Things I'm reading lately

NCSU Mobile Site Puts the “Library of the Future” in Students’ Pockets

(author unknown) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:48:24 -0800

Oberlin Adopts Open Access for Faculty Research

(author unknown) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

SUNY's Athletics Programs Debated

(author unknown) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Moms Focus on Academics, Not Finances

(author unknown) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

2 Universities, Citing Concerns of Blind, Hold Off on Kindle

(author unknown) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

A Call for Copyright Rebellion

(author unknown) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Survival -- Through Open Access

(author unknown) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Holiday Lighting Win

Cheezburger Network — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Picture by: JackBrimstone Submitted by: JackBrimstone via Fail Uploader

On not assuming students’ technical skills

Amy Cavender — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:00:10 -0700

I’m old enough to be the parent of some of my students (the first-years, anyway). If you want some idea of what that means in the history of computing, my first introduction to a computer came in the sixth grade; we had a Commodore PET in our classroom. At home, my brother and I begged for the Sears knockoff of the Atari system one Christmas. The first computer we had in our home was the Commodore 64.

When I started trying to integrate technology into my courses, I made two assumptions:

I have no formal training in the use of computer technology. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned because it was something I needed or wanted to know, and I was willing to experiment as needed to figure it out. Due to my lack of training, I really don’t know much.
My students have had much more exposure to computers than I had growing up.

Based on these two assumptions, I made a third:

Students have good technical skills, and are comfortable enough with computers to readily adapt to anything I might do technologically in the classroom, or ask them to do outside of class.

This is an incorrect assumption. At least, it’s an assumption that isn’t accurate for all students.

What my experience has taught me is that, while students have had significant exposure to computers (and to other tools such as cell phones and iPods), their use of technology has been fairly limited. Students are generally quite good at wordprocessing, using email, texting, communicating via IM, and making use of MySpace or Facebook.

Beyond that, however, their skills are limited. Google Documents is something new (though their familiarity with wordprocessing helps them adapt to it quickly), blogs are unfamiliar, and Zotero is beyond anything most of them have encountered before (though most of them are quite impressed with its ability to create bibliographies).

Where I’ve erred as a teacher is in thinking that it’s sufficient to walk students through the use of these tools during a classroom session. (Actually, the first time I tried to use some of these tools, I didn’t even think to do that–I just pointed them toward the relevant website and asked them to start working with it. Big mistake.)

The problem was that I not only mistakenly assumed that students were already reasonably tech-savvy; I also made the mistake of thinking that poking around a site’s instruction pages and/or support forums (if they ran into trouble) would be a natural thing for them to do. It isn’t.

So, I’ve made some progress in trying to get students to use appropriate technology for class: I’ve gone from just telling them about good tools and pointing them to appropriate websites to taking class time to walk them through the use of these tools and getting them set up with accounts (though using class time this way tends to frustrate students who are tech-savvy or who simply aren’t interested).

My next step is to take a page out of George’s playbook: using ScreenSteps or a similar tool to create tutorials for my students (like this one on using Jiffle). My hope is that having the online tutorial to refer back to will help students to retain and master the skills we introduce in class.

What experiences have you had trying to integrate technology into your courses? Or, if you’re a student, what’s been your experience of your instructors’ use of technology? Let’s hear from you in the comments!

The image in this post comes from Flickr user Unhindered by Talent and carries a Creative Commons license.

Undergraduate Student Discovers Herbivorous Spider

curiouscat — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:24:54 -0700

Herbivory Discovered in a Spider

A jumping spider from Central America eats mostly plants, according to new research. Spiders were thought to be strictly predators on animals. The spider, Bagheera kiplingi, was described scientifically in the late 1800s, but its vegetarian tendencies were not observed until the 21st century.

“This is the first spider in the world known to deliberately hunt plant parts. It is also the first found to go after plants as a primary food source,” said lead author Christopher Meehan.
…
Of the approximately 40,000 species of spiders known, Bagheera kiplingi is the only species known to be primarily herbivorous. Ironically, the vegetarian spider is named after the panther in Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.” The spider inhabits several species of acacia shrubs involved in a well-known mutualism between the acacias and several species of ants.
…
Previously, very few spiders had been seen consuming plants at all. Some spiders had been observed occasionally eating nectar and pollen, although the bulk of their diet was insects and other small animals.

