Academic Evolution

Listen to King Lear - He's 12 and He Gets It

I have great faith in the rising generation when I read a blog post like this one by "King Lear," quoted verbatim from his Royal Thoughts blog:

"The Future"
Times have changed, have the not? we are very technology enhanced and prone these days, probably too much so. We must over look the game websites we must look to how to improve our lives with the internet. For example, have you ever written an essay that you thought was very well done but you never got to show it to any one besides your teacher? I know I have. What I am suggesting here is that you post it online allow free editing and tips from people across the world. The possibilities are endless. We need to have open thoughts for the world to see and grow on. We need to grasp the technology of today and use it for our own benefit. If you want to be an architect when you should be learning architect techniques right now, no matter your age. don't go and say you are going to just wait till high school to educate your self in the career you want to take up, you should start now.

There are endless sites online about endless things explore the web today for what you are looking for. Think about how many more years of experience you will have behind you when you go to college instead maybe four high school years. That's it for now but think about your future life and career.

Lear (in his first year of junior high) respects the fact that the online environment is a place to think and revise thinking. He understands it as a medium of immediate interest but also long-term value. Don't wait for high school to begin educating yourself? Whoa. If he knew how many students coast through college without ever taking ownership of their own intellectual development! I happen to know that Lear uses the medium, already, to collaborate with others on serious creative projects. In fact, in an upcoming video blog entry that I'm editing now, I'll show you what he and his brothers have been doing with Little Big Planet, one of those video games that has transcended entertainment to become a serious platform for education and social creativity.

I vote we follow the king.

[The Chronicle of] Higher Education Facing Extinction

What does it say about the need for broad academic reform when the calls for that reform themselves are narrowly restricted by establishment academic media?

A few days ago Gordon Gee, President of Ohio State University, proclaimed to other college presidents gathered at the American Council of Education that colleges are at a defining crossroads: "The choice, it seems to me, is this: reinvention or extinction." Strong words from an academic leader, to be sure. Of course the Chronicle of Higher Education, that flagship for issues affecting colleges and universities, reported on it. But to whom? To the broad array of stakeholders who need to think through the problems and discuss proposed solutions to higher education?

Nope. The Chronicle of Higher Education kept Gee's remarks safely quarantined behind its pay-to-play subscription gate.

Podcast #004: Open Access and the Institutional Repository

In this interview with BYU Scholarly Communications Librarian Jeff Belliston, we discuss how Open Access can bring broader impact and exposure for scholarship--especially if scholars will preserve copyright so they can deposit their work in an institutional repository like BYU's ScholarsArchive or the more developed DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I play devil's advocate with my librarain friend, suggesting that however noble the goal of spreading one's scholarship to the world, the practical reality is that scholars are really only motivated to reach that small but influential audience, their peers. Listen to the episode here (or subscribe to the podcast here).

I've blogged quite a bit about Open Access, and Jeff Belliston and I have given many presentations about Open Access to the leadership and faculty of Brigham Young University (under the auspices of University Librarian Randy Olson and with the encouragement of BYU's Academic Vice President's office). It has been exciting to see this new and vital way of thinking about scholarship starting to take root on our campus. You can view one of our presentations on SlideShare. Those wishing to keep tabs on Open Access should subscribe to Peter Suber's Open Access News blog.

Peer Review is Vanity Publishing

The time has come to call academia's darling child out onto the carpet. That's right. It's time to review peer review.

If peer review is as sacred as it is made out to be -- and believe me, it is invoked with more regularity and sanctity than Allah for the Muslim, Jehovah for the Jew, or Jesus for the Christian within the orthodoxy of academia -- then surely, SURELY, it should hold up to its own process, yes?

So let's review peer review--but not blindly. Let us see what its premises are, its pretensions, and its practices. We will find at the core of peer reviewed publishing the pride of academia--both its security and also its vanity. We may also find that it has worked pretty well for a long time and is fairly reliable. But let us not mistake a practice that's been adequate for one context as an absolute to be lorded over another. That would be monstrous.