Tidbits on May 10, 2010
Bob Jensen
We were invited to the Town and Country for
dinner on May 8
Fearing moose on the road at night, we spent the night as well
One of the T&C buildings (two floors) is longer than a football field
Town & Country Motor
Inn, Shellbourne NH 03581
Because of the lousy weather I did not get pictures this time of the famous
Shellbourne Birches
Next time we pass through on our way to Bangor we will stop for pictures of
these wonderful birch trees
It's been snowing on and off again (but only
flurries as of yet)
Sadly (for flowers) we've had frigid gale force winds with the temperature below freezing.
Sunrise over the Twin Mountains (photograph taken from my desk at home)
The circle near Franconia Notch below was somehow caused by my camera
The tiny red dots are reflectors on the side of my driveway
Sunrise in our living room
A Fuzzy Picture of Erika's Dining Table
Meanwhile, Paula sent pictures of the 2010
springtime in Texas
You can see Paula and more of her wildflower pictures at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/tidbits042910.htm
Paul, Auntie Bev, and others sent the
pictures below
Yosemite Dining Table
This is a submitted slogan 65 years ago
That Carnation could not print in more modest times
Blind and
Crippled at Birth (what determination can do for winners) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=9xwCG0Ey2Mg
This is a must see!
Slide Show to
Make You Smile ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/PhotosToMakeYouSmile.pps
Slide Show from the
1950s and 1960 ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Photos1950-1960.pps
Slide Show of
Historic Photographs ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/HistoricPhotographis.pps
Stamps for
Shelter Animals --- http://www.stampstotherescue.com/
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on May 10,
2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations051010.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Tidbits on May 10, 2010
Bob Jensen
For earlier editions of Tidbits go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/.
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page is at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
CPA
Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Cool Search Engines That Are Not
Google ---
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/coolsearchengines
World Clock and World Facts ---
http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf
U.S. Debt/Deficit Clock ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Free Residential and Business Telephone Directory (you must listen to an
opening advertisement) --- dial 800-FREE411 or 800-373-3411
Free Online Telephone Directory ---
http://snipurl.com/411directory [www_public-records-now_com]
Free online 800 telephone numbers ---
http://www.tollfree.att.net/tf.html
Google Free Business Phone Directory --- 800-goog411
To find names addresses from listed phone numbers, go to
www.google.com and read in the phone number without spaces, dashes, or
parens
Daily News Sites for Accountancy, Tax, Fraud, IFRS, XBRL, Accounting
History, and More ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Cool Search Engines That Are Not
Google ---
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/coolsearchengines
Bob Jensen's search helpers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
Education Technology Search ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Distance Education Search ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Search for Listservs, Blogs, and Social Networks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm
Bob Jensen's essay on the financial crisis bailout's aftermath and an alphabet soup of
appendices can be found at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
The Master List of Free
Online College Courses ---
http://universitiesandcolleges.org/
149 Interesting People to Follow on Twitter (but I don't have time to follow
them) ---
http://ow.ly/1sj5q
-
- I see from my house by the side of the road
- By the side of the highway of life,
- The men who press with the ardor of hope,
- The men who are faint with the strife,
- But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
- Both parts of an infinite plan-
- Let me live in a house by the side of the road
- And be a friend to man.
Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)
For earlier editions of Tidbits go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New
Bookmarks go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long
and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was
generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My
wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm
Bob Jensen's blogs and various threads on many topics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
(Also scroll down to the table at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )
Global Incident Map ---
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
If you want to help our badly injured troops, please check out
Valour-IT: Voice-Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops ---
http://www.valour-it.blogspot.com/
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
574 Shields Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
- With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting
Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Ted Video Humor: Lies, damned lies and statistics
(about TEDTalks), by Sebastian Wernicke. TED, April 2010 ---
http://www.ted.com/talks/lies_damned_lies_and_statistics_about_tedtalks.html
Cognitive Bias Video Song ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RsbmjNLQkc&feature=player_embedded
Link forwarded from Simoleon Sense
Video: Visualizing Desire (Brian Knutson, Stanford
University) [implications for financial decisions] ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUK8D-kX0fE
Link forwarded from Simoleon Sense
Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library ---
http://hidvl.nyu.edu/
Preventing Genocide [Flash Player]
http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/
NOVA: scienceNOW [Flash Player]
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/
Science Videos ---
http://www.scivee.tv/
Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture [Flash Player]
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/leonardo/
Video: Oil Absorbing Polymer ---
Click Here
Thank you Richard Newmark for the heads up.
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Bryn Terfel: The 'Bad Boy' Of Opera ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126245009
The 5 Browns: Blending Pop And Classical ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126193811
Ennio Marchetto is a world renowned comedian who
has created his own theatrical language mixing mime, dance, music and quick
change costumes made out of card-board and paper ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAFI1i5FIBc
Thanks to Gene and Joan for this link.
Web outfits like
Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content
that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2
TheRadio (my favorite commercial-free
online music site) ---
http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) ---
http://www.slacker.com/
Gerald Trites likes this
international radio site ---
http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:
Search for a song or band and play the selection ---
http://songza.com/
Also try Jango ---
http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) ---
http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live ---
http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note U.S. Army Band recordings
---
http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp
Bob Jensen listens to music free online (and no commercials)
---
http://www.slacker.com/
Photographs and Art
What happened to the naked and burned little girl
in this famous Viet Nam War photograph? ---
http://ace.mu.nu/
"The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (over
7,000 photographs) ---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187
Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library ---
http://hidvl.nyu.edu/
Sea & Ships: Explore online ---
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/sea-and-ships/
Hampton Roads Naval Museum ---
http://www.hrnm.navy.mil/
Nashville Flood Pictures
---
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/A5RLfk/www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1987034,00.html/r:t
- Sources on US Naval History
http://www.history.navy.mil/sources/index.htm
Naval History
http://www.naval-history.net/
From Warrior to Saint: The Journey of David Pendleton Oakerhater
(Cheyenne Warrior, Native American) ---
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Oakerhater/
Tipatshimuna-Innu stories from the land (Canada, video) ---
http://www.tipatshimuna.ca/
Edward J. McCauley Photographs (North Carolina) ---
http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/mccauley/
Eve Drewelowe Digital Collection (Iowa) ---
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/drewelowe/
North Carolina Museum of Art: Far From Home ---
http://ncartmuseum.org/exhibitions/farfromhome/main.shtml
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design ---
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1384_leonardo/
Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of
Sculpture [Flash Player]
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/leonardo/
Leonardo da Vinci's Geometric Sketches
http://mathdl.maa.org/convergence/1/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1717
Universal Leonardo ---
http://www.universalleonardo.org/
Preservation Directory ---
http://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx
Suspect Found Neck-Deep In Port-A-Potty (with a photo) ---
http://www.komonews.com/news/92553919.html
Empire State Building Photo Set 1 ---
http://www.freefoto.com/browse/1210-07-0?ffid=1210-07-0
Empire State Building Photo Set 2 ---
http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/empire-state-building.html
Empire State Building Photo Set 3 ---
http://andrewprokos.com/photos/new-york/landmarks/empire-state-building/
Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various
types electronic literature available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Find Book ---
http://www.ufindbook.com/tags/Electronic Literature-1.html
The eBook Directory ---
http://www.ebookdirectory.com/search/Literature/
Spark Notes Study Guides ---
http://www.sparknotes.com/
Free Literature About Islam ---
http://islam.about.com/od/basicbeliefs/a/freelit.htm
Free English Literature on the Internet ---
http://www.anglik.net/literatureonline.htm
Self Made Scholar ---
http://selfmadescholar.com/b/2009/04/14/where-to-find-free-literature-and-literature-summaries/
Literature Quizzes ---
http://www.actionquiz.com/quiz.php?trivia=literature
"Master of Revels Neil Simon’s comic empire," by John Lahr,
The New Yorker, May 3, 2010 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/03/100503crat_atlarge_lahr
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on May 10,
2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations051010.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Female students at the University of Maine at
Farmington marched topless Friday to draw attention to their legal right in
the state to appear that way and to try to adjust public attitudes so that
doing so would not offend people,
The Bangor Daily News reported. Judging
from the reaction, they have a ways to go. Some critics are calling on
university officials to better educate students about why women shouldn't
appear topless. One local critic carried a blanket along the march route,
trying to block views of the female students' breasts.
Jensen Comment
If the female students win this fight, it raises the question about dress codes
for online video conferencing and Webcams on campus. However, I can't see the
women winning on this one, and with all the creeps with cameras running about
these days there's a huge question about safety. It also raises questions about
debit and credit crib notes in examinations.
Humor about understanding research literature ---
http://maaw.info/ArticleSummaries/ArtSumIngram87.htm
Thank you Rob Ingram and James Martin
"The Coming Meltdown in Higher Education," by Seth Godin, Chronicle
of Higher Education, May 3, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Coming-Meltdown-in-Higher/65398/
For 400 years, higher education in the United
States has been on a roll. From Harvard asking Galileo to be a guest
professor in the 1600s to millions tuning in to watch a team of unpaid
athletes play another team of unpaid athletes in some college sporting
event, the amounts of time and money and prestige in the college world have
been climbing.
I'm afraid that's about to crash and burn. Here's
how I'm looking at it.
Most undergraduate college and university programs
are organized to give an average education to average students.
Pick up any college brochure or catalog. Delete the
brand names and the map. Can you tell which college it is? While there are
outliers (like St. John's College, in Maryland, Deep Springs College, and
Full Sail University), most colleges aren't really outliers. They are mass
marketers.
Stop for a second and consider the impact of that
choice. By emphasizing mass and sameness and rankings, colleges have changed
their missions.
This works great in an industrial economy where we
can't churn out standardized students fast enough, and where the demand is
huge because the premium earned by a college graduate dwarfs the cost. But
...
College has gotten expensive far faster than wages
have gone up.
As a result, millions of people are in very serious
debt, debt so big it might take decades to repay. Word gets around. Won't
get fooled again.
This leads to a crop of potential college students
who can (and will) no longer just blindly go to the "best" school they get
into.
The definition of "best" is under siege.
Why do colleges send millions (!) of
undifferentiated pieces of junk mail to high-school students now? We will
waive the admission fee! We have a one-page application! Apply! This is some
of the most amateur and bland direct mail I've ever seen. Why do it?
Biggest reason: So colleges can reject more
applicants. The more applicants they reject, the higher they rank in U.S.
News and other rankings. And thus the rush to game the rankings continues,
which is a sign that the marketers in question (the colleges) are getting
desperate for more than their fair share. Why bother making your education
more useful if you can more easily make it appear to be more useful?
The correlation between a typical college degree
and success is suspect.
College wasn't originally designed to be merely a
continuation of high school (but with more binge drinking). In many places,
though, that's what it has become. The data I'm seeing show that a degree
(from one of those famous schools, with or without a football team) doesn't
translate into significantly better career opportunities, a better job, or
more happiness than does a degree from a cheaper institution.
Accreditation isn't the solution, it's the problem.
A lot of these ills are the result of uniform
accreditation programs that have pushed high-cost, low-return policies on
institutions and rewarded colleges that churn out young wannabe professors
instead of creating experiences that turn out leaders and problem solvers.
Just as we're watching the disintegration of
old-school marketers with mass-market products, I think we're about to see
significant cracks in old-school colleges with mass-market degrees.
Back before the digital revolution, access to
information was an issue. The size of the library mattered. One reason to go
to college was to get access. Today that access is worth a lot less. The
valuable things that students take away from college are interactions with
great minds (usually professors who actually teach and actually care) and
non-class activities that shape them as people. The question I'd ask: Is the
money that mass-marketing colleges spend on marketing themselves and making
themselves bigger well spent? Are they organizing for changing lives or for
ranking high? Does NYU have to get so much bigger? Why?
The solutions are obvious. There are tons of ways
to get a cheap liberal education, one that exposes you to the world, permits
you to have significant interactions with people who matter, and teaches you
to make a difference (see DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming
Transformation of Higher Education, by Anya Kamenetz). Most of these ways,
though, aren't heavily marketed, nor do they involve going to a
tradition-steeped 200-year-old institution with a wrestling team. Things
like gap years, research internships, and entrepreneurial or social ventures
after high school are opening doors for students who are eager to discover
the new.
The only people who haven't gotten the memo are
anxious helicopter parents, mass-marketing colleges, and traditional
employers. And all three are waking up and facing new circumstances.
Seth Godin is the author of 12 books, including Linchpin: Are You
Indispensable?, published this year by Portfolio. He is founder and CEO of
Squidoo.com, a publishing platform that allows users to generate Web pages
on any subject of their choosing. This article is reprinted from his blog.
Bob Jensen's threads on our compassless colleges ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Berkowitz
Bob Jensen's threads on the universal disgrace of grade inflation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#GradeInflation
Adobe's Creative Suite 5 Ships (with educational discounts) ---
http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/04/30/creative-suite-5-ships.aspx
Innovation in Website Design
"Bucknell U. Wins Webby Award for Virtual Tour," by Andrea Fuller,
Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Bucknell-U-Wins-Webby-Award/23740/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
What do Roger Ebert and Jim Carrey have in common
with Bucknell University? They all just won Webby Awards from the
International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, picked from over 10,000
entries.
Bucknell won in the category of best school or
university Web
site. The academy specifically praised Bucknell's
virtual tour.
Visitors to the site can click buttons to complete
sentences that describe their interests and characteristics. The site then
shows visitors a campus map, with arrows pointing to programs and areas at
the university in which those interests might be developed. Visitors can
then read related blurbs about Bucknell and click on mutimedia describing
the Bucknell experience.
Bob Jensen's updates on education technology ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Questions
Has the art and science of reading faces ever been part of an auditing
curriculum?
Have there been any accountics studies of Ekman's theories as applied to
auditing behavioral experiments?
(I can imagine that some accounting doctoral students have not experimented
along these lines?)
Paul Ekman video on how to read faces and detect lying ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8nYZg4VnI
This video runs for nearly one hour
Paul Ekman ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman
Ekman's work on facial expressions had its starting
point in the work of psychologist
Silvan Tomkins.[Ekman
showed that contrary to the belief of some
anthropologists including
Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are
not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and
thus
biological in origin. Expressions he found to be
universal included those indicating
anger,
disgust,
fear,
joy,
sadness, and
surprise. Findings on
contempt are less
clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion
and its expression are universally recognized.]
In a research project along with Dr. Maureen
O'Sullivan, called the
Wizards Project (previously named the
Diogenes Project), Ekman reported on facial "microexpressions"
which could be used to assist in lie detection. After testing a total of
15,000 [EDIT: This value conflicts with the 20,000 figure given in the
article on Microexpressions] people from all walks of life, he found only 50
people that had the ability to spot deception without any formal training.
These naturals are also known as "Truth Wizards", or wizards of
deception detection from demeanor.
He developed the
Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to taxonomize
every conceivable human facial expression. Ekman conducted and published
research on a wide variety of topics in the general area of non-verbal
behavior. His work on lying, for example, was not limited to the face, but
also to observation of the rest of the body.
In his profession he also uses verbal signs of
lying. When interviewed about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he mentioned that
he could detect that former President
Bill Clinton was lying because he used
distancing language.
Ekman has contributed much to the study of social
aspects of lying, why we lie,
and why we are often unconcerned with detecting lies.
He is currently on the Editorial Board of Greater Good magazine,
published by the
Greater Good Science Center of the
University of California, Berkeley. His
contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the
roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships. Ekman is
also working with Computer Vision researcher
Dimitris Metaxas on designing a visual
lie-detector.
From Simoleon Sense on May 5, 2010 ---
http://www.simoleonsense.com/
Research Papers Worth
Reading On Deceit, Body Language, Influence etc.. (with
links to pdfs)
Sixteen Enjoyable Emotions. – (2003)
Emotion Researcher, 18, 6-7. by Ekman, P
“Become Versed in Reading Faces”.
Entrepreneur, 26 March 2009. Ekman, P. (2009)
Intoduction: Expression Of Emotion - In RJ
Davidson, KR Scherer, & H.H. Goldsmith (Eds.) Handbook
of Afective Sciences. Pp. 411-414.Keltner, D. & Ekman, P
(2003)
Facial Expression Of Emotion. – In M.Lewis
and J Haviland-Jones (eds) Handbook of emotions, 2nd
edition. Pp. 236-249. New York: Guilford Publications,
Inc. Keltner, D. & Ekman, P. (2000)
Emotional And Conversational Nonverbal Signals.
– In L.Messing & R. Campbell (eds.) Gesture, Speech and
Sign. Pp. 45-55. London: Oxford University Press.
A Few Can Catch A Liar. - Psychological
Science, 10, 263-266. Ekman, P., O’Sullivan, M., Frank,
M. (1999)
Deception, Lying And Demeanor.- In States
of Mind: American and Post-Soviet Perspectives on
Contemporary Issues in Psychology . D.F. Halpern and
A.E.Voiskounsky (Eds.) Pp. 93-105. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Lying And Deception. – In N.L. Stein, P.A.
Ornstein, B. Tversky & C. Brainerd (Eds.) Memory for
everyday and emotional events. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 333-347.
Lies That Fail.- In M. Lewis & C. Saarni
(Eds.) Lying and deception in everyday life. Pp.
184-200. New York: Guilford Press.
Who Can Catch A Liar. -American
Psychologist, 1991, 46, 913-120.
Hazards In Detecting Deceit. In D. Raskin,
(Ed.) Psychological Methods for Investigation and
Evidence. New York: Springer. 1989. (pp 297-332)
Self-Deception And Detection Of Misinformation.
In J.S. Lockhard & D. L. Paulhus (Eds.) Self-Deception:
An Adaptive Mechanism?. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1988. Pp. 229- 257.
Smiles When Lying. – Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 1988, 54, 414-420.
Felt- False- And Miserable Smiles.Ekman, P.
& Friesen, W.V.
Mistakes When Deceiving. Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences. 1981, 364, 269-278.
Nonverbal Leakage And Clues To Deception
Psychiatry, 1969, 32, 88-105.
"You Can't Hide Your Lying Brain (or Can You?), by Tom Bartlett,
Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/You-Cant-Hide-Your-Lying/23780/
Earlier this week Wired reported that a Brooklyn
lawyer wanted to use fMRI brain scans to prove that his client was telling
the truth. The case itself is an average employer-employee dispute, but
using brains scans to tell whether someone is lying—which a few, small
studies have suggested might be useful—would set a precedent for
neuroscience in the courtroom. Plus, I'm pretty sure they did something like
this on Star Trek once.
But why go to all the trouble of scanning someone's
brain when you can just count how many times the person blinks? A study
published this month in Psychology, Crime & Law found that when people were
lying they blinked significantly less than when they were telling the truth.
The authors suggest that lying requires more thinking and that this
increased cognitive load could account for the reduction in blinking.
For the study, 13 participants "stole" an exam
paper while 13 others did not. All 26 were questioned and the ones who had
committed the mock theft blinked less when questioned about it than when
questioned about other, unrelated issues. The innocent 13 didn't blink any
more or less. Incidentally, the blinking was measured by electrodes, not
observation.
But the authors aren't arguing that the blink
method should be used in the courtroom. In fact, they think it might not
work. Because the stakes in the study were low--no one was going to get into
any trouble--it's unclear whether the results would translate to, say, a
murder investigation. Maybe you blink less when being questioned about a
murder even if you're innocent, just because you would naturally be nervous.
Or maybe you're guilty but your contacts are bothering you. Who knows?
By the way, the lawyer's request to introduce the
brain scanning evidence in court was rejected, but lawyers in another case
plan to give it a shot later this month.
(The abstract of the study, conducted by Sharon
Leal and Aldert Vrij, can be found here. The company that administers the
lie-detection brain scans is called Cephos and their confident slogan is
"The Science Behind the Truth.")
"The New Face of Emoticons: Warping photos could help text-based
communications become more expressive," by Duncan Graham-Rowe, MIT's
Technology Review, March 27, 2007 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18438/
Computer scientists at the University of Pittsburgh
have developed a way to make e-mails, instant messaging, and texts just a
bit more personalized. Their software will allow people to use images of
their own faces instead of the more traditional emoticons to communicate
their mood. By automatically warping their facial features, people can use a
photo to depict any one of a range of different animated emotional
expressions, such as happy, sad, angry, or surprised.
All that is needed is a single photo of the person,
preferably with a neutral expression, says Xin Li, who developed the system,
called Face Alive Icons. "The user can upload the image from their camera
phone," he says. Then, by keying in familiar text symbols, such as ":)" for
a smile, the user automatically contorts the face to reflect his or her
desired expression.
"Already, people use avatars on message boards and
in other settings," says Sheryl Brahnam, an assistant professor of computer
information systems at MissouriStateUniversity, in Springfield. In many
respects, she says, this system bridges the gap between emoticons and
avatars.
This is not the first time that someone has tried
to use photos in this way, says Li, who now works for Google in New York
City. "But the traditional approach is to just send the image itself," he
says. "The problem is, the size will be too big, particularly for
low-bandwidth applications like PDAs and cell phones." Other approaches
involve having to capture a different photo of the person for each unique
emoticon, which only further increases the demand for bandwidth.
Li's solution is not to send the picture each time
it is used, but to store a profile of the face on the recipient device. This
profile consists of a decomposition of the original photo. Every time the
user sends an emoticon, the face is reassembled on the recipient's device in
such a way as to show the appropriate expression.
To make this possible, Li first created generic
computational models for each type of expression. Working with Shi-Kuo
Chang, a professor of computer science at the University of Pittsburgh, and
Chieh-Chih Chang, at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, in
Taiwan, Li created the models using a learning program to analyze the
expressions in a database of facial expressions and extract features unique
to each expression. Each of the resulting models acts like a set of
instructions telling the program how to warp, or animate, a neutral face
into each particular expression.
Once the photo has been captured, the user has to
click on key areas to help the program identify key features of the face.
The program can then decompose the image into sets of features that change
and those that will remain unaffected by the warping process.
Finally, these "pieces" make up a profile that,
although it has to be sent to each of a user's contacts, must only be sent
once. This approach means that an unlimited number of expressions can be
added to the system without increasing the file size or requiring any
additional pictures to be taken.
Li says that preliminary evaluations carried out on
eight subjects viewing hundreds of faces showed that the warped expressions
are easily identifiable. The results of the evaluations are published in the
current edition of the Journal of Visual Languages and Computing.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on visualization
Visualization of Multivariate Data (including faces) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm
US News Rankings of Universities and Colleges ---
http://www.usnews.com/rankings
Best Business Schools According to Business Week Magazine ---http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/08_47/B4109best_business_schools.htm
This includes a history link on the rankings over the years.
Bob Jensen's threads on Ranking Controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings
From the CEO Who Wants to Be a Monopolist King of the World
"Steve Jobs Unleashes Harsh Criticism of Flash," by Erica Naone, MIT's
Technology Review, April 29, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/25119/?nlid=2943&a=f
Apple CEO Steve Jobs
lambasted Adobe's Flash platform today in a
statement published on Apple's website. Flash is a near-ubiquitous desktop
browser plug-in commonly used to power video, animation, and other
interactive features on websites. Though Adobe wants to
extend the Flash platform
to mobile devices, it's hit a roadblock in Apple's refusal to support Flash
on its popular iPhone and iPad. Adobe has also found itself in conflict with
boosters of new Web standards, who believe
Flash could be replaced by new specifications such
as HTML 5.
Jobs outlined the reasons that Apple does not plan
to support Flash on its devices, including concerns about its security and
reliability and its effect on battery life. He also noted that current Flash
sites aren't designed to be navigated by devices that use touch interfaces.
Since they would need to be rewritten anyway, Jobs suggested, they could be
rewritten so they don't use Flash.
Perhaps his strongest words are directed at Adobe's
control over the Flash platform. "Apple has many proprietary products too,"
Jobs acknowledged, but followed up by stating in no uncertain terms that he
wants a direct relationship with developers of applications for Apple's
devices.
Jobs wrote:
We know from painful experience that letting a
third party layer of software come between the platform and the
developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the
enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent
on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take
advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses
to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party
deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our
developers.
This becomes even worse if the third party is
supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not
adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of
their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the
lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an
outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and
enhancements because they are not available on our competitor's
platforms.
Jobs denied that Apple's motivation to shut out
Flash was a
desire to protect its App store, but that's hard
to buy when he attacks cross-platform development so harshly. I appreciate
that Apple wants developers to build beautiful applications that are
specifically molded to Apple's devices, but I'm also someone who uses
multiple devices created by multiple manufacturers. I like applications that
work on all of them, but I have a lot of sympathy for the time, money, and
effort it takes developers to maintain support for the ever-increasing
number of devices out there.
Cross-platform development has got to have a place,
unless I'm expected to stick with devices created by one manufacturer.
Ideally, the Web browser would be the ultimate cross-platform device, but so
far, reality has been otherwise.
HTML 5 may be part of the answer, but I doubt it
will be all of the answer. Developers want to take advantage of the special
features that are being added to mobile devices, such as location services,
and they want to do that on multiple devices. It's not clear to me that a
standard can keep up with the pace of innovation on devices.
Whatever Flash's problems, I've respected Adobe for
trying to manage the confusing changes taking place across the board--for
example, by recently making it possible for its developers to manage
multiple social network plug-ins through a single Flash interface.
Fragmentation just seems to be the rule--we're even
seeing it these days in the variety of Android devices running different
versions of that operating systems with different capabilities. I don't
think the solution for it can be for every developer to handcraft every
application for every device.
Jensen Comment
Steve Job's quest to be monopoly king got him into trouble before when Apple
Corporation when the Mac operating system was hands down the best operating
system in the world. His dysfunctional insistence that he alone control both Mac
systems hardware manufacture and software applications enabled Microsoft's
inferior Windows operating system to capture over 90% of the market share and
very nearly drove Apple Corporation into the ground.
I guess that Steve Job's has not learned. The business world does not really
like monopolists who are themselves creative but in reality want to stifle the
creativity of millions of other developers in the world. It must've really irked
Steve Jobs to finally have to open the door for Microsoft Office applications on
a Mac. But if he had not done so, the Mac would've not regained any
respectability in market share.
Someday he may have to also stop taking such monopolist control over
applications development of his excellent and creative mobile devices. I predict
that he will eventually surrender to Flash like he surrendered to Excel and some
other Microsoft Office applications. Denying his faithful followers access to
Flash is denying them a huge part of the archived multimedia world.
At the present Steve Jobs is yelling and screaming his protest against Adobe
to the same level as he mistakenly took his protest against Microsoft into open
media warfare. In reality he's not just taking on just Adobe nor did he just
take on Microsoft. He keeps trying to stifle the creativity of the world by
controlling the applications development of virtually all computers and
networking. And now compare the enormous number of great computing and
networking Windows and Linux applications of the world that will not run on any
Apple product.
Jobs likes to brag that Mac products are more secure than Apple products. I
think they're more secure mostly because their slim market share just does not
attract the bad guys nearly like the Windows honey pot attracts hackers from all
over the world. And when the hackers do bust into the Mac system, Apple
Corporation developed a reputation of being slow to fix the problem. That's
probably because the hackers are not paying Jobs 30%.
Letter From Frustrated Authors, Chronicle of Higher Education,
May 21, 2009 ---
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=60573.0
This heads up was sent to me by Ed Scribner at New Mexico State
Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:
Enclosed is our latest version of Ms.
#1996-02-22-RRRRR, that is the re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke
on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish.
We even changed the g-d-running head! Hopefully, we have suffered enough now
to satisfy even you and the bloodthirsty reviewers.
I shall skip the usual point-by-point description
of every single change we made in response to the critiques. After all, it
is fairly clear that your anonymous reviewers are less interested in the
details of scientific procedure than in working out their personality
problems and sexual frustrations by seeking some kind of demented glee in
the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of tyrannical power over hapless authors
like ourselves who happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand
that, in view of the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial
board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they were not reviewing
manuscripts they would probably be out mugging little old ladies or clubbing
baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the
most hostile, and we request that you not ask him to review this revision.
Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of
being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them, the review
process could be unduly delayed.
Some of the reviewers’ comments we could not do
anything about. For example, if (as C suggested) several of my recent
ancestors were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change
that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has been
improved and benefited. Plus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript
by five pages, and we were able to accomplish this very effectively by
altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a
smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.
One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions
13–28 by reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading
the reviews before sending your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16
works that he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety
of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we
could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish–American war from a high
school literary magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the
same author, presumably someone whom reviewer B greatly admires and feels
should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the
Introduction and added, after the review of the relevant literature, a
subsection entitled “Review of Irrelevant Literature” that discusses these
articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions from
other reviewers.
We hope you will be pleased with this revision and
will finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is.
If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of
human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come
from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it,
however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this
process, and to express our appreciation for your scholarly insights. To
repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you; please send
us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to this journal.
Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like
to add a footnote acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point
out that we liked the paper much better the way we originally submitted it,
but you held the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop,
reshuffle, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper into
stir-fried vegetables. We could not – or would not – have done it without
your input.
-- R.L. Glass
Computing Trends,
1416 Sare Road Bloomington, IN 47401 USA
E-mail address: rglass@acm.org
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
On May 4, 2010, PBS Frontline broadcast an hour-long video called College
Inc. --- a sobering analysis of for-profit onsite and online colleges and
universities.
For a time you can watch the video free online ---
Click Here
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=toparea&utm_source=toparea
Even in lean times, the $400 billion business of
higher education is booming. Nowhere is this more true than in one of the
fastest-growing -- and most controversial -- sectors of the industry:
for-profit colleges and universities that cater to non-traditional students,
often confer degrees over the Internet, and, along the way, successfully
capture billions of federal financial aid dollars.
In College, Inc., correspondent
Martin Smith investigates the promise and
explosive growth of the for-profit higher education industry. Through
interviews with school executives, government officials, admissions
counselors, former students and industry observers, this film explores the
tension between the industry --which says it's helping an underserved
student population obtain a quality education and marketable job skills --
and critics who charge the for-profits with churning out worthless degrees
that leave students with a mountain of debt.
At the center of it all stands a vulnerable
population of potential students, often working adults eager for a
university degree to move up the career ladder. FRONTLINE talks to a former
staffer at a California-based for-profit university who says she was under
pressure to sign up growing numbers of new students. "I didn't realize just
how many students we were expected to recruit," says the former enrollment
counselor. "They used to tell us, you know, 'Dig deep. Get to their pain.
Get to what's bothering them. So, that way, you can convince them that a
college degree is going to solve all their problems.'"
Graduates of another for-profit school -- a college
nursing program in California -- tell FRONTLINE that they received their
diplomas without ever setting foot in a hospital. Graduates at other
for-profit schools report being unable to find a job, or make their student
loan payments, because their degree was perceived to be of little worth by
prospective employers. One woman who enrolled in a for-profit doctorate
program in Dallas later learned that the school never acquired the proper
accreditation she would need to get the job she trained for. She is now
sinking in over $200,000 in student debt.
The biggest player in the for-profit sector is the
University of Phoenix -- now the largest college in the US with total
enrollment approaching half a million students. Its revenues of almost $4
billion last year, up 25 percent from 2008, have made it a darling of Wall
Street. Former top executive of the University of Phoenix
Mark DeFusco told FRONTLINE how the company's
business-approach to higher education has paid off: "If you think about any
business in America, what business would give up two months of business --
just essentially close down?" he asks. "[At the University of Phoenix],
people go to school all year round. We start classes every five weeks. We
built campuses by a freeway because we figured that's where the people
were."
"The education system that was created hundreds of
years ago needs to change," says
Michael Clifford, a major education entrepreneur
who speaks with FRONTLINE. Clifford, a former musician who never attended
college, purchases struggling traditional colleges and turns them into
for-profit companies. "The big opportunity," he says, "is the inefficiencies
of some of the state systems, and the ability to transform schools and
academic programs to better meet the needs of the people that need jobs."
"From a business perspective, it's a great story,"
says
Jeffrey Silber, a senior analyst at BMO Capital
Markets, the investment banking arm of the Bank of Montreal. "You're serving
a market that's been traditionally underserved. ... And it's a very
profitable business -- it generates a lot of free cash flow."
And the cash cow of the for-profit education
industry is the federal government. Though they enroll 10 percent of all
post-secondary students, for-profit schools receive almost a quarter of
federal financial aid. But Department of Education figures for 2009 show
that 44 percent of the students who defaulted within three years of
graduation were from for-profit schools, leading to serious questions about
one of the key pillars of the profit degree college movement: that their
degrees help students boost their earning power. This is a subject of
increasing concern to the Obama administration, which, last month, remade
the federal student loan program, and is now proposing changes that may make
it harder for the for-profit colleges to qualify.
"One of the ideas the Department of Education has
put out there is that in order for a college to be eligible to receive money
from student loans, it actually has to show that the education it's
providing has enough value in the job market so that students can pay their
loans back," says Kevin Carey of the Washington think tank Education Sector.
"Now, the for-profit colleges, I think this makes them very nervous," Carey
says. "They're worried because they know that many of their members are
charging a lot of money; that many of their members have students who are
defaulting en masse after they graduate. They're afraid that this rule will
cut them out of the program. But in many ways, that's the point."
FRONTLINE also finds that the regulators that
oversee university accreditation are looking closer at the for-profits and,
in some cases, threatening to withdraw the required accreditation that keeps
them eligible for federal student loans. "We've elevated the scrutiny
tremendously," says Dr. Sylvia Manning, president of the Higher Learning
Commission, which accredits many post-secondary institutions. "It is really
inappropriate for accreditation to be purchased the way a taxi license can
be purchased. ...When we see any problematic institution being acquired and
being changed we put it on a short leash."
Also note the comments that follow the above text.
But first I highly recommend that you watch the video at
---
Click Here
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=toparea&utm_source=toparea
May 5, 2010 reply from Paul Bjorklund
[paulbjorklund@AOL.COM]
Interesting program. I saw the first half of it and
was not surprised by anything, other than the volume of students. For
example, enrollment at Univ of Phx is 500,000. Compare that to Arizona
State's four campuses with maybe 60,000 to 70,000. The huge computer rooms
dedicated to online learning were fascinating too. We've come a long way
from the Oxford don sitting in his wood paneled office, quoting Aristotle,
and dispensing wisdom to students one at a time. The evolution: From the
pursuit of truth to technical training to cash on the barrelhead. One
question about the traditional university though -- When they eliminate the
cash flow from big time football, will they then be able to criticize the
dash for cash by the educational entrepreneurs?
Paul Bjorklund, CPA
Bjorklund Consulting, Ltd.
Flagstaff, Arizona
Capella University is one of the better for-profit online universities in the
world. ---
http://www.capella.edu/
A Bridge Too Far
I discovered that Capella University is now offering an online Accounting
PhD Program ---
http://www.capella.edu/schools_programs/business_technology/phd/accounting.aspx
- Students with no business studies background (other than a basic
accounting course) can complete the program in 2.5 years part time or
slightly less than 2 years full-time.
- The the Capella accounting PhD curriculum is more like an MBA curriculum
and is totally unlike any other accounting PhD program in North America.
There are relatively few accounting courses and much less focus on research
skills.
- There are no comprehensive or oral examinations. The only requirements
120 credits, including credits to be paid for for a dissertation
- I'm still trying to learn whether there is access to any kind of
research library or the expensive financial databases that are required for
other North American accounting doctoral programs..
Although I have been recommending that accountancy doctoral programs break
out of the accountics mold, I don't think that the Capella's curriculum meets my
expectation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
I really worry that students who hear about the dire shortage of new PhD
graduates needed for North American colleges and universities will spend a lot
of money earning an accounting PhD from Capella and then belatedly discover that
Capella's PhD is just not fully accepted in the academy's tenure-track job
market. Unless a tenure track applicant has exceptional credentials other than
Capella's accounting PhD degree, I don't think that applicant will even get a
foot inside the academy's doors. I'm not being snobby here! I just think that
that, on paper, the Capella Accounting PhD Program is comparable to other
doctoral programs in accountancy in North America.
On paper the curriculum is quite different from virtually all other North
American accountancy doctoral programs that typically require much heavier
prerequisites in accounting and have much more research foundation building
curricula. For example, compare the Capella curriculum with that of the Fisher
School of Accountancy at the University of Florida ---
http://warrington.ufl.edu/fsoa/programs/phd/
Or pick any other doctoral program listed in by Jim Hasselback ---
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoctInfo.html
Jim does not yet list Capella University, and maybe that's a good thing!
One thing that is quite confusing to me are the required courses in Capella's
Accounting PhD Program. It seems to me that most of Capella's required doctoral
program courses are really equivalents of undergraduate business and MBA courses
(other than the dissertation credit courses). Most accountancy doctoral programs
have required seminars and other courses that are beyond Capella's doctoral
courses. Most also have more prerequisite accounting courses that are outside
the doctoral-level curricula.
Capella's Accounting PhD program just does not require enough accounting.
Virtually all other accounting programs require more accounting that students
must have before matriculating into the doctoral program or take in addition to
the doctoral-level courses. Capella apparently will admit accounting doctoral
program students having little or nothing beyond two principles of accounting
courses (I assume students cannot take the intermediate accounting course
without having had basic accounting). If these students only take the accounting
courses listed for Capella's doctoral program, they fall way short of having
enough accounting in my judgment.
I would also like to know more about the credentials of the faculty teaching
the doctoral program courses and supervising the dissertation research. Are they
themselves PhD accountants with respectable track records in accounting research
and publication?
Although I respect Capella University a great deal as a leading distance
education pioneer, it would seem to me that the Capella Accounting PhD Program
is a bridge too far.
I would like to hear from insiders who know a great deal about this
program.
Capella has some doctoral programs that purportedly are successful,
particularly this in the School of Education. At this point, however, I think
the Capella PhD Program in Accounting may give Cappella a bad name in the
academy.
I'm all in favor of distance education if it is as rigorous or more rigorous
than its onsite competition. I think Capella has some undergraduate, masters,
and maybe a few doctoral programs meeting this standard. But I'm very dubious
about the admission standards, curriculum, and faculty credentials of the
Capella University Accounting PhD Program. I would certainly like to learn more
about this program.
Other Capella University Doctoral Programs ---
http://www.capella.edu/schools_programs/degrees/phd.aspx
I still stand by my
long-standing claim that there are no respectable online doctoral programs in
accountancy even though there are some highly respected masters of accounting
and masters of taxation online programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Added Jensen Comment
Another questionable feature of the Capella Accounting PhD Program is that the
program now charges $4,485 per quarter on a plan that involves taking 12 credits
per quarter for 120 credits for students having no transfer credits. This means
that the program is intended to be completed in 10 quarters of part-time study
---
http://www.capella.edu/schools_programs/business_technology/phd/accounting.aspx
It takes even less time for students transferring in up to 48 credits allowed.
It also takes even less time for students carrying a full-time load of 16
credits per quarter at Capella.
A student transferring in the maximum of 48 credits can complete the
doctorate in 1.5 years in theory, although Capella might not allow the
dissertation credits to be earned simultaneously with other courses.
Taking the recommended 48 quarter credits per year, Capella Accounting PhD
Program students can expect to graduate in 2.5 years or less depending upon
transfer credits.
Traditional onsite accounting doctoral programs now take four or five years
of full time study on campus irrespective of transfer credits. Hasselback
reports that in reality "it often takes five or six years" --- "
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/FAQs.pdf
It hardly
seems comparable for a Capella doctoral graduate to complete the PhD in 2.5
years part-time compared with onsite full time accounting doctoral students
needing 4-6 years on campus. Either all the other accounting doctoral programs
take too much time or Capella is offering a cheap shot accounting doctorate. I
think both claims are supportable. But the point is that Capella's accounting
doctorate is in no way comparable with other accounting doctoral programs in
terms of study time.
Added Jensen Comment
One of the most time consuming aspects of a traditional onsite accounting
doctoral program in North America, apart from earning course credits, is the
need to study for a sequence of comprehensive examinations plus, in most
instances, an oral examination. Capella frees up all this time by not having any
comprehensive examinations or oral examinations. Bummer!
May 3, 2010 reply from Kate Mooney
[kkmooney@STCLOUDSTATE.EDU]
My concern with part-time/online PhD programs is
the lack of academic behavior modeling. Without actually observing academics
at work, how does the prospect figure out what they do? Most universities
don’t really spell out the details of success. Without at least some time
spent in-in residence watching the faculty in action, it is difficult to
imagine ALL the pieces required for tenure.
Kate Mooney, PhD, CPA
Chairperson and Professor, Department of Accounting G. R. Herberger College
of Business 367A St. Cloud State University St. Cloud MN 56301 USA
320.308.4987
kkmooney@stcloudstate.edu
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/kkmooney/
May 3, 2010 reply from Barbara Scofield
[barbarawscofield@GMAIL.COM]
Nova Southeastern has long had a nontraditional PhD
program in business, but it now has a 4-course "specialization" in
accounting in that program. My university has had several applicants with
doctoral degrees "in accounting" from Nova Southeastern. What is the general
evaluation of these degrees? Students also seem to complete these degrees
very rapidly.
Barbara W. Scofield, PhD, CPA
Chair of Graduate Business Studies Professor of Accounting
The University of Texas of the Permian Basin 4901 E. University Dr. Odessa,
TX 79762
432-552-2183 (Office) 817-988-5998 (Cell)
BarbaraWScofield@gmail.com
May 3, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen
HI Barbara,
Reputable doctoral programs are all money losers, which it is
what makes it almost impossible, in my judgment, to attain highly
respectable doctoral program in for-profit universities. Are there any
respected accountancy doctoral programs in North America that do not rely
upon undergraduate and masters program cash cows? To attain respect, a
doctoral program has to provide access to a really costly library, expensive
electronic databases, research support, and the highest paid faculty in the
discipline who refuse to supervise more than a small handful of doctoral
students. There’s no “volume” efficiency in a quality-program PhD CPV model.
Why would for-profit universities try to build new and reputable
doctoral programs that probably will always be cash flow disasters? The
answer is that they probably won’t become reputable among the competing
doctoral programs in the academy. Rather they are more apt to develop
cheap-shot doctoral programs with lower admission standards, inadequate
assistantships and fellowships, poor libraries and electronic databases, no
really challenging comprehensive examinations that students sweat blood over
trying to pass, and hire unknown research faculty in the program. There is a
need for distance education doctoral programs, but these should be developed
by highly reputable universities that have the cash cows to develop
creative, albeit cash losing, programs.
What’s the incentive for Capella University to lose an enormous
amount of cash on a quality accounting doctoral program that knocks the
socks off those of us in the accounting academy? There would be an incentive
if governments or customers would pick up the tab. For example, a startup
masters CASB program for chartered accountants developed a high quality
distance education model in Western Canada, but chartered accountancy firms
themselves picked up much of the tab either directly or indirectly. If CASB
also started up a doctoral program, who would pick up the tab?
In my original message about Capella I mentioned that the
Education Doctoral Program at Capella might be an exception. One reason is
that education doctoral programs in even our top universities do not have
the same respect as other doctoral programs to a point that the Carnegie
Foundation is heavily funding studies and experiments to change both the PhD
and EED programs in colleges of education:
All is Not Well in Programs for Doctoral
Students in Departments/Colleges of Education
The education doctorate, attempting to
serve dual purposes—to prepare researchers and to prepare practitioners—is
not serving either purpose well. To address what they have termed this
"crippling" problem, Carnegie and the Council of Academic Deans in Research
Education Institutions (CADREI) have launched the Carnegie Project on the
Education Doctorate (CPED), a three-year effort to reclaim the education
doctorate and to transform it into the degree of choice for the next
generation of school and college leaders. The project is coordinated by
David Imig, professor of practice at the University of Maryland. "Today, the
Ed.D. is perceived as 'Ph.D.-lite,'" said Carnegie President Lee S. Shulman.
"More important than the public relations problem, however, is the real risk
that schools of education are becoming impotent in carrying out their
primary missions to prepare leading practitioners as well as leading
scholars."
"Institutions Enlisted to Reclaim Education Doctorate," The Carnegie
Foundation for Advancement in Teaching ---
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/news/sub.asp?key=51&subkey=2266
Capella might do better focusing on doctoral programs for
graduates headed into practice instead of the academy. I think this is why
Capella’s doctoral program in education has a much better chance of success
than in something like accounting or business in general where there is
little incentive to get a doctorate outside of wanting a ticket to pass
through the gates of our snooty academy. The Capella Accounting PhD Program
just is not going to cut it any better than Nova’s PhD program fails to
provide keys to the kingdom.
I haven’t followed Nova recently Barbara, but Trinity University
had a staff (not faculty) applicant who earned a Nova doctorate. This
applicant was actually quite capable, but he was looked down upon by faculty
and staff for putting a Nova PhD degree on his resume. That particular
degree seems to have a negative stigma. The humor going around afterwards
was that he might’ve been hired if he’d kept his PhD a secret. I think Nova
makes a serious effort to have respected faculty teach classes and supervise
dissertations. But it’s not really the same to rely on moonlighting faculty
as opposed to resident faculty.
And there are so many factors going into educating a doctoral
student and so many important learning interactions with other doctoral
students and multiple faculty, such as those involved in creating and
grading comprehensive examinations, that I really think that the
researcher/teacher doctoral degree is a special kind of degree that benefits
more from serendipity in residence than other types of degrees. Kate Mooney
hinted at this in her reply. But I think it goes much further than that.
Zane is correct about the importance of assisting other researchers
face-to-face on campus. These researchers become mentors and role models ---
usually positive but negative role models also serve a purpose.
How many of you benefitted from lifelong relationships and
learning with your classmates onsite in a doctoral program? I would think
virtually all of you had face-to-face experiences over several years of
residency that are very hard to duplicate in distance education in spite of
the intense communications that are now possible online. For example, one of
the benefits of residency is to encounter bad role models whether or not you
actually took classes from a bad teacher.
Another important factor in non-traditional programs is the
quality of the applicants that are turned away. Perceptions of doctoral
programs are often judged in the same manner as perceptions of research
journals.
Capella would much more respected accounting doctoral program if
it announced that applicants with less than 700 GMAT scores need not apply.
But it must also be willing to lose a lot of money on the few that are
admitted. Instead, Capella developed a cheap shot curriculum where
applicants with no transfer credits can get a PhD in accounting in 2.5 years
--- absurd by present standards of the accounting academy.
The worst thing that could happen for the accounting academy and
Capella graduates would be for Capella to start cranking out more accounting
graduates each year than any other accounting doctoral program in the
Hasselback Directory ---
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoctInfo.html
This would give a black eye to virtually all of the other degree
programs in Capella University. Capella will then look more like a sausage
factory than a university.
To earn greater respect, non-traditional doctoral program should
have really tough admission standards, a really tough curriculum, and take
as long or longer to meet all academic standards for completing a degree.
Most importantly the program should employ faculty known by their track
records for tough standards. Better yet the doctoral faculty should be so
widely respected that the faculty themselves attract high-quality
applicants. The academy is a snobby place, and starting out with a new
program it’s important to recognize this from the start.
Snobby faculty set the faculty hiring standards as well as the
graduation standards. This is not as bad as it seems in this era of
disgraceful grade inflation.
The most sought after accounting PhD graduates will graduate from
doctoral programs losing the most money per graduate.
Bob Jensen
May 4, 2010 reply from J. S. Gangolly
[gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]
Bob,
Back around 1978 when I was
starting my accounting career at Kansas, there was this myth that doctoral
programs, as they then existed, are a resource drain. I was on the doctoral
committee, and the chair of the committee (a well-known Management Science
faculty member) asked me, as a freshly minted accounting PhD, to get an
accounting of the net costs of the doctoral program. After impting the
costs, we were shocked to learn that the program was actually subsidising
the rest of the school. The army of doctoral students manned most first
courses under the very able mentorship of very outstanding senior faculty,
and the marginal costs of PhD courses was non-existent since most courses
were shared with MS students.
Even considering the
assistantships that paid the students barely subsistence wages, with even
more meagre faculty salaries those days (assistant professors started at
$19,500 those days), the subsidy was not trivial.
Imagine what the situation
today would be, with the astronomical faculty salaries in accounting. And
these astronomical salaries are not of AAU's making. They are our equivalent
of "Mark to Market".
It is true that as an AAU
school, KU had to support a large library, a large computing center, and so
on, but those costs were a given, unless KU wanted to drop out of AAU. I am
sure the administrators would have rather dropped dead than dropped out of
AAU.
I think teaching by the
doctoral students, especially under faculty tutelage, is a valuable
apprenticeship experience that perhaps many schools with accountics lack.
The way most accounting
courses are taught, as I have seen at many schools, I am not sure if it
matters that the PhDs are from within or without accounticitis
indoctrination. I would rather have a CPA with sound business knowledge
teach my kids than a PhD in numerical regression who has never seen the real
world books of accounts. It is time we stopped pretending that accounting is
rocket science. That the academic accounting emperors wear no clothes is
perhaps a surprise to only a very few who wear the crowns.
Jagdish S. Gangolly,
Associate Professor (j.gangolly@albany.edu)
Director, PhD Program in Information Science,
Department of Informatics,
College of Computing & Information 7A Harriman Campus Road, Suite 220
State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12206.
Phone: (518) 956-8251, Fax: (518) 956-8247
URL:
http://www.albany.edu/acc/gangolly
May 4, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen
Amen to that Jagdish, especially the part about
rather having experienced specialists teach courses than people who bought a
fast-track, cheap-shot sausage link.
The really sad part about Capella’s Accounting PhD
Program is that Capella just went a bridge too far when it created an
accounting doctoral program that can be completed part-time in 2.5 years
without much in the way of accounting courses and research skills courses. I
also cannot respect a doctoral program that has no serious comprehensive
examination hurdles even if the oral examination is waived.
By going this "bridge
too far," Capella defeats the fine reputation that it established to date in
most of its other online degree programs. Before it went a bridge too far,
Capella was really one of my bright stars in the distance education galaxy
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
In 2008 the largest accountancy doctoral program in
North America was the University of Texas at Austin. UT pours millions of
dollars of resources into a doctoral program that raised its output of
accounting graduates to seven in 2008 according to
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf
University of Texas
PhD Graduates in Accounting
2003 = 1
2004 = 4
2005 = 3
2006 = 2
2007 = 3
2008 = 7
Another large accounting
doctoral program at the University of Washington graduated seven in 2007, but
before and since it only graduated one or two year. Penn State similarly had an
exceptional year in 2006 by graduating six, but the numbers are much smaller in
other recent years. A historically large accounting doctoral program at Illinois
is down to graduating one or two a year.
If Capella should try to make a profit on its new
accounting doctoral program by cranking out more than one or two a year, it
really will begin to look like a sausage factory.
The most an accounting PhD graduate will have
invested in tuition at Capella over 120 required quarter credits is $44,850
= ($4,485)(10 part-time quarters). Without more data for a CPV analysis I
can only guess that (even without an investment in an expensive research
library, without investing in expensive electronic research databases, and
without paying enormous fees to noted academic researchers in the accounting
academy) Capella cannot possibly break even by graduating only one or two
accounting doctoral students per year. The numbers of graduates will have to
reach some sausage-cranking level of perhaps 20 or more a year.
Welcome to North America’s largest accounting
doctoral program!
In my judgment the curriculum of this program is not
at all comparable to any other accounting doctoral program in North America.
It’s somewhat comparable to a few two-year, full-time MBA programs. And by
going full time (16 credits per quarter) a student having only a bachelor’s
degree can get an accounting PhD from Capella in less than two years.
Bummer!
Is this the best way to solve our accounting PhD
shortage problem in North America?
I'm with you Jagdish. I would rather have CPAs and other technical
specialists teaching our courses than cheap-shot, fast-track sausage links.
Bob Jensen
"Methodology Change for Ph.D. Rankings," by Scott
Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, May 10, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/10/nrc
The National Research
Council -- responding to criticism it received in the internal peer review
of its
forthcoming doctoral program rankings -- is
changing the methodology in a few key places for the
long-awaited project.
The changes -- which are
not yet final -- are likely to divide the main ranking of each program into
two separate rankings -- one based on explicit faculty determinations of
which criteria matter in given disciplines, and one based on implicit
criteria. Further, the council is likely to release ranges of ratings for a
90 percent "confidence level," not the confidence level target of 50 percent
that was in the methodology released last year.
The use of confidence
levels means that instead of saying that a given program is the second or
eighth or 20th best, the council will instead say that a given program is in
a certain range. By raising the confidence level to 90 percent, instead of
saying that there is a 50 percent chance that a program is between 20th and
26th, the council will say (to use that hypothetical) that there is a 90
percent chance that a program is between the 15th and 35th best in the
nation -- resulting in much broader ranges for the rankings.
The additional changes in
methodology -- which was
theoretically released in final form in July --
suggest that further delays are likely for the rankings. NRC officials have
for about a year now stopped answering questions about the timing of the
release, although the ratings are still expected in 2010.
Many graduate program
directors and deans are increasingly frustrated by the timing of the
project. Data collection for the project (whatever methodology changes are
used) started in 2006, with
an original schedule for releasing the rankings in 2007.
Many programs note that the departure or arrival of a
few faculty members who are skilled at landing grants means that some
programs may have changed significantly in the years that passed. Further,
with many universities looking at trimming graduate programs, some of those
who run stellar but threatened programs have been hoping that the NRC
rankings would bolster their defenses.
The NRC has not formally
announced that it is changing the methodology. But Jeremiah P. Ostriker,
chair of the committee overseeing the project and a professor of astronomy
at Princeton University, described for Inside Higher Ed the changes
that he said are "likely" but not yet certain.
On the question of the
ranges to be reported, Ostriker said that the committee has long wanted to
avoid the "spurious precision problem" of previous rankings in implying
certainty that a given program is a precise number in relation to all
others. Given the way programs change constantly, imperfections in
information and averages, and a range of other factors, Ostriker said the
rankings will be "more accurate" for being presented as a range, and not as
a single figure. He noted that "commercial" ranking efforts tend to give a
single number, "but that's no excuse for us making the error."
While the idea of giving
ranges was part of the methodology released last year, he said that the peer
review comments for the rankings (and outside comments) have led him and
other committee members to question the idea of giving a range that provides
only a 50 percent confidence level, meaning there is also a 50 percent
chance that the program is somewhere outside of that range. Peer reviewers
found it "confusing" to offer that low a confidence level, so the idea is to
increase it to 90 percent, which will have the effect of expanding the range
of possibilities.
Ostriker acknowledged that
this change will make it more difficult for people to pinpoint exactly where
a program stands. But he said that's because it is impossible to do so in
any accurate way. "We wanted more honesty and more data and we wanted to be
honest about the true uncertainties in rankings," he said. "We hope it
doesn't make people unhappy, but if that does make people unhappy, they will
need to get used to it."
Bob Jensen's threads on ranking controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings
Bob Jensen's threads on vegetable ranking controversies
are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
Department of Education Underlying Intent: Allow
More Transfer Credits from For-Profit Colleges and Universities
"Duncan Orders Study of Restrictive Transfer of Credit Rules," Inside
Higher Ed, May 7, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/07/qt#226860
Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, has
announced that he is ordering a study on "restrictive" policies on the
transfer of academic credit from colleges to one another. In
a letter to the American Council of Trustees and
Alumni, one of the groups that requested such a study, he said that the
analysis should be completed within a year. With more students attending
multiple institutions to earn a bachelor's degree, transfer rules have
become increasingly controversial, with many community colleges charging
that they are needlessly detailed and some
for-profit institutions saying their students are discriminated against.
Jensen Comment
It is increasingly complicated to discriminate against distance education
courses in traditional onsite colleges and universities since most of them no
longer distinguish between whether credits were granted for their onsite or
online courses that are considered by them to be equivalents. However, it is
still rather easy to discriminate against transfer credits from colleges and
universities that only offer courses online and/or transfer credits from
for-profit colleges and universities.
"2009 Securities Litigation Study," by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC),
May 6, 2010 ---
http://snipurl.com/pwc050610
Summary:
The financial crisis continued to dominate the litigation landscape in 2009
- although to a lesser degree than in 2008, according to the annual PwC
Securities Litigation Study. Governments worldwide remained focused on
regulatory overhaul, stimulus plans and investigations into the "who, what,
when, where, why, and how" of alleged wrongdoings related to the crisis.
This is an annual PwC study.
Bob Jensen's threads on securities frauds ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on auditing firm litigation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Reporting on our foul-mouthed political leaders is wearing out my asterisk
key.
"Barney Frank To Hank Paulson 'F**k You! F**K You!'," by Bruce
McCarthy, Huffington Post, May 4, 2010 ---
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/04/jonathan-alters-the-promi_n_563045.html
The leaked portions of Newsweek scribe
Jonathan Alter's
"The Promise," which details President Obama's
first year in office and is due out in May 18, continue to surface. And
Alter's got more profanity-laced details of tense backroom meetings.
At the
Washington Independent Aaron Weiner
highlights another F-bomb festival, this time from a September 2008 meeting
that included House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D - Mass.),
Obama, John McCain, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and President Bush.
Frank was apparently incensed at Paulson's attempt
to stop Democrats from criticizing the huge plan to bailout the financial
sector -- in fact, it was Republicans who balked,
Weiner observes. Here's Frank's blowup at Paulson:
Barney Frank muscled his way past Harry Reid and
started yelling. "F-- you, Hank! F-- you! Blow up this deal? We didn't
blow up this deal! Your guys blew up the deal! You better tell [GOP Rep.
Spencer] Bacchus and the rest of them to get their sh*t together!"
Earlier leaks of the book have included some
embarrassing portrayals of White House adviser Rahm Emanuel.
New York magazine had some choice bits
about Rahm's anger at Bo, the Obama's family dog ("I'm going to kill that
f**king dog," and his yelling to a male staffer: "Take your f**king tampon
out and tell me what you have to say."
Bob Jensen's threads on the Greatest Swindle in the History of the World
are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008bailout.htm
Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and Judge Richard Posner
disagree over prospects of a VAT tax ---
Becker:
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/04/should-the-us-introduce-a-value-added-tax-becker.html
Posner:
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/04/should-the-united-states-institute-a-federal-valueadded-tax-posner.html
Jensen Comment
I'm will Posner on this!
"Senator Questions Another Break for Colleges: Tax-Exempt Bonds," by
Goldie Blumenstyk, The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Senator-Questions-Another/65374/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
A U.S. senator with influence over federal tax
policy may now be setting his sights on a longstanding cornerstone of
colleges' financial practice: paying for new and renovated buildings by
borrowing money with tax-exempt bonds.
The attention comes as a result of a just-released
report from the Congressional Budget Office. The
report, "Tax Arbitrage by Colleges and Universities," questions the merits
of allowing nonprofit institutions to rely on taxpayer-subsidized debt while
they also benefit from investing their assets to earn them more than what
they pay out in interest on the debt.
The report says such a practice allows many
universities to benefit from what it describes as "indirect tax arbitrage"
because "holding those assets while borrowing on a tax-exempt basis is, in
effect, equivalent to using tax-exempt proceeds to invest in those
higher-yielding securities."
College advocates say the broad definition of tax
arbitrage the report uses reflects an economic argument on the merits of
tax-exempt financing but doesn't take into account the social good that
colleges provide or the current financial pressures they face.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, who requested the
budget-office analysis in 2007 as part of a broad look at tax-exempt
organizations, said in a statement on Friday that the report raises
questions "for parents, students, and taxpayers about universities issuing
bonds and going into debt when they have money in the bank."
The study estimates that allowing colleges and
universities to borrow using tax-exempt debt will cost the federal
government about $5.5-billion in forgone revenue in 2010.
In his statement, Senator Grassley, a Republican
from Iowa, highlighted several concerns: "Issuing bonds costs money on
interest and management fees. Does the expense of debt service take money
away from student aid or academic service? Do bond issuances occur even as
universities raise tuition and build investment assets?"
But it is unclear whether the senator, who is the
senior minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, intends to propose
any changes in law in response to the report. In the statement released on
Friday evening, he says, "These are further questions to explore."
Charles A. Samuels, a lawyer for the National
Association of Health and Educational Facilities Finance Authorities, a
group of organizations that help private colleges issue bonds, said current
law already restricts colleges and other organizations from directly
profiting from their tax-exempt bond issues, or tax arbitrage. (To avoid tax
arbitrage, a college that raises money from tax-exempt bonds can reinvest it
only temporarily, and even then only in investments earning about the same
as the cost of the debt.)
"Now would be a very bad time to make it more
difficult for nonprofit organizations in this country to borrow money," Mr.
Samuels said in an interview on Sunday.
He said the Congressional Budget Office report is
"an 'academic' study in the worst sense of the word" and added that he hoped
it would not result in some new limits on tax-exempt financing.
"It isn't going to really help the cost of higher
education to restrict financing" that saves colleges money, he said.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://chronicle.com/article/Senator-Questions-Another/65374/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Us Fearsome Old Male Professors (personally I suspect that we're less
fearsome than a lot of older women professors)
"There has actually been a decrease in uncivil
behavior in that I grow older and more frightening."
"Chief Targets of Student Incivility Are Female and Young Professors," by
Peter Schmidt, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 4, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Chief-Targets-of-Student/65396/
When it comes to being rude, disrespectful, or
abusive to their professors, students appear most likely to take aim at
women, the young, and the inexperienced, a new study has found.
The study, presented here on Sunday at the annual
conference of the American Educational Research Association, involved an
online survey of 339 faculty members, roughly evenly split by gender, at
nine geographically dispersed colleges and universities of various
institutional types. It was conducted by three researchers at the University
of Redlands: Rodney K. Goodyear, a professor of education, and Pauline
Reynolds and Janee Both Gragg, both assistant professors of education.
Most previous research on college professors'
experiences with incivility has focused on their mistreatment at the hands
of other members of the faculty. The Redlands researchers' study focused
solely on faculty members' experiences with incivility at the hands of
students, surveying college faculty members of various ranks, from part-time
instructors on up.
The study looked beyond the classroom, asking
faculty members about their experiences with student incivility in the
course of any class-related activities. The types of student incivility it
covered included passive behavior, such as sleeping or texting in class;
more actively disruptive behavior, such as coming to class late or talking
on cellphones in the classroom; and behaviors that appeared directed at the
instructor, such as open expressions of anger, impatience, or derision.
Only about 16 percent of the faculty members
surveyed reported not having experienced student incivility at all, but that
aggregate figure masked a wide gulf between men and women in terms of the
likelihood of their recalling such incidents. When the researchers broke
their data down by gender, they found that 24 percent of men, and just 9
percent of women, could not recall incidents of uncivil student behavior,
Women were also much more likely to report that the uncivil behavior they
experienced was severe, or to say that they had been upset by it.
When the researchers broke down their data in other
ways, they found that the oldest and the most experienced faculty members
they surveyed were the least likely to report encounters with student
incivility.
Given the universal nature of some of the student
behaviors examined, such as dozing off in class, it may be fair to ask
whether some faculty members were just more inclined than others to have let
student incivility roll off of them and not recall it or see it as worth
reporting.
Other possible explanations were offered by one
survey subject who said students "seemed to smell the vulnerability of the
professor seeking tenure," and another who said, "There has actually been a
decrease in uncivil behavior in that I grow older and more frightening."
Jensen Comment
There are various possible biases in this study. If you consider professors
who've been teaching more than 25 years, there are probably more males than
females in most academic disciplines. And there's a bit of Darwinism here in
that perhaps the most fit among those males have survived in the classroom for
so many years. These veterans probably developed more effective ways of
preventing student incivility. Having both seniority and tenure, many of them
may be more willing to take hits on teaching evaluations from students who've
been dressed down in or out of class. Perhaps they've just learned how to slip
in the answer to a future quiz question when noticing a student doze off. More
troublesome than sleeping students are probably the students who disrupt a class
in progress by arriving late. The old guys might solve this problem by having
short quizzes at the very start of class and/or by not allowing late arrivals
into the classroom no matter what excuse a student might have for being late.
Then there's always the old trick of picking on uncivil students in some way
such as by calling on them more for answers in class or by requiring them to sit
in the front row.
Our Broken Corporate Governance Model
"Why Executive Pay is So High," by Neil Weinberg, Forbes, April
22, 2010 ---
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0510/outfront-pay-bosses-ceo-chairman-why-executives-pay-is-high.html?boxes=Homepagetoprated
How can investors reel in pay and get more out of
corporate bosses? Here's one view: Kick the chief executive out of the
boardroom.
When it comes to the way corporate boards oversee
chief executives--or, all too often, fail to--few people have as many war
stories to tell from as many vantage points as Gary Wilson. He was Walt
Disney Co. ( DIS - news - people )'s chief financial officer and, as a
director, the subject of scorn when its board was twice ranked the worst in
the country. As a Yahoo ( YHOO - news - people ) director Wilson was
targeted by investor Carl Icahn, who sought to oust the board during a 2008
failed shotgun marriage with Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ). As a
private equity guy he led the 1989 Northwest Airlines ( NWA - news - people
) buyout along with Alfred Checchi.
So Wilson can say, with more than a little
credibility, that the boards supposedly overseeing management are instead
packed with lackeys with appalling frequency. It's a familiar complaint but
one that he believes is responsible for out-of-control pay, the short-term
greed that helped spawn the recent financial meltdown and a staggering waste
of resources. Wilson's solution: Abolish the joint role of chief executive
and chairman and install independent bosses to oversee boards.
"From what I've seen, managers are interested in
what goes into their pockets and willing to use lots of leverage to add
short-term profits, boost the stock price and sell their options," says
Wilson, 70. "Long-term shareholders risk getting screwed."
The Alliance, Ohio native has joined up with Ira
Millstein, a Wall Street attorney, and Harry Pearse, former General Motors
general counsel and Marriott Corp. director, to push for independent
chairmen. Their platform is the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance at
Yale.
Does splitting the title benefit shareholders?
Evidence is inconclusive, but here's an indicator suggesting they're on to
something: 76% of the 25 bosses who rank lowest on our annual survey
comparing compensation to shareholder return hold dual titles. Only 44% of
the best 25 hold both titles. The dual players include Richard D. Fairbank
of Capital One, Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum ( OXY - news - people ),
David C. Novak of Yum Brands and Howard Solomon of Forest Labs. ( FRX - news
- people ) Wilson and Pearse insist that they saw boards transformed
overnight from supplicants to independents when the roles were separated at
companies where they were directors.
Boards occasionally go through spasms of
feistiness. In 1992 General Motors' board ousted Robert Stemple as chairman,
which led to similar moves at American Express ( AXP - news - people ),
Westinghouse and other companies. But today only 21% of boards are chaired
by bona fide independents, says RiskMetrics Group, a New York financial
advisory firm that owns ISS Proxy Advisory Services. In 43% of big companies
the roles are ostensibly split, but the chairman, says RiskMetrics, is an
ex-chief executive or otherwise defined as a company "insider."
In some cases nothing less than corporate survival
is at stake, Wilson argues. He points to Lehman Brothers ( LEHMQ - news -
people ), where Richard Fuld was chief executive and chairman for 15 years
and where management took the sorts of big risks that ultimately sank the
firm.
Wilson isn't against stock options but believes in
tying them to long-term returns with strike prices that rise at the rate of
inflation plus some risk premium, as he has done at some companies he has
invested in. That way management isn't rewarded just for showing up.
Independent boards might also rein in pay. In
Europe Wilson sat on KLM's advisory board and says it's no coincidence that
(a) chief executives typically run a management board, which reports up to
the separate advisory board, and (b) pay is well below U.S. levels. At many
U.S. companies, he says, the combined boss often recruits board members and
then "directors feel obligated to the CEO/chairman, make the friendliest
member chairman of the compensation committee and then hire a friendly
consultant to do an analysis that favors high management pay."
Continued in Article
Comment Letter from 80 Business and Law
Professors Regarding Corporate Governance
I submitted to the SEC yesterday a comment letter on
behalf of a bi-partisan group of eighty professors of law, business, economics,
or finance in favor of facilitating shareholder director nominations. The
submitting professors are affiliated with forty-seven universities around the
United States, and they differ in their view on many corporate governance
matters. However, they all support the SEC’s “proxy access” proposals to remove
impediments to shareholders’ ability to nominate directors and to place
proposals regarding nomination and election procedures on the corporate ballot.
