Tidbits on August 21, 2011
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

To cool you off this week I provide some pictures I took from the windy top Cannon Mountain
These photos are included with a collection of my favorite Wild Rose Pictures
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Roses/Wild/Set01/WildRosesSet01.htm  

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

 White Mountain News --- http://www.whitemtnews.com/

Tidbits on August 21, 2011
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/

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

125 Great Science Videos: From Astronomy to Physics & Psychology ---
http://www.openculture.com/science_videos

TED Video Featuring a Brilliant Physicist:  You Will Be Mesmerized
Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations --- Click Here
http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+%28video%29%29

Video:  Richard Dawkins’ Uncut Interviews with Peter Singer & Big Thinkers --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/07/richard_dawkins_uncut_interviews_with_peter_singer_big_thinkers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Society for Neuroscience: Neuroscience Education Resources Virtual Encycloportal [pdf, Flash Player]
http://www.ndgo.net/sfn/nerve/

25Great Culture Links --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/open_culture_beat_no_8_.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Last Journey Of A Genius: Richard Feynman Dreams of Tannu Tuva --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/the_last_journey_of_a_genius.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Related Content:
Richard Feynman’s Physics Lectures Online

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Video
"The Sins of the Renaissance, or The History That Shaped Michele Bachmann’s Worldview --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/the_sins_of_the_renaissance.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Marlon Brando Screen Tests for Rebel Without A Cause (1947) --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/marlon_brando_screen_tests_for_irebel_without_a_causei.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Penguins You've Got to Love --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=SkY03n0_sD8&vq=medium

Baby moose in sprinkler --- http://www.wimp.com/babymoose

Unbelievable biking --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Cj6ho1-G6tw&vq=medium

"Stanford U. Offers Free Online Course in Artificial Intelligence," by Jie Jenny Zou, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/stanford-u-offers-free-online-course-in-artificial-intelligence/32622

From Stanford University:  "Machine Learning, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Introduction to Databases"
Free Online Computer Science Course --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/stanford_computer_science_courses_this_fall.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Bob Jensen's threads on free courses, videos, lectures and course materials from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Pakistan during border disputes with India in 1935
Video: Wings over Waziristan http://airminded.org/2010/04/20/wings-over-waziristan/

Jetman Flight at Grand Canyon West --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgdIE2t8QkM&feature=player_embedded

50 Famous Scientists & Academics Speak About God: Part II --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/50_famous_scientists_academics_speak_about_god_part_ii.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Math Guy Radio Archive
Keith Devlin, a Stanford math professor's 78 Tutorials on NPR --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/the_math_guy_radio_archive.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29 

Video:  VJ Day, Honolulu Hawaii, August 14, 1945 --- http://vimeo.com/5645171

Astonish Me: A Magical Mystery Through Nature’s Hidden Secrets --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/astonish_me_the_mysteries_nature_holds.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Colorado State University: Great Western Sugar Digital Collection (note Film Collection)---
http://lib.colostate.edu/archives/greatwestern/

Why dogs cannot become licensed engineers ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt7rXE9vhNY&sns=fb

TED Video on Game Changers
Ric Elias: 3 things I learned while my plane crashed
A passenger on the Hudson River crash landing ---
http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html
And you might also look at (Randy Pausch) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2008/tidbits080415.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing courses, course materials, and videos ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI 

Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Klaus Nomi: The Brilliant Performance of a Dying Man (opera) --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/klaus_nomi_the_brilliant_performance_of_a_dying_man.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Stile Antico Asks: A Different Kind Of Love? (Classical Concert) --- http://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137800097/stile-antico-asks-a-different-kind-of-love

Beach Boys - Surfin´USA --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqxTUxzOceE&feature=youtube_gdata_plaJ

The Orchestra Of St. Luke's: Home At Last --- http://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/137797043/the-orchestra-of-st-lukes-home-at-last

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

Video
The Moon Up Close in High Definition --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/the_moon_up_close_in_hd.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Touring the Earth from Space (in HD)

The Best of NASA Space Shuttle Videos (1981-2010)

University of Idaho Historical Photograph Collection --- http://contentdm.lib.uidaho.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/spec_uihp

Shelburne Museum (paintings, American History) --- http://shelburnemuseum.org/

Hiroshima After the Atomic Bomb in 360 Degrees --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/hiroshima_after_the_atomic_bomb_in_360.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
 

Name That Painting! --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/07/name_that_painting.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Natural History Museum - Other Invertebrates --- http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/other-invertebrates/index.html

From Auburn University
Eugene B. Sledge Collection (Historical Photographs) --- http://diglib.auburn.edu/collections/ebsledge/

Going Supernova | Amazing Space Photos --- http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/news-spacepictures/39/#

Exploring Life's Origins: A Virtual Exhibition --- http://exploringorigins.org

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

25Great Culture Links --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/open_culture_beat_no_8_.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

50 Famous Scientists & Academics Speak About God: Part II --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/50_famous_scientists_academics_speak_about_god_part_ii.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Vladimir Nabokov & Lionel Trilling on Lolita: Another Great Love Story? --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/vladimir_nabokov_lionel_trilling_on_lolita.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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 August 21, 2011
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2011/TidbitsQuotations082111.htm         

The booked National Debt on August 2, 2011 was slightly over $14 trillion ---
U.S. National Debt Clock --- http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

The January 2010 Booked National Debt Plus Unbooked Entitlements Debt
The GAO estimated $76 trillion Present Value in January 2010  unless something drastic is done.
Click Here |
 http://www.pgpf.org/~/media/PGPF/Media/PDF/2010/03/fiscalsustainabilityGAONationsLongTermFiscalOutlook03032010.ashx?pid={97E10657-8193-4455-871C-4E7A6A9EE084}
 

There are many ways to describe the federal government’s long-term fiscal challenge. One method for capturing the challenge in a single number is to measure the “fiscal gap.” The fiscal gap represents the difference, or gap, between revenue and spending in present value terms over a certain period, such as 75 years, that would need to be closed in order to achieve a specified debt level (e.g., today’s debt to GDP ratio) at the end of the period.2 From the fiscal gap, one can calculate the size of action needed—in terms of tax increases, spending reductions, or, more likely, some combination of the two—to close the gap; that is, for debt as a share of GDP to equal today’s ratio at the end of the period. For example, under our Alternative simulation, the fiscal gap is 9.0 percent of GDP (or a little over $76 trillion in present value dollars) (see table 2). This means that revenue would have to increase by about 50 percent or noninterest spending would have to be reduced by 34 percent on average over the next 75 years (or some combination of the two) to keep debt at the end of the period from exceeding its level at the beginning of 2010 (53 percent of GDP).

This report looks at the federal government as if it were a business, with the goal of informing the debate about our nation’s financial situation and outlook.
"About USA Inc.," by Mary Meeker, Scribd, February 2011 ---
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49434520/USA-Inc-A-Basic-Summary-of-America-s-Financial-Statements

This report looks at the federal government as if it were a business, with the goal of informing the debate about our nation’s financial situation and outlook. In it, we examine USA Inc.’s income statement and balance sheet. We aim to interpret the underlying data and facts and illustrate patterns and trends in easy-to-understand ways. We analyze the drivers of federal revenue and the history of expense growth, and we examine basic scenarios for how America might move toward positive cash flow.

Thanks go out to Liang Wu and Fred Miller and former Morgan Stanley colleagues whose contributions to this report were invaluable. In addition, Richard Ravitch, Emil Henry, Laura Tyson, Al Gore, Meg Whitman, John Cogan, Peter Orszag and Chris Liddell provided inspiration and insights as the report developed. It includes a 2-page foreword; a 12-page text summary; and 460 PowerPoint slides containing data-rich observations. There’s a lot of material – think of it as a book that happens to be a slide presentation.

We hope the slides in particular provide relevant context for the debate about America’s financials. To kick-start the dialogue, we are making the entire slide portion of the report available as a single work for non-commercial distribution (but not for excerpting, or modifying orcreating derivatives) under the Creative Commons license. The spirit of connectivity and sharing has become the essence of the Internet, and we encourage interested parties to use the slides to advance the discussion of America’s financial present and future. If you would like to add yourown data-driven observations, contribute your insights, improve or clarify ours, please contact usto request permission and provide your suggestions. This document is only a starting point for discussion; the information in it will benefit greatly from your thoughtful input

Jensen Comment
The high quality graphs are especially frightening.

