Academic Evolution

Microblogging immediacy trumps Google for search, research

The sometimes cheeky Rocketboom proves it can communicate something spot-on. In this case, comparing the effective value of Twitter over Google (in some respects). A key comment: “Twitter currently controls the most contemporary thought stream humanity has ever seen.” (Thanks to Alec Couros for first posting the video. Follow him on Twitter (@couros) or check out his excellent blog, Open Thinking). 

As I muse about the need for educators to wake up to the intellectual agility and educational riches of blogging, I realize that microblogging is so far beyond the ponder-polish-publish and procrastination model of traditional scholarship that few established academics will allow themselves to catch on to the vitality of Twitter as a research, discovery, and publishing tool for every idea and purpose. But some educators get it. A big thanks to Barbara Lindsey for bringing together a wonderful collection of Twitter resources for educators. Well worth looking at.

Academia must divest from Intellectual Apartheid

Apartheid is alive and well today. I don’t mean South Africa’s social policy that once enforced a harmful racial divide; I mean academia’s policy that enforces an unnecessary and counterproductive intellectual divide. What intellectual divide? It is that gaping chasm between two opposing models of disseminating knowledge: toll access and open access. This divide may not smack of oppression and overt injustice at first glance, but given its global scope and institutional entrenchment, it may in fact prove more disenfranchising than South Africa’s infamous policy ever was.

Transitioning Peer Review from the Print Paradigm

Lest my readers suppose that the testy tone of my prior post critical of peer review suggests I do not take it seriously enough or that I'm simply out of touch with academic realities, I offer below the abstract which I just sent in as a proposed paper for the International Symposium on Peer Reviewing coming up in July. I highly recommend glancing over their program, as its organizers have thought very thoroughly about the various issues involved as they attempt to apply peer review to peer review itself. Their own process for vetting the proposed papers is a unique combination of blind and open review. I was invited to submit the names of three potential reviewers as part of this. Here's my abstract, to which I invite open review: