#HigherEd
The world of energy is constantly adapting. Join the latest #Mentoring365 Circle on Energy and You to connect with experts and peers who share your passion for sustainable #energy horizons.
It's free and open to all in #ESS communities.
https://mentoring365.chronus.com/p/p5
#STEM #science #engineering #ClimateChange #engineering #education #SciComm #CleanEnergy #sustainability #students #professionals #HigherEd
I find Appreciative Inquiry a motivating approach, and thought I'd take to it easily. Turns out focusing on the positive rather than “the problem” for ten minutes or roleplay was harder than I expected! Problem-solving off, listening on- that is going to take some practice.
Already looking forward to the next edition, in another forest-y environment so I'll take my camera along again :)
#HigherEd #HigherEducation #ChangeManagement #AppreciativeInquiry #Academia #UtrechtUniversity
“That which you give attention, grows”
Another inspiring two days with the Centre for Academic Teaching in the Educational Leadership program; this quote stayed with me the most. We spent time examining Appreciative Inquiry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciative_inquiry) and how focusing on what is going *right* can help approach change management from a positive perspective.
#HigherEd #HigherEducation #ChangeManagement #AppreciativeInquiry #Academia #UtrechtUniversity
such a rich conversation about navigating #AIPolicy in #HigherEd & #K12Education with AI for Education & Amanda Bickerstaff
Botanical Society of America is offering a free Q & A on applying to grad school. Tuesday, Sept 26, 3pm US Eastern Time.
https://botany.org/calendar/display/date/20230926/viewtype/event/eid/36
Mississippi, moving backwards one step at a time https://imgur.com/gallery/QEVrhlU #HigherEd
That #transition resource for #highered I helped launch now has nearly 10,000 hits across the two years and OVER 50,000 uses of our to-do list panel. It's super cool seeing it get used to help support our students and that it appers to have "stuck"
Another potential resource comes from Disabled Academic Collective. They did a thread a while ago on digital resources for disabled folks who wanted to find community online. They compiled the answers into "Community Resources" and posted it to their Resources page.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tIOlPW0JJNh-HHXPYG3mjjQ5ugITCTgUeraqa4cYBkE/edit
#AcademicChatter #Disability #HigherEd
#Accessibility #DisabledInHigherEd
#DisabledInAcademia
#DisabledStudents
Rare midweek blog where I got mad about a bad editorial about left-wing bias in higher education https://charleskennethroberts.wordpress.com/2023/09/20/as-usual-complaints-about-bias-on-campus-are-pretty-bad/ #highered #academia
Spotting grey swans? How to embed #foresight #futuresthinking in #university strategies - involving the whole institution. Read this example from #TUDelft about their experience - via @EUA
#highered #highereducation
Picture Kalispera Dell
One of the most frustrating and constant aspects of being a #transwoman in #highered is young cishet white (mostly male-identifying) students being openly dubious about my expertise and disrespectful at even the slightest hint of critical feedback. It is especially bad in the technical aspects of my teaching #webdev #creativecode .
This has been happening throughout my 4+ years as a full time faculty member and across all institutions at which I have taught.
Prepping next week's activity on #SciFi as #STS critique for my social #informatics and cyborg #anthropology students.
We all watch a short film version of *Car Wars* by @pluralistic and then the class examines the plot from three different critical perspectives.
Students are working together as teams in Google Docs within the same classroom, F2F discussion, shared workspace.
Whole class shares and debriefs toward end of session.
Feel free to reuse CC-BY.
![1. Read the concerns of technology ethicist Cory Doctorow regarding self- driving cars. Doctorow, Cory. 2015. “The Problem with Self-Driving Cars: Who Controls the Code?” The Guardian, December 23, 2015, sec. Technology. https:/www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/23/the-problem-with-self- driving-cars-who-controls-the-code & 2. Listen to Doctorow’s *Car Wars* short story audiobook with animations (recommended that you consume the story this way) * Best version - https:/boingboing.net/2016/12/21/free-audiobook-of-car- wars-my.html & « OR https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CNeaQS7kMQ (copy/paste link; not activated here to prevent YouTube player on page) « Backup, original story text (if you need to ctrl-f and clarify anything in the text) © https:/web.archive.org/web/20190213075619/https: //this.deakin.edu.au/self-improvement/car-wars = 3. With your group, create answers to some topical questions as new posts into the class discussion forum. Your particular answers are assigned by last name: 1. Group Google Docs here [LINK] & 1. Add your name to the table on page 1 2. During the movie, take notes in your area related to answering your questions 3. After the movie, work with your group to answer the questions on page 2](https://assets.toot.cafe/cache/media_attachments/files/111/105/269/656/326/727/small/b725ed5c5692ded4.png)
Action on the UC Access Now Demandifesto Action Steps? Action on dismantling ableism?
