact that university professors aren’t specifically trained to be university professors. Oh, sure, they’re trained in their disciplines and may even have some background in pedagogy. Some contexts even have mentoring programes. But there isn’t that clear a path to academic tenure. Many people who want to become university professors end up knowing about the process as they go along, often by talking with other academics. But even some advanced graduate students (including some PhD graduates) seem to be in the dark as to many aspects of academia. They’re expected to learn on their own much of what the job is about (i.e., committee work, advising, grant proposals, etc.). Many high-profile professions have very formal vocational training which makes the kind of preparation new faculty get sound less than minimal.

As a way to protect professionals, tenure also seems quite unusual. Nurses, architects, and surgeons all have orders, professional associations, or other groups to protect members. Such groups are often tied to a national or other state entity of some kind (in Quebec, for instance, these “orders” tend to be provincial). Tenure is given by a specific institution and is tied to appointment in a given “unit” (an academic department, faculty, or programme). There might be rules in terms of synchronizing different institutions’ tenure systems, like there are “transfer credits” and “course equivalencies” for learners. But, if there are, these rules don’t seem to widely known. For, say, surveyors and physicians, it might be very difficult if not impossible to work across national boundaries, but their associations protect them regardless of their place of employment. For university professors, it might actually be very easy to teach in a completely different part of the World but, unless I’m mistaken, there isn’t any “universal” protection going from one institution to the next.

All this to say that “university professor” is quite unlike some other professions.

Part of this may have to do with the fact that academic work isn’t really considered a professional career in the same sense as is dentistry, accounting, or psychiatry. In a way, it’s more like a “calling” like priesthood or a function of a person’s perceived skills, like some conceptions of art. In some people’s minds, the goals of academia are so lofty that, surely, these professional matters are either secondary to “true academic work” or even irrelevant to university professors. Not that faculty members don’t discuss these things at faculty meetings. But there’s a clear separation between “what the work is about” and all matters of professional issues.

Which brings me to unions. In few discussions of tenure is there an explicit notion that what tenure provides is what a union is supposed to provide. Tenure is too unlike union representation to be considered in the same context. Yet much talk about the importance of tenure revolves around things which are, “come to think og it,” pretty much what people in other lines of work consider to be labour issues, managed through unions, management structures, executive boards, and the like.

In my experience. teachers’ unions are typically quite active and quite powerful. But my experience might be unusual and/or biased.

Part of the potential bias can be attributed to the fact that I grew up in Quebec which is rather union-friendly and had a number of strikes by teachers (as well as by students). The two unions for “contingent academic labour” by which I’ve been represented in Quebec have gone on strike during the past few years (and both have eventually won some key points). In addition, my father spent most of his career as a special education teacher in a high school and what I saw from unions protecting teachers in Quebec was quite impressive to the kid that I was when some key events happened. So I might overestimate the power of unions.

The key notion, though, is that there’s a union-based way to deal with a number of labour issues affecting teachers at many levels, including higher education.

Many (but not all) university professors are unionized. In some cases, these unions are able to offer professors a lot of protection. Probably not as much as the tenure system, but often more than for many other jobs and professions.

As far as I can tell, union protection to university professors is quite effective in dealing with cases of undue firing. There are plenty of edge cases but it actually doesn’t sound like non-tenured but unionized “academic labour” is less protected than most other lines of work. And we’ve probably all heard of cases where tenured professors have been overprotected to the extent that it caused serious problems.

I insist so much on this because the refrain to the song about tenure is “academic freedom.” The notion is that, without tenure, professors wouldn’t have this very special type of freedom that only tenured professors get. Now, I do understand part of the difference between “academic freedom” and more general forms of freedom, including that associated with the set of responsibilities and rights given to people protected by a strong union. But that difference is often left unexplained.

In fact, several people have told me that tenure protects them from being fired from something they might say in class. It’s an interesting issue in its own right but it’s also one which may call for other solutions. Because it’s basically a labour issue. Besides that, though, it raises the question of exactly how free university professors really are. In my experience, people on the tenure-track clearly don’t seem very free at all (it’s almost like an overextended probation period). And, from the outside as well as from direct discussions with “insiders,” even tenured faculty don’t seem that free to work the way they would like.