IL2009: Library Website Improvement Face-Off

Sarah — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:31:59 -0700

IL2009: Library Website Improvement Face-Off

Speakers: David Lee King, Amanda Etches-Johnson, Aaron Schmidt, Jeff Wisniewski

This panel talk was focused on usability and user-centered experiences on library websites. I liked this presentation as it has some very practical, common-sense takeaways that we can now take back to our libraries and colleagues and say “hey — somebody with authority & expertise said we should do this.” Maybe that’s the way you can finally get some of this common sense website change done! Hey…whatever works

Amanda Etches-Johnson’s Talk

Amanda started by discussing search boxes. We’re doing a pretty good job of putting catalog searches on our homepages. Amanda wants to see more of is to put search boxes on pages other than our homepages. On Florida State University’s subject guide for English has the search box front & center at the top of the page. The Articles tab should also be there – you can put search boxes up for databases you already subscribe too. Why not add a search box for the most relevant database along with the catalog search on other subject-based pages. Collingswood Public Library used to have a massive search box right in the middle of the page. The search box also includes a phrase of what is in the search capability – “books, movies, etc.” Amanda did a great job improving when her presentation exploded and she could not see her slide. The lack of a QuickTime compressor on the presentation machine caused a problem (good note for future computer configurations). She also says to be human and be whimsical – think about how we write & present things on our websites. She gave an example of some language describing a change to the interlibrary loan policy at her library. She had changed the wording from “the library” to “we.” She also cut the word number down quite a bit. Be human when you communicate with users. The library is not a being who can communicate with your users. Make yourself more approachable by working through your text on the website to shorten & personalize it. Dopplr is a website that lets you set up a profile of where you’re going to be traveling and when and connect with close-by friends. Amanda points out that they put a lot of thought into the experience of using their site. She also recommends testing the heck out of all of our webpages. Two tools to use: FiveSecondTest.com (upload screenshots and get designer feedback) and Usability.NYPL.org (a usability tool you can upload to your own servers and test the designs with your users right away).

Aaron Schmidt’s Talk

Aaron says that the first thing you have to do is watch people use your website. People have tasks they want to accomplish on your website. You can choose the most important tasks for your website and watch where they do well and where they don’t. Luckily it’s pretty easy and you can have a quick debriefing and make your changes. Aaron recommends only testing four people–anything more has diminshing returns. He recommends hte book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. You can present content on your website in different ways to see which one people like better. Present two different layouts, two different designs, etc. and then see through statistics how people work. “I don’t care about what people think. I care about what people do.” Aaron thinks that focus groups are not helpful – actual task-based user groups have better results. The second thing is cutting content. Aaron says that recommending 1/4 of pages on library websites or more would be okay. Look at analytics, find out what people need to do through user interviews, and cut the rest out. Then you can concentrate on making the smaller website much more effective. You should also write for the web, which is very different than writing elsewhere. The DC Public Library’s “Get a Library Card” page got a lot shorter when Aaron re-wrote it. It’s an FAQ instead–Who can get a card? What can I do with my card? He recommends the book Letting Go of the Words regarding writing well for the web. People will click all over your site if you give them the confidence to do so. If you provide adequate wayfinding through sensible links and good breadcrumbing people will find the content they need. The idea that everything has to be findable within 3 links is a myth. Do not use the wording “click here.” He recommends going back right now and getting rid of any of those types of links. (Sarah’s Comment: Absolutely true. Those links look not only outdated but dysfunctional.)

David Lee King’s Talk

David promotes Google Analytics – a year and a half of looking through stats at his library’s website. There are a definite top ten things that their users want to do on the website. Look at the top ten most popular things and make those ten things much, much better. “Make them rock!” Words we find on our websites that suck: account, databases, catalog, materials, Literacy, ESL, Audiences, Research Resources. Ask customers what words they use and then use those words. David showed his library’s calendar of events and other examples of database-driven pages. With some simple CSS work you can create different colors, weights, sizes of the fonts in your database driven pages and make them look much more interesting and easily scannable.