No. This is where they swing into action:
"the school formed a task force in August 2022 to examine the confusion that might be caused by the widespread use of different names for the institution, with “Berkeley” or “UC Berkeley” commonly used in reference to academics and “Cal” or “California” regularly used regarding athletics." https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-21/cal-berkeley-uc-school-may-rebrand-sports-california-golden-bears
After reading this article from the January/February 2000 issue of @educause Review, it makes me realize just how much issues in #highered have stayed exactly the same for 23 years: https://er.educause.edu/-/media/files/articles/2000/2/erm0013.pdf
Question for #highered folks: Is anyone else noticing a sharp decline in student's familiarity with MS Word, and with the concept of files as something you save and then upload? I'm really seeing that in this year's freshmen. Suspect that it is because Google Classroom is now the standard and they mostly write and submit inline?
Disabled In Higher Ed's "Disabled in STEM/Academia Literature" spreadsheet is a collection of articles, blogs, etc. that may interest disabled students, staff, faculty, and anyone invested in accessibility in higher education.
Bonus for ADHD folks: there are summaries of what each item is.
#AcademicChatter #Disability #HigherEd
#Accessibility #DisabledInHigherEd
#DisabledInAcademia
#DisabledStudents
Bard's new interface tests each chatbot claim by highlighting whether Google search was able to corroborate it. Playing its AI and search capabilities off each other is a clever business move by Google, but it's also an opportunity for students to understand that factoids fabricated by chatbots are different than citations found on the web.
https://youtu.be/8i3yvypt1F4?si=rAl1KA_201vw_uTh
#AcademicMastodon #EduTooters #HigherEd #AIethics #AIinEducation #Bard #GenerativeAI #LLM #Fabrication #Disinforrmation
Today marks the commencement of my new MA in Digital Media and Culture, along with my first full year back at York, and 10 years since I started teaching in Higher Education! Photos here are from today, and my very first class a decade ago...
(*Note the presence of e-literature classic "I, You, We" on the screen: I taught English Literature and Criticism back then, and I used it as an entryway into the possibilities for literature beyond the page).
"In 2017, Viktor Orbán, the fascist prime minister of Hungary, banished Central European Uni from the country, forcing it to relocate to Austria. Becker and others have noted that DeSantis’ educational takeover mirrors Orbán’s."
“We’re committed to young people’s education and academic freedom, which are all under threat”
--- Prof Jonathan Becker, vice president of academic affairs. DeSantis has been curbing lessons on #race, #gender, and #sexuality. #highered
https://www.fastcompany.com/90954258/how-a-new-york-school-stepped-in-to-help-a-florida-college-targeted-by-ron-desantis
@academicchatter Considering writing up an article where I review literature on linguistic minority students (#ESL #TESOL #highered) and academic dishonesty incidents and include data from my institution (approval pending) that shows more concretely what the literature says in abstract. I don't expect it to be ground breaking and its mainly to practice my own writing, data analysis, and publishing skills after a long break. Is there value in that kind of writing? Where could that be published?
Looking for information about how the Respondus Lockdown Web Browser is ableist.
My google-fu is failing me, and I'd like to present this information to our instructor after the next test because she "says she's not ableist". (I don't think you're doing your job if your student has a panic attack in the middle of a test, TYVM.)
Any leads would be appreciated.
#HigherEd #DisabledInHigherEd @disability @disabilityjustice
Another good resource for disabled folks in higher ed comes from Disabled Academic Collective. They did a thread a while ago on digital resources for disabled folks who wanted to find community online. They compiled the answers into "Community Resources" and posted it to their Resources page.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tIOlPW0JJNh-HHXPYG3mjjQ5ugITCTgUeraqa4cYBkE/edit
#AcademicChatter #Disability #HigherEd
#Accessibility #DisabledInHigherEd
#DisabledInAcademia
#DisabledStudents
Every organization has a total bandwidth limited by the number of people and their relative energy, skill, and character; and the effects of structural conditions and leadership on individual and collective possibilities.
Something to keep in mind as you look around your next faculty meeting.