Which is why I started with “contingent academic labour” (part-time and contract-based university teaching). While, as a context, “contingent academic labour” relates to limited job security (still, much more than that of your typical freelancer), there’s also a very clear freedom involved when you can decide to take or refuse courses, when you’re allowed to work elsewhere at the same time, and where the official “burden” you get is that of building and teaching courses. While it’s not the “carefree” lifestyle of the so-called “Bohemian,” it’s still closer to my personal ideal of freedom than requirements placed on most tenure-track or even a lot of tenured faculty.

So, in summary, tenure seems to be an unusual and probably not that effective a way to deal with professional and labour issues. And it’s probably not that straight a path to genuine freedom.

ATT5: EZ Test Online

Posted on July 26, 2010 by alex

Got a number of things to say about testbanks, including a sort of “justification” for my use of them and several comments about how I use them. But I thought I’d post a “tidbit” about a specific testbank system. In a way, it’s more “practical” than other things I have to say about testbanks and practical things fit more in the “tidbit” concept I’m using here. I even thought about doing a tutorial. But tutorials are time-consuming and I’m not sure it’d be more useful or useful to more people than this less-structured post.

EZ Test Online (EZTO) is, as you might expect, an online system to facilitate test creation. More specifically, it’s the online version of the EZ Test program developed by McGraw-Hill to distribute the testbanks which accompany its textbooks as “anciliary material.” Almost all of the features of the standalone version of EZ Test are available in EZTO and the overall user experience is quite similar. Haven’t used the offline version in a while but, if I remember correctly, it also used a Web browser (though it could be used without an Internet connection; basically, it was using the local machine as a simplified webhost).

Obvious advantages of the online version over the offline one:

You can work from any machine.
You can share testbanks.
You can have students take tests directly in EZTO.

Obvious disadvantages:

You need an Internet connection.
In some circumstances, it might be slightly less secure than an offline program.
In some ways, you’re sharing data with McGraw-Hill (though their privacy policy doesn’t really specify much about this).

In my case, EZTO makes a good deal of sense. I tend to use “the cloud” as much as possible, these days, and EZTO is convenient in that sense.

In a way, I wish McGraw-Hill were to go further with EZTO. As with Learning Management Systems, I can easily imagine some connection with the “social Web.” Of course, most people would prefer testbank items to remain protected, hidden, and private. But I can still imagine the sharing of testbanks between instructors to become similar to sharing Web content generally.

In fact, I’m slowly coming to terms with a notion of “transparent testbanks.” Basically, it would mean that all potential questions would be available to the wide public, instead of being restricted to instructors. It’s an extreme case, and one which I think most instructors would think is crazy. But I think it might actually make it easier to control such things as cheating, as counterintuitive as it may sound. Even though I’m typically in favour of radical transparency, this is really an edge case and I’m not that attached to it. But knowing that many exam questions are already shared among students, putting all questions in the open (and, one would suspect, making sure that some very similar questions would be part of those testbanks, to prevent mere memorization of the answers) could have actually make this practice of private sharing of questions more impractical.

After all, there are already some sample questions available in diverse places, including on open access websites created by textbook publishers. These questions are typically meant to help students prepare for exams and quizzes. Using the same questions on exams may have the effect of encorcing rote learning. But if there are enough questions in a centralised testbank which serves both as a practice and as a source for exam questions, the result may actually be to avoid using questions which were already seen by individual students.

But, again, I’m not pushing this model. I’m just wondering about the effects. Part of the reason is because of things like information about the “Rorschach test” having been publicised. Haven’t had to deal with this issue directly and what I’ve heard about it was rather minimal, but the fact that test items can now be shared easily means that we need to think about the effects of sharing. After all, even if one is to limit testbank access to instructors of a given course (with all the necessary processes of verification and validation), it only takes one hacked account to make the whole thing insecure. And even the most careful (and even paranoid) of instructors can be the victim of some form of hacking, including “social engineering.” So the assumption that testbank items can be protected clashes with the ease of “leaking content” online. A transparent testbank is a way to flood potential cheaters with an overwhelming number of potential questions, which is similar to disinformation strategies currently used to protect some private information, including trade secrets.