Jeff Wisniewski’s Talk

Jeff started by joking that there’s nothing wrong with our websites; the problem is our users. Muah ha ha ha. In talking about our library websites we tend to not take into account our whole information universe and from a user’s perspective we are our databases and we are our eJournals and we are the catalog. That stuff and the website are not separate entities in the eyes of our users. We need to focus on the usability of these resources where we are taking people. Most of us don’t have stuff on our own sites that we want people to linger on; the goal is to get them off of the site to the other resources. (Sarah’s Comment: I know that is likely true for some types of libraries & some types of websites, but I don’t know if that’s totally true. If we’re trying to get people to participate on our sites, they want to read through recommended reading, they want to look at the library’s events pages, etc…I think that people will be spending time on our sites as well as these external resources…we are more decentralized & outsourced with our content, which is great, but at least for public libraries we do have info on our websites that is not portal-type in nature). Easy solution — go out and get a new OPAC. For so many users the library is the OPAC. If you are dumping people in a catalog that does not work well and looks old and unusable, that is not good usability practice. Jeff did a small survey with seven library websites (public, academic, & special). Some libraries are posting multiple search boxes on their homepages, which is confusing. One library website had seven search boxes on the homepage — argh! We need to work toward less search boxes and even a single search box using federated search. (Sarah’s Comment: I’m sure that’s true for academic libraries, but I don’t think public library users want to search the catalog at the same time as all of our newspaper/magazine databases. Most people want a book, a movie, music, or articles…rarely do they want a full search of all of them. I guess it points out the real difference in public & academic libraries’ priorities). If you are creating advertisements on your websites, especially graphics that look like banner ads, then users are unlikely to pay much attention to them as they have learned on the web to tune them out.

The Results of the Talks

The winner was Amanda Etches-Johnson’s concept to “Be Human & Be Whimsical.” Being human is always a good idea, right? After some complicated voting with people holding up their cellphone screens to vote, there was some confusion about whether we were voting for a single idea, a group of ideas, or a presenter overall.

Fairy Godmother Wishes

Each speaker was also asked to presented one “Fairy Godmother of Library Websites” wish that would make library websites fabulous, what they would use as their single wish if they could wave a magic wand.

Amanda: She wants to make the “long wow” happen in libraries – what we need is to get customer loyalty from library websites. We want to wow them enough that they will keep coming back.

Jeff: He wants to have about half of the words on everybody’s library website magically disappear and only leave the ones that are necessary and make sense.

Aaron: He wants to provide a unified experience across all the different products — our websites, catalogs, & database products.

David: He wants all of our administrators to magically become geeked-out people who understand what we’re trying to do with our digital presences and support new projects.

The Results of the Wishes

Aaron won with his “unified experience” idea. Here here!

IL2009

AGU experimenting with open peer review

(author unknown) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:30:23 -0700

Nobel quote

Michelle — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:35:00 -0700

After I won a Nobel Prize I suddenly turned into an omniscient sage, whereas formerly I was simply a workaholic.

Richard Ernst, Chemistry 1991

(H/T to Nature Chemistry's October editorial)

Photo of Dirac's Nobel Medal is from: rubberpaw at Flickr

Open Access Policy for York University Librarians and Archivists

(author unknown) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:17:17 -0700

Friday Fun: Melting Ice Caps Expose Hundreds Of Secret Arctic Lairs

(author unknown) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:49:42 -0700

Faculty Rewards Systems Discourage Alternative Scholarly Communications

Eric Schnell — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:31:00 -0700

"As a young scholar, with a family to support and without a secured position, my main selection criteria is in practice how the chosen journal would look in my CV."

The above is a comment by Jan Kunnas in reaction to an article by Zoë Corbyn entitled A Threat to Scientific Communication that appeared in the British Times Higher Education Supplement. In fact, Kunnas' reaction is typical in most academic disciplines. One reason why junior faculty continue to focus on using traditional print publications for their scholarly communication can be summed up in Corbyn's quote of Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal:

"We have an industry in which most journals exist to perpetuate an inward-looking academic-reward system, and there is no clear purpose that has anything to do with science."

As Michael Nielsen observes in Doing Science in the Open, the continued reliance upon tradition journals is not only slowing the flow of information but inhibits the move towards the use of alternative scholarly communication methods:

"The adoption of the journal system was achieved by subsidizing scientists who published their discoveries in journals. This same subsidy now inhibits the adoption of more effective technologies, because it continues to incentivize scientists to share their work in conventional journals and not in more modern media."

A University of California, Berkeley report The Influence of Academic Values on Scholarly Publication and Communication Practices indicates that faculty realize the value of experimenting and using alternative methods of scholarly communication:

"There are clear advantages to newer forms of publication that are recognized by a wider circle of scholars than those who have actually used them for publishing their own work. These include the ability to reach a larger audience, ease of access by readers, more rapid publication even when peer reviewed, the ability to search within and across texts, and the opportunity to make use of hyperlinks."

The report then concludes:

"There is presently a somewhat dichotomous situation in which electronic forms of print publications are used heavily, even nearly exclusively, by performers of research in many fields, but perceptions and realities of the reward system keep a strong adherence to conventional, high-stature print publications as the means of record for reporting research and having it evaluated institutionally."

Why do scholars continue to have a strong adherence to conventional print publications and avoid experimenting with modern methods? It comes back around to the academic-rewards system, as highlighted in Digital Scholarship in the University Tenure and Promotion Process: A Report on the Sixth Scholarly Communication Symposium at Georgetown University Library. The report quotes Stephen Nichols, professor of medieval French literature at Johns Hopkins University:

"the operative concepts here are fear and snobbery, and the disincentives are so powerful as to discourage experimentation. Young scholars are counselled that they need solid print dossiers before they attempt digital scholarship and that, even then, they are still at some risk."

Yet, there can be a significant fallout from perpetuating an inward-looking academic-reward system that continues to rely upon the journal while discouraging the use of alternative scholarly communication methods.

An article in the New York Times discusses the possibility that it may inhibit the world’s ability to respond to the sudden emergence of a widespread illness, including H1N1. The reason? Researchers are waiting to report their findings until it is published in traditional journals:

"Officials and experts say they have learned a lot about human swine influenza. But relatively little of that information, including periodic summaries of what has been learned since the beginning of the pandemic, has been reported and published. Some experts said researchers were waiting to publish in journals, which can take months or longer."

However, the Internet has afforded great opportunity for experimentation in alternative forms of scholarly communications, as Joseph Heller observes:

"The integration of digital technology into nearly every aspect of the daily workflow of scholars and researchers has begun to produce new channels of communication that do not fit neatly into the category of ‘journal’ or ‘pre-print’ or even ‘email communication’. These new mechanisms include blogs and wikis that spring up organically around a topic or an experiment and collaborative annotations on a web page. These advances are the natural result of scholars using digital technology in ways that they independently determine best serve their immediate needs and the needs of their community."

When compared to other disciplines, academic librarianship has more liberty to be experimental with our scholarly communication. Advancing the nature of scholarship in academic librarianship is less dependent on adhering to traditional norms. Yet, the major hurtle remains faculty rewards systems that contend that only those communications that go through a pre-publication anonymous peer-review have any value.

Instead, academic libraries need to retool their faculty rewards systems so they more closely resemble the vision of Michael Jensen:

"For universities, the challenge will be ensuring that scholars who are making more and more of their material available online will be fairly judged in hiring and promotion decisions. It will mean being open to the widening context in which scholarship is published, and it will mean that faculty members will have to take the time to learn about — and give credit for — the new authority metrics, instead of relying on scholarly publishers to establish the importance of material for them.

Good News All Around For "Tango"

Blake — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:51:49 -0700

College Students Try Out Kindles as Textbooks

birdie — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:29:11 -0700

Friday Fun: Panda poop, beer bottles and Icelandic banks

(author unknown) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:50:14 -0700

Helping Women in 100-Hour Couples

(author unknown) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

USDOC/NOAA/NESDIS/National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) Home Page

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:03:24 -0800

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) provides scientific stewardship, products, and services for geophysical data from the Sun to the Earth and Earth's sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space.

The Victim of Library Instruction - Academic Librarian

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:04:37 -0800

Why instructors might not take students to the library for instruction - poor library instruction.

AIST:RIO-DB Spectral Database for Organic Compounds,SDBS

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:26:17 -0800

Poster Presentations - University at Buffalo Libraries

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:43:22 -0800

From Fred Stoss at UB

Nature Chemical Biology Primers

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:06:01 -0700

Nature Chemical Biology provides basic information, current highlights, and reference tools for a variety of current topics in chemical biology.

Taming the Digital Distractions That Make Your PC a Time Waster - NYTimes.com

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:53:15 -0700

JSNES: A Javascript NES emulator

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:08:22 -0700

Finally, I can play super mario brothers again!

Overview | Research data management guidance | Information Services

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:10:22 -0700

index | ScienceOnline2010

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:16:08 -0700

Wiki for the January conference

The evolution of scientific impact « I was lost but now I live here

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:48:46 -0700

Survey – women geoscientists and blogs « Women in Planetary Science

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:00:53 -0700

Research on Learning in the Geosciences

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:42:44 -0700

Science Teaching Reconsidered: A Handbook

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:39:55 -0700

Chapter 2 - specific methods.

Examples of Teaching with Demonstrations

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:36:35 -0700

From SERC.

What Are Conceptual Models

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:34:11 -0700

From SERC.

National student organizations call for Open Access to research (SPARC)

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:17:08 -0700

National student organizations call for Open Access to research (SPARC)

"The RIAA, MPAA, BSA, and CRIA all report dire numbers for piracy and billions lost, numbers which..."

Thu, 21 May 2009 05:30:35 -0700

“The RIAA, MPAA, BSA, and CRIA all report dire numbers for piracy and billions lost, numbers which they obtain by… making them up. Seriously, they just pull them out of thin air. I might as well say eliminating software piracy would cause Canada to have more pleasant summers and would increase the bison herd. There’s just as much evidence for that.”

- Science Library Pad: a call to journalists to do serious reporting on content copying

"Merck cooked up a phony, but real sounding, peer reviewed journal and published favorably looking..."

Mon, 04 May 2009 08:36:53 -0700

“Merck cooked up a phony, but real sounding, peer reviewed journal and published favorably looking data for its products in them. Merck paid Elsevier to publish such a tome, which neither appears in MEDLINE or has a website, according to The Scientist.”

- Merck Makes Phony Peer-Review Journal | blog.bioethics.net

Making it even tougher for students to figure out where they can find reliable information.

G T C A ! The latest video from Bio-Rad (via...

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:48:00 -0700

G T C A ! The latest video from Bio-Rad (via comparenetworks)

"Fellow readers, if a fierce book purist like me … can be lured into liking e-books, well,..."

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:32:51 -0700

“Fellow readers, if a fierce book purist like me … can be lured into liking e-books, well, then, I suspect pretty much anybody can.”

- Lost in the Pixels of a Good Book: The E-book Problem - ShelfTalker: A Children’s Bookseller’s Blog - Blog on Publishers Weekly

Toward an All E-Textbook Campus :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:44:56 -0800

Toward an All E-Textbook Campus :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs:

Northwest Missouri State University has a track record of innovation when it comes to providing students with their textbooks. They are now trying to move to ebooks, although the business models and availability aren’t always quite right.

Battlestar Book: Battlestarbook Tells The Tale Of BSG, Facebook-Style

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:31:03 -0800

Battlestar Book: Battlestarbook Tells The Tale Of BSG, Facebook-Style

Austenbook

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:28:45 -0800

Austenbook:

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as told via a Facebook newsfeed.

Book Drop Craziness “a picture of an actual item as...

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:52:55 -0800

Book Drop Craziness

“a picture of an actual item as returned in the Mullica Hill branch book drop!”

"And, fair or not, scientists are likely to find more persuasive the testimony of those they take to..."

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:06:44 -0800

“And, fair or not, scientists are likely to find more persuasive the testimony of those they take to be honest and meticulous, Scientists who can’t even do a good literature search may have other as yet unexposed gaps in their practice that render their testimony less credible.”

- Adventures in Ethics and Science: Bad cites. Bad science?

"In a world where rigorous evidence from scientific research languishes unpublicised, the media..."

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:34:30 -0800

“In a world where rigorous evidence from scientific research languishes unpublicised, the media continued to churn out bogus wacky science stories.”

- Bad Science » The Year in Bad Science

On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess : On Motherhood and Maintaining Your Identity...

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 07:23:02 -0800

On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess : On Motherhood and Maintaining Your Identity...

We Love Open Source Software. No, You Can’t Have Our Code. The Code4Lib Journal.

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:25:36 -0800

We Love Open Source Software. No, You Can’t Have Our Code. The Code4Lib Journal.

Notoriety as a renaissance artist, ninja turtle, or...

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:18:10 -0800

Notoriety as a renaissance artist, ninja turtle, or scientist.

From The World’s Fair

Defending the Fruit Flies from Sarah Palin :: Inside Higher Ed

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:27:35 -0700

Defending the Fruit Flies from Sarah Palin :: Inside Higher Ed

The Winner's Curse and Scientific Publishing : Pure Pedantry

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:43:37 -0700

The Winner's Curse and Scientific Publishing : Pure Pedantry

SUNY Students "willing to pay more for education, to a degree"

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:34:16 -0700

SUNY Students "willing to pay more for education, to a degree":

SUNY Student Assembly weighs resolution calling for a new policy of modest annual tuition increases

Strange Maps

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:19:03 -0700

Strange Maps

A Very Brief Introduction to the Scientific Literature

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:10:31 -0700

A Very Brief Introduction to the Scientific Literature:

A little something I wrote up to fill a need for lower level undergraduates who don’t quite get taught the entire scientific process. You know, the stuff that comes after the experiments.

Things to avoid when speaking publicly.

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:00:12 -0700

Things to avoid when speaking publicly.