The submitting professors urge the SEC to adopt a final rule based on the SEC’s
current proposals, and to do so without adopting modifications that could dilute
the value of the rule to public investors.
Lucian Bebchuk, Harvard Law School, on Tuesday August 18, 2009 ---
Click Here
Bob Jensen's threads on outrageous executive compensation (that even
rewards executives for failure) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#OutrageousCompensation
Bob Jensen's threads on corporate governance ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance
Complicated Derivatives Used in Tax Fraud: This Case is Dragging on for
Years
"Galleon Rajaratnam Sued KPMG In 2005, But Did KPMG Pay?" Big Four
Blog, April 30, 2010 ---
http://www.bigfouralumni.blogspot.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on the saga that led to KPMG paying a $456 million fine
are reported at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#KPMG
Great Nova Video: Can a market of irrational people be a "rational
market?"
PBS Nova Videp: "Mind Over Money,"
http://video.pbs.org/video/1479100777
Jensen Question
This seems to beg the question of how accountants can contribute information to
irrational people with an underlying goal of helping their markets themselves be
more rational.
Of course many scholars argue that markets themselves are not " rational" ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fox
Behavioral Economics ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics
Bounded Rationality ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality
Bob Jensen's threads on the efficient market hypothesis ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#EMH
Question
Can any of you identify the mystery "Fraud Girl" who will be writing a weekly
(Sunday) column for Simoleon Sense?
Hint
She seems to have a Chicago connection and seems very well informed about the
blog posts of Francine McKenna.
http://retheauditors.com/
But I really do know know who is the mystery "Fraud Girl."
"Guest Post: Fraud Girl Says, “Regulators, Ignore the Masses — It’s Your
Responsibility!!”
(A New SimoleonSense Series on Fraud, Forensic Accounting, and Ethics)
Simoleon Sense, April 25, 2010 ---
Click Here
http://www.simoleonsense.com/guest-post-fraud-girl-says-regulators-ignore-the-masses-it%e2%80%99s-your-responsibility-must-follow-series-on-fraud-forensic-accounting-and-ethics/
I’m exceptionally proud to introduce you to Fraud
Girl, our new Sunday columnist. She will write about all things corp
governance, fraud, accounting, and business ethics. To give you some
background (and although I can not reveal her identity). Fraud girl recently
visited me in Chicago for the Harry Markopolos presentation to the local
CFA. We were incredibly lucky to meet with Mr. Markopolos and enjoyed 3
hours of drinks and accounting talk. Needless to say Fraud Girl was leading
the conversation and I was trying to keep up. After a brainstorm session I
persuaded her to write for us and teach us about wall street screw-ups.
So watch out, shes smart, witty, and passionate
about making the world a better place. I think Sundays just got a lot
better…
Miguel Barbosa
Founder of SimoleonSense
P.S. For Questions or Comments: Reach fraud girl at:
FraudGirl@simoleonsense.com
Regulators, Ignore the Masses — It’s Your Responsibility
Men in general judge more by the sense of
sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but only
a few can test feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know
what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against
the general opinion, supported by the majesty of the government. In
the actions of all men, and especially of princes who are not
subject to a court of appeal, we must always look to the end. Let a
prince, therefore, win victories and uphold his state; his methods
will always be considered worthy, and everyone will praise them,
because the masses are always impressed by the superficial
appearance of things, and by the outcome of an enterprise. And the
world consists of nothing but the masses; the few have no influence
when the many feel secure.
-Niccolo Machiavelli,
The Prince
Why are Machiavelli’s words so astonishingly
prophetic? How does a 500 year old quote explain contagion, bubbles, and
Ponzi schemes? Do financial decision makers consciously overlook reality or
do they merely postpone due diligence? That is the purpose of this series —
to analyze financial fraud(s) and question business ethics.
Recent accounting scandals i.e. Worldcom, Enron,
Madoff, reveal a variety of methods for boosting short term performance at
the expense of long run shareholder value. WorldCom recorded bogus revenue,
Enron boosted their operating income through improper classifications, and
Madoff ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Sure these scandals were
unethical, deceived the public, and made a ton of money. But what is the
most striking similarity? Each of these companies was seen as the golden
goose egg; an indestructible force that could never fail. Of course, the key
word is “seen”, regulators, attorneys, financial analysts, and auditors
failed to see reality. But why?
Fiduciaries are entrusted with protecting the
public and shareholders from crooks like Skilling, Pavlo, and Schrushy. An
average shareholder lacks the knowledge and expertise of a prominent
regulator, right? Shareholders don’t perform the company’s annual audit,
review all legal documentation, or communicate with top executives. No,
shareholders base their decisions off information that is “accurate” and
“meticulously examined”.
Unfortunately in each of these instances regulators
failed to take a stand against consensus and became another ignorant face in
the crowd. “Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are;
and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion”. Who are
the few that really know who these companies are? The answer should be
evident. What isn’t clear is why these cowardly few are in charge of
overseeing our financial markets.
When Auditors Look The Other Way
A week ago, I came across this article:
Ernst & Young defends its Lehman work in letter to clients.
I chuckled as I was reading it, remembering Roxie Hart
from the play Chicago shouting the words “Not Guilty” to anyone who would
listen. Like Roxie, the audit team pleaded that the media was inaccurate. In
recording Lehman’s Repo 105 transactions, they claimed compliance with GAAP
and believed the financial statements were ‘fairly represented’. But, fair
reporting is more than complying with GAAP. Often auditors are “compliant”
while cooking the books (a mystery that still eludes me). In this case, the
auditors blatantly covered their eyes and closed their ears to what they
must have known was deliberate misrepresentation of Lehman Brother’s
financial statements.
We will explore the Lehman Brothers fiasco in next
week’s post…but here’s the condensed version. Days prior to quarter end,
Lehman Brothers used “Repo 105” transactions, which allowed them to lend
assets to others in exchange for short-term cash. They borrowed around $50
Billion; none of which appeared on their balance sheet. Lehman instead
reported the debt as sales. They used the borrowed cash to pay down other
debt. This reduced both their total liabilities and total assets, thereby
lowering their leverage ratio.
This was allegedly in compliance with SFAS 140,
Accounting for Transfers and Servicing of Financial Assets and
Extinguishments of Liabilities that allowed Lehman to move the $50 Billion
of assets from its balance sheet. As long as they followed the rules,
auditors could stamp [the] financial statements with a “Fairly Represented”
approval and issue an unqualified opinion.
Clearly in this case complying was unethical and
probably illegal.
Howard Schilit, the author of Financial Shenanigans:
How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports,
once said, “You [the auditor] work for the investor, even though you are
paid by someone else”. He insists that auditors should look beyond the
checklists and guidelines and should instead question everything. Auditors
are the first line of defense against fraud and the shareholders are
dependent upon the quality of their services. So I ask again, with respect
to Lehman Brothers, were the auditors working for the investors or where
they in the pockets of senior management?
What can we do?
An admired value investor believes in a similar
tactic for confirming the honesty of companies. It’s known as “killing the
company”, where in his words, “we think of all the ways the company can die,
whether it’s stupid management or overleveraged balance sheets. If we can’t
figure out a way to kill the company, then you have the beginning of a good
investment”. Auditors must think like this, they must kill the company, and
question everything. If you can’t kill a company, then (and only then) are
the financial statements truly a fair representation of the firms
operations.
There was no “killing” going on when the lead
auditing partner said that his team did not approve Lehman’s Accounting
Policy regarding Repo 105s but was in some way comfortable enough with them
to audit their financial statements. This engagement team failed in looking
beyond SFAS 140 and should have realized what every law firm (aside from one
firm in London) was stating; that the accounting methods Lehman Brothers
used to record Repo 105s were a deliberate attempt to defraud the public.
So I repeat: Ignoring reality is not an option.
Ignoring the crowd, however, is an obligation.
See you next week….
-Fraud Girl
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud are linked at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting news are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
From the Scout Report on April 30, 2010
CCleaner 2.31.1153 ---
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
If you are looking to clear away your web-browsing tracks, the CCleaner
application is a good place to start. With its simple interface, the
application works with a number of browsers (including Chrome and Opera) to
remove traces of online activities, and it also contains a fully featured
registry cleaner. This version is compatible with computers running Windows
98 and newer.
Opera 10.52 ---
http://www.opera.com/
Many people may know about the merits of the Opera
browser, but this new release may offer long-time users and neophytes
additional cause for pause. Beyond the usual features people have come to
expect (i.e. tabbed browsing, mouse-over previews), Opera offers a new range
of desktop widgets, file sharing utilities, and full-text searching from the
address field. This version is compatible with computers running Mac OS X
10.3 and newer, Windows 2000 or newer, and Linux.
Ethical questions abound as scientists and others consider the effects of
geoengineering projects Mother Earth has a fever
http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-climate-report/archive/2010/04/mother-earth-has-a-fever/39320/
Building a better volcano
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-22-building-a-better-volcano
Engineering the Climate
http://www.pri.org/science/environment/engineering-the-climate1954.html
A Novel Geoengineering Idea: Increase the Ocean's Quotient of Whale Poop
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/04/23/a-novel-geoengineering-idea-increase-the-oceans-quotient-of-whale-poop/
Top 5 Geoengineering Schemes
http://news.discovery.com/tech/geoengineering-schemes-top-5.html
Pat Mooney on the Dangers of Geoengineering and Manipulating the Planet
to Combat Climate Change
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/20/four
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
NOVA: scienceNOW [Flash Player]
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/
Science Videos ---
http://www.scivee.tv/
Accounting and Other Books for Sight Impaired "Readers"
"Archive Makes Over a Million Digital Books Available for Those Who Can't
Use Print," by Mary Helen Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 7, 2010
---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Archive-Makes-Over-a-Million/23816/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
With a service it started Thursday, the Internet
Archive has more than doubled the number of books available to blind people
and others who cannot read print books. The nonprofit organization, based in
San Francisco, has made more than a million digital books available free in
a format that can be downloaded to a device that reads them aloud.
The Internet Archive has been scanning books and
making them available free online since 2005, and the books in the new
format are part of the organization's collection of more than two million
texts. To make a book accessible for those unable to read print volumes, the
Internet Archive uses an automatic process to digitize it into a special
format, Daisy.
The process does not work well for textbooks or
other kinds of texts with complex formatting, said Brewster Kahle, the
archive's founder and digital librarian. Other organizations, like Bookshare,
make textbooks available for people who can't use print books, Mr. Kahle
said.
He added that the Internet Archive's collection is
useful for research. "You could find books that are now out of print that
you wouldn't find in your library," he said.
Arielle Silverman, the president of the national
association of blind students, said college students are often required to
read popular books, which they might be able to get sooner through the new
service.
"The situation right now is that for the majority
of books, if we want to obtain them, we have to negotiate with the
disabled-students office," said Ms. Silverman, who is a doctoral student at
the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Ms. Silverman said that students sometimes have to
wait months for the books they request to be provided in a digital format.
Now many more books will be available instantly, she said. Ms. Silverman
also said that the Daisy format is preferable to the traditional audio book
because it lets the user skip around easily.
The Internet Archive will make all new additions to
its library available in Daisy if the text's format allows. It is seeking
book donations, and it has promised to pay for digitization of the first
10,000 volumes it receives.
Internet Archive ---
http://www.archive.org/
"Textbooks for the Disabled," by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed,
August 28, 2009 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/28/access
The Association of American Publishers and the
University of Georgia this week unveiled an electronic database aimed at
making it easier for blind, dyslexic and otherwise impaired college students
to get specialized textbooks in time for classes.