Even in the case of a “transparent testbank,” I imagine much metadata to remain private. In this I include success rates for each question, answers given by individual students, and comments about use of the question. Other pieces of metadata could potentially be shared too, including “source information” about each question (chapter or page number in a textbook), question type, and even aggregate ratings. These can make testbanks look like so much “user-generated content” online. Which could have some advantages.

I didn’t originally plan to make this tidbit about those issues, but I’ve been thinking about them a bit and it’s probably better to put them “out there.”

What I did plan to talk about is how I use EZTO.

So, in some courses I teach, I do use McGraw-Hill textbooks which are accompanied by testbanks in EZ Test format. In fact, I just finished creating an exam using such testbanks.

This is for an online course using Moodle. Students take the actual exam through Moodle. Students have also been taking reading quizzes, with questions from the same testbanks. The midterm exam focuses on understanding. Students have a full week to take the exam (i.e., there’s no set schedule for everyone to take the exam at the same time). In this context, it seems necessary for each student to receive a different set of questions as other students in the class (otherwise, shared questions would guarantee a near-perfect grade for every student who sees them). With individual versions of the exam, risks related to questions being shared are still a matter of concern, but the effects are much less damaging. (In fact, I haven’t noticed any significant effect from questions being shared.) All questions are multiple-choice and they are graded automatically in Moodle.

The key thing, here, is that I want to have a big pool of questions for the exam (to make sure that very little overlap exists between two versions of the exam) yet I want to make sure the questions are as appropriate as possible. The testbanks I use have many questions which are really about rote learning, and that’s not the kind of exam I want to give. I’m also trying to get a nice balance in terms of the types of questions asked. Otherwise, I’d just dump all the testbanks in Moodle and select the appropriate number of questions from the whole set of testbanks.

I’ve used several methods in the past but I think I found the most useful one in this context. There are likely other methods which work well for other people and/or other contexts. But it’s the one I’m likely to use, for the time being.

Here’s what I did… (This is where a tutorial would make sense!)

In EZTO:
- Uploaded all the testbanks to EZTO (they’re separated by chapter).
- Created new tests for each question category (according to the testbank): definitions, perspectives, etc.
- For each test by question category, added questions of that question category from all the chapters. In other words, collected all the questions about definitions from each chapter by using “Select Questions from Banks” with each chapter-based testbank.
- In each question category testbank, created a new category to select questions.
- Assigned that new category to questions which seemed appropriate for the exam.
- Created new testbanks for the selected questions from each question category (again, using the “Select Questions from Banks,” but using the new category to select the questions).
- Checked and edited each testbank of selected questions by question category.
- Exported each bank of selected questions by question category to Blackboard format.
In Moodle:
- Created new question categories and new folders to reflect the exported EZTO testbanks (e.g., a folder and question category for questions about “definitions”).
- Uploaded the files exported by EZTO (“bboard.zip”) into the new folders.
- Unzipped these Blackboard export files to get multiple files which are all called “res00001.dat” (that’s why it was so important to separate in folders).
- Imported questions from each “res00001.dat,” making sure the appropriate category was selected.
- Created a “quiz” activity, with a description of the exam, some information about the process, and some settings (can only be taken once, time is limited to 60 minutes, etc.).
- Editing the exam, chose each question category and added a number of random questions from that category.
- Changed the total on which grades will be calculated (60 points total for 60 questions).
- Previewed the exam.
- Made the exam visible to students.
- Announced the exam.

A fairly convoluted process, but one which provides me with remarkably appropriate results. Actually, other attempts I’ve made, in the past, were even more convoluted. For instance, noticing that several questions revolved around the same concept or issue, I would create subcategories from which only one question was randomly picked. It was very time-consuming and the rule of only having one question per issue or concept was self-imposed. Even with a lot of cautious work, it’s almost impossible to get each version of the exam cover exactly the same topics in exactly the same depth as every other version. Given a sufficient number of questions, one can do as if these things even out. Not ideal. But reasonable in this context.

Selecting questions is neither difficult nor that time-consuming. A lot of questions are easy to eliminate, using a few “rules” I have about exam questions (including “no question about factoids from the text”). There are enough questions in the testbanks I use that I need not worry about having enough for the exam. For this midterm, I had more than 800 questions in the relevant testbanks. I selected a bit less than half of these questions as being appropriate for the exam. The exam contains 60 questions. So, basically, I threw away more than half of the testbank questions and ended up with six times the number of questions for each version of the exam. Unless I’m mistaken, the chances that two students have almost identical versions of the exam are low enough to be insignificant (in a group of 25 students). And, though the questions come from a testbank, they’re appropriate for this specific group.

Much of this could be done through another testbank platform. And, of course, the questions could come from a testbank I’ve created. But, in this case, the quality of the questions I selected is sufficient for me to be rather satisfied. I’ve created other exams through similar methods in similar contexts and the results seemed rather appropriate. If problems arise, it’s still possible to work through issues without losing my sanity.

If I sound like I’m justifying myself, it’s probably because I am. There’s something strange about using testbanks, especially when exam versions are randomised. I wouldn’t use the same strategy in other contexts but this is a course for non-major given purely online. It’s also a course for which the textbook really is the main source. And it so happens that the testbanks are rather decent, containing a good number of questions that I find very appropriate.

The parts which are specific to EZTO mostly have to do with how questions are selected and exported. This is a situation in which I wish I had access to ratings for each question, and some way to bulk process the kind of question I don’t want. (For instance, I exclude all questions which have “All of the above” or “None of the above” as the correct answer.) I’d also want to get some way to assess the overall difficulty of the exam so that I could tweak it up or down depending on what seems to be needed.

I also feel like I’m getting too close to standardized tests. In fact, I keep thinking about the GRE and TOEFL (the two standardized tests I’ve taken). I used to react strongly against them but it sounds as if I were getting closer to them, in this context. Exams in my other courses differ significantly from that model, thanks in part to open questions. And I could technically apply some of the same principles in this case, though it’d make things more difficult for everyone. Yet the reasons I use randomized questions from testbanks have to do with the conditions in which I teach this course, much beyond convenience and time commitment.

In such a context, McGraw-Hill’s EZ Test Online makes some sense. It’s “good enough” as a solution to a given task in a very specific set of conditions.

I wouldn’t use it too extensively, though.

Rethinking Tenure, Part III: What About Job Security?

Posted on July 23, 2010 by alex

Follow-up, based on prior discussions. Just a few thoughts, in audio format.

Rethinking Tenure, Part III: What About Job Security?

Learning and Teaching

Just another Alexandre Enkerli site

Rethinking Tenure, Part VI: Sabbaticals Outside of Tenure

Required Readings for SOCI 221: Sociology of Cyberspace

Weekly Schedule

Alphabetical List

ATT7: Prewrite

Rethinking Tenure, Part V: Broadening the Scope

Can’t We Cool Off?

Questions about Tenure

A Bit of Context

Avoiding the Debate?

«C’est la lutte finale!»

“Think about Textbook Publishers!”

“The New Realities”

Alternative Learning

ATT6: Marking Scheme

Owning Your Words

Rethinking Tenure, Part IV: Labour Issues

ATT5: EZ Test Online

Rethinking Tenure, Part III: What About Job Security?

Weekly Schedule

Alphabetical List

Audio Recording

Slides

Links

Me, Myself, and I

Key People in the BuddyPress-Edu Sphere

From LMS to BuddyPress to ScholarPress

Scholarly Writing?

University’s Future?

Notes

Key BuddyPress Features for Education and Academia

Issues

Can’t We Cool Off?

Questions about Tenure

A Bit of Context

Avoiding the Debate?

«C’est la lutte finale!»

“Think about Textbook Publishers!”

“The New Realities”

Alternative Learning