SUNY Potsdam is next in line:
SUNY Potsdam announces downsizing plan to cut $9M deficit
On the block:
• Art history (BA)
• Arts management (BA)
• Biochemistry (MS)
• Chemistry (BA and BS)
• Dance (BA)
• French (BA)
• Music performance (MM)
• Philosophy (BA)
• Physics (BA)
• Public health (BS and MS)
• Spanish (BA)
• Theater (BA)
A picture of me having taken up residence in the lobby of my uni building in case students want to ask questions about microeconomics. (They do.) #EconTwitter #EduTooter #HigherEd
#ESL faculty are tasked with supporting one of the most vulnerable student populations and end up with higher workloads per credit and student taught yet are paid according to the same schedules as other departments who are able to routinely take on overloads and extra paid work.I don't know of any other departments who need to administer their own placement tests, take the time to teach students how to use the college's email system or to type on a keyboard. #TESOL #highered #dataviz
@CIT_RUG Excellent article on the case for #MastodonMigration but questioner Jure then asked, "So when can wee see RUG on Mastodon/Fediverse and the Twitter link in the footer of the page replaced by the ethical and true social network link?" Please *engage* here - follow many more accounts so that you see the lively discussions already underway, use #hashtags & get those interactions going. Time to act!
#academia #HigherEd #University #Groningen #OpenAccess #AcademicChatter
Fellow #highered people, what is the logic of blocking students from accessing the school's LMS a month into the semester for being behind on bills?
Second semester in a row my university is doing this, & for my online class, it essentially blocks students from doing any of their work or coming to class.
If a student was allowed to register while being behind on bills, this makes zero sense to me.
Recent blog entry by disability activist Alice Wong.
"This was the first time a host asked me to consider modifying my response. It felt like censorship to me, a way to dampen my valid frustration and disappointment in certain public figures and reshape my remarks in the name of civility, respectability, and palatability." @academicchatter @disability
https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2023/09/14/adventures-in-public-speaking/
I'm starting to question AI policies in syllabi. There's essentially no way to know if a student used AI for an assignment--so no policy restricting use of AI can be enforced. So why have the policy? Is it any different from having a policy in a math class stating that students aren't allowed to use a calculator to do their homework.
I do see the value in giving students advice on pros/cons of using AI.
Job Posting: Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy
$185,000 annually
https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/Visiting-Scholar-in-Conservative-Thought-and-Policy/49822
@djsolar913 #HigherEd is not ADHD friendly at all in my experience.
Another resource is @DisabledInSTEM's Accessibility Review Form. This disability resource is for students (although I would love a version for staff/faculty...).
It's relatively new but a great place to check for academic ableism, success stories, and students can (& should) add to it.
#Disability #HigherEd
#Accessibility
#AcademicChatter
#DisabledInHigherEd
#DisabledInAcademia
#DisabledStudents
The #HigherEd staff I work with, whether on a daily basis or more occasionally, is amazing. Amazing! In the last few days, two separate people have gone out of their way to help. Their thoughtful feedback on applications for a grant and a fellowship means I stand a fair chance of getting some sleep tonight. #academia #AcademicChatter
Is it just me, or does it seem that discounting researchers who appear later in a publication's list of authors will just further disadvantage grad students and other contributors who do the heavy lifting for tenured professors?
"Scopus introduces the Author Position metric"
https://blog.scopus.com/posts/scopus-introduces-the-author-position-metric-a-new-researcher-signal
"I just wish we, the public, cared as much about our educational institutions as we do high school and college sports."
Where’s the Public Concern About WVU? https://www.theintelligencer.net/opinion/local-columns/2023/09/wheres-the-public-concern-about-wvu/
TFW Alexa says she hopes you enjoyed your weekend and. . .
You tell her you just finished loading the module at 9:40 pm.
Based on what I witnessed this week, I have this to say: When a student asks if you can please reopen the assignment because she misunderstood your instructions and you say that you will open the assignment for 3 minutes and your face reveals that you think you’re being generous while at the same time you ignore the student swallowing hard so she won’t start crying in front of you, you are not a good educator. You are a cruel human being. @academicchatter #teaching #highered
Well, they went and did it. Vile shortsighted vultures.
Despite National Pushback, West Virginia Will Cut Faculty, Programs
A month of intense public and on-campus pressure did not dissuade the Board of Governors from siding with the administration to slash programs and positions.