The database, called
AccessText,,
is designed to centralize the process by which
electronic versions of textbooks are requested by colleges and supplied by
publishers. Experts say it will allow disabled students to get their
textbooks more efficiently, help colleges save money and avoid lawsuits, and
protect publishers’ copyrights.
For students whose disabilities prevent them from
using traditional texts, the normally straightforward task of acquiring
books for their courses can be tedious and frustrating. Federal law requires
that colleges and universities provide disabled students equal access to
educational materials, but this is often easier said than done. College
officials have to track down and contact the publisher of every textbook
that each of its disabled students buys and request an electronic copy. If
such a copy exists -- the likelihood shrinks the older the book and the
smaller the publisher -- college officials still have to convert the file to
a format that can be read by whatever reading aid the student uses. If not,
the college has to wait, sometimes weeks, to obtain permission to scan the
book and create its own electronic version.
Once a college has an electronic copy, converting
to a readable format can be another complex process, says Sean Keegan,
associate director of assistive technology at Stanford University. Math and
science texts often arrive as scanned pages, and cannot always be easily
read by the character-recognition software the university uses to turn them
into standard electronic files, Keegan says. “That can take a longer amount
of time to process that material internally and turn it around and give that
to the student efficiently,” he says.
Meanwhile, delays in the process can make it
impossible for disabled students to prepare for and participate in classes.
“Students need to have a book in time so they can do the assigned reading
and study for tests and papers,” says Gaeir Dietrich, interim director of
high-tech training for the California Community Colleges system. “So if the
book doesn’t come until the term has been in session for three or four
weeks, that puts that student very far behind.” Some students have sued
colleges over such delays, she says.
AccessText aims to mitigate these woes by
streamlining the request and delivery process, says Ed McCoyd, executive
director for accessibility affairs at AAP.
“There’s a lot of transactional friction taking
place currently,” says McCoyd. “What AccessText is trying to do is take some
of that out of the transaction by having parties agree to streamlined rules
up front.”
Having colleges submit requests using the
AccessText portal should eliminate the need for the publishers to require
endless paperwork with each request to protect its copyrights, McCoyd says.
Under the system, the copyright protection agreements can be handled once,
during registration, and the requester’s bona fides can be verified by a
log-in.
Currently, colleges that get tired of waiting for
publishers to process the paperwork and procure an electronic copy of a text
sometimes just scan a text themselves to try to satisfy the needs of
disabled students in a timely fashion, says Dietrich.
AccessText is also set up to eliminate the need for
different colleges to convert the same text to a readable format once it is
acquired. Currently “numerous schools could be doing the exact same thing,
converting the same text,” says Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for
higher education at the publishers' association. Under the new system, “if
one school has already spent the time and the money to convert a file to a
format, they could advise the AccessText network, which could then make the
info available that it was still available in that format, and that school
could share it with another school” -- thereby sparing those colleges the
time and resources it would have used to convert the file themselves, he
says.
Eight major publishing houses paid a total of just
under $1 million to develop the AccessText network and maintain it through
its beta phase, which will end next July. From then on, it will sustain
itself by billing member colleges between $375 and $500 annually, depending
on size.
Dietrich notes that community colleges might not
benefit from the AccessText network as much as other institutions, since “we
have a lot more vocational classes and basic-skills classes, and a lot of
those books don’t come through those big publishers, they come through
specialized publishers,” she says. “It doesn’t solve that part of the
problem for us.”
The network includes 92 percent of all college
textbook publishers and is recruiting even more, according to AAP officials.
Bob Jensen's threads on aids to handicapped learners ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Video: Oil Absorbing Polymer ---
Click Here
Thank you Richard Newmark for the heads up.
Beyond Stone & Bone ---
http://archaeology.org/blog/
Bob Jensen's threads on free online science,
engineering, and medicine tutorials are at ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science
Social Science and Economics Tutorials
Preventing Genocide [Flash Player]
http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/
Impacts of Resource Development on Native American Lands ---
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/nativelands/
International Indian Treaty Council ---
http://www.treatycouncil.org/
University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research ---
http://www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu/
EU Civilian Crisis Management: The Record So Far ---
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG945.pdf
Miami Metropolitan Archive ---
http://miami.fiu.edu/index.htm
Free Literature About Islam ---
http://islam.about.com/od/basicbeliefs/a/freelit.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and
Philosophy tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social
Law and Legal Studies
Impacts of Resource Development on Native American Lands ---
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/nativelands/
International Indian Treaty Council ---
http://www.treatycouncil.org/
Preventing Genocide [Flash Player]
http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/
Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals: United Nations War Crimes
Commission ---
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/law-reports-trials-war-criminals.html
Preservation Directory ---
http://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Math Tutorials
Ted Video Humor: Lies, damned lies and statistics (about
TEDTalks), by Sebastian Wernicke. TED, April 2010 ---
http://www.ted.com/talks/lies_damned_lies_and_statistics_about_tedtalks.html
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
History Tutorials
Free Literature About Islam ---
http://islam.about.com/od/basicbeliefs/a/freelit.htm
National American History: Museum Stories of Freedom and Justice [iTunes]
http://americanhistory.si.edu/freedomandjustice/
Sea & Ships: Explore online ---
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/sea-and-ships/
Hampton Roads Naval Museum ---
http://www.hrnm.navy.mil/
- Sources on US Naval History
http://www.history.navy.mil/sources/index.htm
Naval History
http://www.naval-history.net/
Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals: United Nations War Crimes
Commission ---
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/law-reports-trials-war-criminals.html
"The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (over 7,000 photographs) ---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187
Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library ---
http://hidvl.nyu.edu/
From Warrior to Saint: The Journey of David Pendleton Oakerhater (Cheyenne
Warrior, Native American) ---
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Oakerhater/
Tipatshimuna-Innu stories from the land (Canada, video) ---
http://www.tipatshimuna.ca/
National (American) History Education Clearinghouse ---
http://teachinghistory.org/
"Master of Revels Neil Simon’s comic empire," by John Lahr, The New Yorker,
May 3, 2010 ---
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/03/100503crat_atlarge_lahr
Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design ---
http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1384_leonardo/
Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture [Flash Player]
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/leonardo/
Leonardo da Vinci's Geometric Sketches
http://mathdl.maa.org/convergence/1/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1717
Universal Leonardo ---
http://www.universalleonardo.org/
Miami Metropolitan Archive ---
http://miami.fiu.edu/index.htm
The Spanish Antiphoner [Flash Player, Music History] ---
http://digitalprojects.libraries.uc.edu/spanishantiphoner/
Eve Drewelowe Digital Collection (Iowa) ---
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/drewelowe/
Edward J. McCauley Photographs (North Carolina) ---
http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/mccauley/
North Carolina Museum of Art: Far From Home ---
http://ncartmuseum.org/exhibitions/farfromhome/main.shtml
Preservation Directory ---
http://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx
Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Language Tutorials
Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages
Music Tutorials
The Spanish Antiphoner [Flash Player, Music History] ---
http://digitalprojects.libraries.uc.edu/spanishantiphoner/
Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library ---
http://hidvl.nyu.edu/
Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music
Writing Tutorials
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
May 1, 2010
May 3, 2010
May 4, 2010
May 5, 2010
May 6, 2010
May 7, 2010
May 8, 2010
May 9, 2010
Forwarded by Paula
Proofreading is a Dying Art
Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
Now that's taking things a bit far!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
What a guy!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Miners Refuse to Work after Death
No-good-for-nothing' lazy so-and-so's!
------------------------------------------------------
Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
See if that works any better than a fair trial!
----------------------------------------------------------
War Dims Hope for Peace
I can see where it might have that effect!
----------------------------------------------------------------
If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile
Ya think?!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
Who would have thought!
----------------------------------------------------------------
Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect
Homicide
They may be on to something!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges
You mean there's something stronger than duct tape?
----------------------------------------------------------
Man Struck By Lightning: Faces
Battery Charge
He probably IS the battery charge!
----------------------------------------------
New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test
Group
Weren't they fat enough?!
-----------------------------------------------
Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
That's what he gets for eating those beans!
----------------
---------------------------------
Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Do they taste like chicken?
****************************************
Local High School Dropouts Cut
in Half
Chainsaw Massacre all over again!
***************************************************
Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
Boy, are they tall!
*******************************************
And the winner is...
Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
Did I read that right?
Forwarded by Hossein Nouri.
Somali Pirates Say They Are Subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. Could Make
Prosecution Difficult, Experts Say
Eleven indicted Somali pirates dropped a bombshell in a U.S. court today,
revealing that their entire piracy operation is a subsidiary of banking giant
Goldman Sachs.
There was an audible gasp in the courtroom when the leader of the pirates
announced, “We are doing God’s work. We work for Lloyd Blankfein.” The pirate,
who said he earned a bonus of $48 million in doubloons last year, elaborated on
the nature of the Somali’s work for Goldman, explaining that the pirates
forcibly attacked ships that Goldman had already shorted.
”We were functioning as investment bankers, only every day was casual
Friday,” the pirate said.
The pirate acknowledged that they merged their operations with Goldman in
late 2008 to take advantage of the more relaxed regulations governing bankers as
opposed to pirates, “plus to get our share of the bailout money.”
In the aftermath of the shocking revelations, government prosecutors were
scrambling to see if they still had a case against the Somali pirates, who would
now be treated as bankers in the eyes of the law.
”There are lots of laws that could bring these guys down if they were, in
fact, pirates,” one government source said. “But if they’re bankers, our hands
are tied.”
John Cleese vs. the Volcano: (reminds me of the time I had to take a $200
ride from La Guardia to Yale)
And He Wins ($ort of) ---
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b176917_john_cleese_vs_volcano_wins_ort_of.html
Room With a View
Suspect Found Neck-Deep In Port-A-Potty (with a photo) ---
http://www.komonews.com/news/92553919.html
Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter ---
Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron"
enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and
other universities is at
http://www.searchedu.com/
Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
-
With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review
(TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral
Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH
CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and
Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the
vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/
Interesting Online Clock
and Calendar
---
http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones ---
http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) ---
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
Also see
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
Facts about population growth (video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth ---
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq ---
http://www.costofwar.com/
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons ---
http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.
Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
CPA Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle ---
http://cpareviewforfree.com/
Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at
http://iaed.wordpress.com/
Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social
Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Online Books, Poems, References,
and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials
Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at
http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting
educators.
Any college may post a news item.
Accountancy Discussion ListServs:
For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a
ListServ (usually for free) go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
AECM (Educators)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/
AECM is an email Listserv list which
provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software
which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the
college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and
peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets,
multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base
programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc
Roles of a ListServ ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
|
CPAS-L (Practitioners)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/
CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of
all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an
unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments,
ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed.
Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L
or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for
a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional
accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or
education. Others will be denied access. |
Yahoo
(Practitioners)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA.
This can be anything from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ
initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA. |
AccountantsWorld
http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1
This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as
accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed
assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and
taxation. |
Business Valuation
Group
BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com
This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag
[RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM] |
Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) ---
http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm
Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Some
Accounting History Sites
Bob Jensen's
Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
Accounting
History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) ---
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
The above libraries include international accounting history.
The above libraries include film and video historical collections.
MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting ---
http://maaw.info/
Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/
Sage Accounting History ---
http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269
A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of
thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
"The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional
Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005
---
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 ---
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm
A nice
timeline of accounting history ---
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING
From Texas
A&M University
Accounting History Outline ---
http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html
Bob
Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
History of
Fraud in America ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone: 603-823-8482
Email:
rjensen@trinity.edu