Bob Jensen's threads on entitlements ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm

Peter G. Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/

Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

"Stanford U. Offers Free Online Course in Artificial Intelligence," Jie Jenny Zou, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/stanford-u-offers-free-online-course-in-artificial-intelligence/32622

Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing courses, course materials, and videos ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI 

August 2011 T.H.E. Journal (technology in education) ---
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/1105/journal_201108/#/0

"Spotting a hoax using statistics," Understanding Uncertainty, August 3, 2011 --- Click Here
http://understandinguncertainty.org/spotting-hoax-using-statistics?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UnderstandingUncertainty+%28Understanding+Uncertainty%29

Amazon Flies Through Clouds in Search of Books
"Amazon Sees a Good Read in the Cloud:  Users can now access all of their Amazon Kindle content on anything with a browser," by Erica Naone, MIT's Technology Review, August 10, 2011 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/38298/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-12

Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/eBooks.htm

"For Female Faculty, a B-School Glass Ceiling:  Work-life issues, lack of mentorship programs, and sexual discrimination are preventing many women from obtaining tenure and full professorships," by Allison Damast, Business Week, August 8, 2011 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/business-schools/for-female-faculty-a-bschool-glass-ceiling-08082011.html

"New Web Site Offers Career ‘Resilience’ Advice for Female Academics," by Paige Chapman, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 5, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/new-web-site-offers-career-resilience-advice-for-women-academics/28044?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en 

Now that a landmark study conducted by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University has confirmed that students at two-year campuses perform worse in online courses than in the face-to-face version, perhaps we can move on the important question: What can we do about that?

"Improving Online Success," by Rob Jenkins, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 16, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/improving-online-success/29390?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
Most of the performance inhibitors apply to onsite and well as online education, but there are some things that can be done to improve online learning for many students. The first task, in my opinion, is to determine if there are unique learning disabilities that should be dealt with separately.

Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

"CGS releases national Professional Science Master’s program data," Council of Graduate Schools, August 9, 2011 ---
http://www.cgsnet.org/portals/0/pdf/N_PR_PSMEandDSurvey2010.pdf

The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) released the results of its first Professional Science Master’s Enrollment and Degrees Survey, an annual survey documenting applications, enrollments, and degrees awarded. The Professional Science Master’s (PSM) is an innovative, new graduate degree designed to allow students to pursue advanced training in science or mathematics, while simultaneously developing workplace skills highly valued by employers.

"This report shows that nationally, PSM programs appeal to a diverse talent pool," said Debra Stewart, CGS president. She added, "Through the PSM, U.S. citizens, minorities, and women are being drawn to advanced study in STEM fields. Clearly this helps meet U.S. workforce needs."

This new report includes data on applications received and accepted for fall 2010, as well as enrollment data for fall 2010 and degrees awarded during the 2009-10 academic year, from nearly 90% of all PSM programs worldwide. Over 98% of respondents were based in the United States and of those U.S. programs, about 74% were located at public institutions. Key findings include:

Applications:

 Nearly 4,400 applications were received for fall 2010 admission and 48% were accepted.

 PSM programs in biology/biotechnology received more applications than programs in other fields of study, constituting 34.1% of all applications received.

First-Time Enrollment:

 55.5% of first-time enrollees were men, and 44.5% were women

 58.9% of all first-time PSM students were enrolled full-time while the remainder were part-time students.

 16.8% of first-time enrollees in U.S.-based PSM programs were temporary residents (i.e., international students).

 Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, 22.2% of first-time enrollees were underrepresented minorities (Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, or American Indian/Alaska Native).

Total Enrollment:

 Total enrollment was divided more evenly than first-time enrollment between men (51.1%) and women (48.9%).

 Roughly one in every eight (13.4%) PSM students enrolled in U.S.-based institutions were temporary residents.

 Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, 29.2% of enrollees in the fall of 2010 were underrepresented minorities.

 Nearly three-quarters (73.3%) of all PSM students were pursuing degrees in computational sciences, biology/biotechnology, or environmental sciences.