The Job Accommodation Network is the first place I recommend people check out when thinking about potential disability accommodations. You can search by barrier or by disability or by job task.
For example, a graduate student could search for writing accommodations for their thesis.
#Disability #HigherEd #Accessibility #DisabledInAcademia #DisabledStudents #Accommodations
My heart breaks for these kids (and for all kids really), and I am furious. Things are not heading in a scary direction; we are already there, and we have to stop this stuff now.
"2 Universities Halt Treatment for Trans Youths: A Missouri law limits gender-affirming care for minors, but two institutions have gone beyond the bounds of the legislation and will also stop treating existing patients."
(Join me in donating: https://promoonline.org/campaigns/donate-to-promo/)
"Men's basketball players at Dartmouth College have become the latest college athletes to challenge the status quo by attempting to unionize.
"A petition filed with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday by the Service Employees International Union identified 15 players from the Ivy League school as seeking representation. The SEIU was listed as the petitioner, with Dartmouth College and its board of trustees identified as the employer."
A professional announcement! My #AAUP chapter's new statement on the ongoing need to support faculty & students masking:
"USC-AAUP reminds the campus community that masking in classrooms is more complex than personal choices made by individuals. USC-AAUP also reminds the campus community that there is no ethical or non-stigmatizing way to identify whether “medically vulnerable” people are in a given classroom..."
Full text top of page here:
https://www.uscaaup.org/
5 ways that college campuses benefit from diversity, equity and inclusion programs https://theconversation.com/5-ways-that-college-campuses-benefit-from-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-programs-208905 #DEI #Equity #HigherEd #StudentSuccess
CISA releases Open Source Software Security Roadmap—aligned with National Cybersecurity Strategy and CISA Cybersecurity Strategic Plan—incl. plans to partner with US agencies, #OpenSource software (#OSS) consumers, and the OSS community to secure OSS infrastructure. Four key goals:
1. Establish CISA’s role in supporting OSS security
2. Understand prevalence of key OSS dependencies
3. Reduce risks to US gov
4. Harden OSS ecosystem.
Can Open Pedagogy Encourage Care? Student Perspectives: "The purposes of this study were, first, to reveal ways students in postsecondary institutions perceive care and, second, to determine how students suggest OP can be used to create an open/caring learning process." https://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/6901/5910
Shocking news out of the ACU about Dianoia and the humanities more broadly; I understand more than 30 FTE staff are to be made redundant across a variety of fields (most notably History and Philosophy) – this must be close to 50% of the research active staff in humanities in the institution.
While the appalling cruelty of the ACU administration is hopefully rare, I'm afraid the cuts to humanities research are symptomatic of broader currents. With soft student demand, both domestic and international, and with both JRG and what we can foresee of the new accord strongly against any use of student fee income to cross-subsidize research, plus lots of hints that the government wants to use the mooted 'Tertiary Education Commission' to allocate places to institutions to de-fund 'low value' courses, I am very worried that ACU is the canary in the coalmine here, and that research outside ARC/NHMRC schemes is going to be increasingly hard to conduct for all of us in Australia. (For some informed predictions about the prospective impacts of the accord, see this post by Andrew Norton: https://andrewnorton.net.au/2023/07/25/for-universities-the-accord-interim-report-proposes-a-more-extreme-version-of-job-ready-graduates/)
Administrations should be resisting in favour of academic values but are capitulating, the interests of management as usual being more aligned with extracting funding from government than in advocating for the intellectual mission of a university.
I had heard a rumour that part of ACU's motivation for the Dianoia institute and the parallel institute in history was a fear that reforms were imminent to link the use of the label 'University' to a minimum threshold of research activity - a threshold ACU would not meet, having many teaching only staff and being primarily a service-teaching institution serving low research intensity degree programs. That mooted reform seems to have evaporated, and I suspect the ACU adminstration have sensed that the Federal Government sees universities as a tool for social mobility, not the increase of knowledge, and so will not care that research activity in the humanities in the institution is gutted by these proposed changes. #philosophy #higherEd
Can generative AI can be creative? I think so, but its very ability to generate novelty is is what makes it untrustworthy.
I gave a talk for IEEE and UMaine AI offering a framework for deciding when you should and shouldn't use it. I'll summarize it here 1/5
https://nmdprojects.net/teleconferences/nmd_webinar_harness_ai_2023.html
#AcademicMastodon #EduTooters #HigherEd #HigherEducation #AIethics #AIimages #AIinEducation #ChatGPT #DALLE #GenerativeAI #LLM #Midjourney
sarah madoka currie is not on mastodon but she is an excellent educator and I wanted to pass along the syllabus she just shared for her latest course:
For those in #HigherEd interested in #pedagogy, it is a great model of #accessibility and inclusion. I find she does an excellent job balancing lots of information with good structure and organization.
If you teach or work at a #Virginia college or university, check out this October hybrid event on #OER, college affordability, and student belonging. I will be keynoting and attending remotely! https://vivalib.org/va/oacc-forum-2023
APEREO SEEKING COMMENTS ON BEHALF OF #HIGHERED
National Cyber Director, Office of Management & Budget, and Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency seeks feedback on #OpenSource security.
Officials hope to advance national cybersecurity, focusing on ubiquitous presence of #OSS.
Apereo is now coordinating responses from #HIgherEducation on policy solutions and invites your campus to participate.
Responses due 5PM, Oct 9, 2023.
CONATCT APEREO TO PARTICIPATE.
https://fedscoop.com/wh-requests-feedback-on-open-source-software-security/
Planning ahead. Self monitoring. Better predictors of success than IQ or test scores. And they keep developing into our 20s. High school & college students still need teaching in these areas. #education #K12 #highered https://www.edutopia.org/video/whats-executive-function-and-why-does-it-matter/
Thank you @educause, for providing slides (public) and a recording (for members) of your recent webinar, "Artificial Intelligence: Preparing Institutions for Literacy and Leadership."
I signed up but had a last-minute conflict and was happy to see I could still see the presentation.
A great resource--thank you!
https://events.educause.edu/webinar/2023/artificial-intelligence-preparing-institutions-for-literacy-and-leadership
#EDUCAUSE #AI #generativeAI #HigherEd #EdTech
Moodle comments on #CyberResilienceAct
#Moodle, is an #OpenSource learning management system, used by more than 70% of Europe’s #HigherEducation institutions to facilitate the delivery of quality education as a public endeavor. The platform is also used by numerous European #Education Ministries, some of which are listed below, as well as #Unesco, the #UnitedNations, and the #EuropeanUnion itself (https://academy.europa.eu).
https://moodle.com/news/an-open-letter-to-eu-legislators-from-moodle/
“I think of community colleges as community-building colleges,” Clayton said. “They are really the stable, local human capital of communities.”
An Open Letter from Faculty at West Virginia University
The crisis here spells disaster for the future of public education.
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/an-open-letter-from-faculty-at-west-virginia-university/
Today at noon Eastern for the @OpenCoLab's 15in15 series, @mburtis presents "Transparent Teaching."
A 15-minute virtual presentation, open to all! Join us in 30 minutes! Info and registration at https://colab.plymouthcreate.net/events/
A blog post I wrote on library publishing just got published by the IFLA Library Publishing Special Interest Group
https://blogs.ifla.org/arl/2023/08/28/library-publishing-through-the-ifla-global-lens-2/
Would be thrilled if you read and shared
#OA #OpenAccess #ScholComm #SciComm #ScholarlyPublishing #publishing #HigherEd #academia #library #libraries #librarian
In case you're in the market for a brilliant series of articles on applying the Getting Things Done approach to academia, see these blog posts by Robert Talbert are the place to go. Well worth the read. https://rtalbert.org/gtd/
(Hat-tip to the On the Reg podcast with @thesiswhisperer for the pointer.)
"Is College Still Worth the High Price? Weighing Costs and Benefits of Investing in Human Capital"
(Spoiler Alert: "the data suggest it is still one of the best investments a person can make.")
https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2023/09/01/is-college-still-worth-the-high-price-weighing-costs-and-benefits-of-investing-in-human-capital #HigherEd
At the beginning of August, this list of #syllabi policies for #GenerativeAI was just under 50, today, it is just under 100. Many thanks to those who contributed & shared with me how helpful it's been!
#AIEducation #ChatGPT #EdTech #Teaching #HigherEd #Academia #AcademicChatter #AcademicTwitter @academicchatter @edutooters
Why are some people so surprised when the obvious happens?
#Florida #NewCollege #HigherEd #HigherEducation #education
“It’s a complete disregard and abandonment of the current student body,” says Vivian Cargille, a third-year student majoring in marine biology.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/03/new-college-florida-desantis-teachers
‘Academia is a meritocracy’ 🫠🚩
#academia #academicchatter #academicmastodon #highered