Degrees awarded:

 Precisely half of the 1,102 PSM degrees awarded by respondents in academic year 2009/10 were awarded to men and half to women.

 One in four (24.1%) graduates of U.S.-based PSM programs were international students.

 Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, 22.4% of PSM graduates in 2009/10 were underrepresented minorities.

 Nearly six in ten (57.7%) PSM degrees awarded in 2009/10 were in biology/biotechnology and computational sciences.

 Men earned the majority of the PSM degrees granted in mathematics and statistics, physics and geological sciences, and computational sciences.

 Women earned the majority of the degrees granted in "other" fields (which includes chemistry, forensic science, nanoscience, and national defense), medical-related sciences, and biology/biotechnology.

The 2011 PSM applications, enrollments and degrees data will be released

 

Continued in the full report ---
http://www.sciencemasters.com/portals/0/pdfs/PSM_Enrollment_and_Degrees_Report_2011.pdf

Jensen Comment
Probably less than half the masters degree programs in business world wide have the prestigious AACSB International accreditation ---

For comparative purposes, however, here are some AACSB data links:

Global Business School Characteristics

• Average operating budgets
• Teaching, intellectual contributions, and service priorities
• AACSB member institutions by country

Global Business School Student Data

• Percent of MBA graduates by gender
• School (masters-level) admissions profiles
• Undergraduate enrollment percentages by citizenship
• Undergraduate applicants, offers, and entrants

Global Business School Faculty and Administration Data

• Percent of academically qualified and professionally qualified faculty
• Percent of deans by gender
• Average faculty salaries in the U.S.
• Percent of tenured faculty

For example, whereas 50% of the science masters degree graduates are female, in the MBA arena nearly 2/3 are male. Females are gaining but the pace of gain is very slight.

"The master's as the new bachelor's," Pappano, The New York Times, July 24, 2011
Thank you James Martin for the heads up ---
http://maaw.info/ArticleSummaries/ArtSumPappano2011.htm

August 11. 2011 message from Scott Bonacker

Software for managing multiple monitors

An article in TechRepublic -

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/manage-multiple-displays-
in-windows-with-actual-multiple-monitors/4738

(or http://goo.gl/Mlfol  if the long link is broken)

-  lists reviews a monitor management app by actualtools, and provides links
to information about four more.

Here are all five:

http://www.actualtools.com/multiplemonitors/

http://www.displayfusion.com/

http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/overview/

http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm

http://www.maxivista.com/multi-monitor.htm

I use Ultramon myself and like it just fine.

Scott Bonacker CPA
Springfield, MO

The Demise of Guys
Questions
Why do guys prefer male bonding over female mating?
Why are guys 30% more likely to drop out of college?
Why do guys underperform relative to women at all levels of schooling?
Why are males 2/3 more likely to need special education?
Why are men much more likely to become addicted to drugs and porn?
Why do accounting firms hire more women than men?

Phil Zimbardo is one of the most successful psychology professors in the world and one of this discipline's most well-known authors ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_zimbardo

TED Video
"The Demise of Guys," by Phil Zimbardo, TED --- Click Here
http://www.ted.com/talks/zimchallenge.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+%28video%29%29

Jensen Comment
This video raises more questions than it answers. But then the answers are extremely complicated and confounded by complicated changes in society and family life over time.

Question
What's all this crap about "Do No Evil?"

In the past when I entered 'Newsweek Magazine" into the Advanced Search site of Google, the first items were Newsweek Magazine and a page on how to subscribe to Newsweek ---
http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Now when I enter  'Newsweek Magazine" in this Google search engine the first item to come up is a Daily Beast site.

This is most likely because Daily Beast pays more for advertising on Google than Newsweek Magazine.

Question
What's all this crap about "Do No Evil?"

Previous messaging on this issue that disturbs me greatly about Google is shown below:

"Colleges Fight Google Ads That Reroute Prospective Students," by Josh Keller, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 31, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Fight-Google-Ads-That/128414/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

August 5, 2011 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi David,

The issue really is more about the ethics of buying link priorities over fine, usually better, universities who do not pay to advertise on Google. This practice by Google smells of a shakedown to force all universities to buy advertising on Google.

What's really wrong?
Google built its search integrity by not giving search priorities to its advertisers. Google beat down Yahoo in the early years because Yahoo was giving the top search hits to its advertisers who actually paid for being at or near the top of the hit list. At least Yahoo did not hide its search priorities.

The real problem is that a leading search engine thereby forces virtually everybody to buy its advertising in order to get near the top or the search list and/or being rerouted from Stanford University to Kaplan University or the University of Phoenix.

Google is "Doing Evil" with what smells like extortion.


Another evil is that this shakedown leads you and me to junk hits having priority over hits we are really seeking.

But this practice will increase competition. Other search engines built on top of Google will code ways of filtering out the junk advertiser hits to make searches more effective and efficient on their sites. Bing, Bing, Bing!

Bob Jensen

Party School Rankings:  Princeton Review Versus Playboy ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_school#Criticism_of_party_school_lists

Thee following table shows a comparison between the top 10 colleges in the 2011 Playboy ranking and the 2011–12 Princeton Review ranking.

#	Princeton Review	Playboy
1	Ohio University	University of Colorado at Boulder
2	University of Georgia	Pennsylvania State University
3	University of Mississippi	Arizona State University
4	University of Iowa	University of Western Ontario
5	University of California, Santa Barbara	University of Texas at Austin
6	West Virginia University	University of Wisconsin
7	Pennsylvania State University	University of Georgia
8	Florida State University	University of Tennessee at Knoxville
9	University of Florida	University of Central Florida
10	University of Texas at Austin	University of California, Santa Barbara

 

Jensen Comment
And the winners are Georgia, Texas, Penn State, and UC Santa Barbara since they made the Top 10 in both lists.

"Enrollments Plunge at Many For-Profit Colleges," by Rachel Wiseman, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 16, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Enrollments-Plunge-at-Many/128711/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

. . .

Bucking the Trend

While some of the biggest for-profit colleges saw declines, a few showed enrollment increases. Total enrollment in the American Public University System, which charges $250 per undergraduate credit—less than many of its proprietary peers do—grew 28 percent in the quarter ending June 30. The system is operated by American Public Education Inc.

With a similarly low price point, Bridgepoint Education saw a slight uptick in new-student enrollment. But whether enrollment will continue to climb is open to question, given the company's revelation in May that New York's attorney general is investigating its business practices.

How for-profit enrollments will trend in the future is "difficult to call," said Robert L. Craig, a managing director of the investment bank Stifel Nicolaus. He says external factors such as the economy and federal student aid will affect how well those institutions fare. He expects the for-profit sector will continue to grow in the long term, as emphasis is placed on expanding higher education to a greater portion of Americans and as traditional options for acquiring a degree reach capacity in some states.

But some analysts are concerned that if institutions do not lower their prices, they risk losing applicants and profits. "A lot of these institutions have a cost system that is going to be untenable for the consumer," said Mr. Safalow, as more traditional universities enter into online education and the number of available applicants plateaus. "This is an industry that is closer to saturation than I think most people realize."

 

Jensen Comment
The big exception is American Public Education (University) Inc. that was bolstered when Wal-Mart elected to heavily subsidize employees who elect to further their educations from APE.

Bob Jensen's threads on For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone of Fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education alternatives (some for-profit universities have onsite as well as online programs) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm

Colleges That Cheat

"Hundreds of Chicago State Students Were Ineligible for Aid," Inside Higher Ed, August 11, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/11/qt#267507

Hundreds of Chicago State University students received state financial aid even though they lacked the grades needed to remain enrolled, The Chicago Tribune reported. The Tribune reported last month about Chicago State failing to enforce its rules about suspending those who fail to meet minimal grade requirements, but the information about state financial aid emerged Wednesday at a state hearing.

"In Lawsuits, Graduates of 2 Law Schools Accuse Their Alma Maters of Inflating Employment Data," by Ryan Brown, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 10, 2011 --- http://chronicle.com/article/In-Lawsuits-Graduates-Accuse/128596/

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm

Colleges That Cheat in Athletics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Athletics

2011 Edition of The College of 2020:  Students
Chronicle of Higher Education
Price:  $75
https://www.chronicle-store.com/Store/ProductDetails.aspx?CO=CQ&ID=76319&PK=N7N11AD&=1

"Cheating: The Experts Weigh In," by: Louis Lavelle, Business Week, July 26, 2011 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/blogs/mba_admissions/archives/2011/07/cheating_the_experts_weigh_in.html
Thanks to David Albrecht for the heads up.

On July 18, the Bloomberg Businessweek Getting In blog publicized the story of NYU Stern Professor Panos Ipeirotis, who caught 20 percent of his class cheating and found the effort he put into rooting out the cheaters was not worth it. In the future, Ipeirotis said he would assign projects requiring more original thought to creatively channel the energies of his highly competitive students.

Some of those who commented on the blog faulted Ipeirotis, blamed the cheating on the Stern grading curve, or said that cheating was common at many schools. Bloomberg Businessweek asked two ethics experts about the views they expressed.

David Callahan is a senior fellow at Demos, a public policy organization in New York. He has a Ph.D. in politics and has written extensively about ethics on his blog for years and in his book, The Cheating Culture, published in 2004.

John Gallagher is an associate dean for the executive MBA program at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where one of his responsibilities is to prosecute honor code violations. Duke dealt with its own cheating scandal in 2007. It’s use of the episode to reinforce the honor code was applauded by many.

Below is an edited transcript of their interview with reporter Kiah Lau Haslett.

What was your reaction to this story?

David Callahan: I’m not surprised at the high level of cheating among business students; research tells us that business students cheat at among the highest rates of students. I think that a lot of professors often get a lot of pushback for exposing cheating. A professor at the University of Central Florida reported a lot of cheating and he was subjected to a lot of attacks to him as a teacher, that it was somehow his fault. I think there’s a lot of rationalization of students about cheating: They don’t find it surprising and people are cynical. They assume there’s a lot of cheating and it’s not a big deal.

Why do students plagiarize?

David Callahan: I think you have to look at the real, underlying causes. Students are extremely anxious today, they’re incurring record levels of debt to go to college, and they’re relying on scholarships and grants dependent upon maintaining a certain GPA. College is no longer the last stop; now it’s a stepping-stone to a professional school and graduate school. College transcripts and GPA really matter. On the one hand, there’s more pressure than ever before to cheat, and on the other hand there’s a tremendous amount of cynicism. When a professor complains about cheating and points it out, students push back in a cynical way and say, “This is commonplace. What’s the big deal?” Or they push back in a defensive way and say, “The pressure’s on me to get good grades and cheating is one way to do it.”

What are some assignments that make it easy for students to cheat or plagiarize? What are some assignments where it's harder to cheat?

John Gallagher: If you are giving a proctored exam in a closed room, there's going to be far less opportunity than if you are giving an assignment that requires people to do analysis and make recommendations. Many institutions use case studies, so it's likely that somewhere you can find someone who has done an analysis of the case. I think that any time you ask students to personalize their work, talking about its applications and concept, it's very much more difficult. No one has written that material and it's unique.

What is the professor's role or responsibility to ensure students don't cheat?

David Callahan: The responsibility on professors in this day and age is to teach in such a way that makes it harder for students to cheat. They need to take seriously the responsibility to reduce the amount of cheating. It doesn't just fall on students to not cheat. Lots of professors feel overburdened as it is, in terms of their teaching obligations. Many don't want to make the extra effort in reducing cheating, and unfortunately they have to make that effort.

Is this the curve's fault?

David Callahan: A zero-sum game where students have to compete against other students exacerbates the situation. Nobody wants to be the chump who's honest when everyone else is cheating and you're in direct competition for grades.

John Gallagher: I don't think so. [At Fuqua] we have a recommended grade distribution that our professors follow, but they are never required to give a low pass or a failing grade. There's no need for students to cheat. There are all kinds of people who cheat for all kinds of reasons. I don't think that you would ever say that the primary factor or force that leads students to cheat is there's some kind of a curve.

What should the punishment be for students caught cheating? Maximum? Minimum?

David Callahan: For the most part there's typically very little punishment for cheaters, which is one reason why there's so much cheating. You typically get punished with a slap on the wrist: flunk a paper, flunk a class. Rarely are they suspended or expelled. Of course, there are different gradations of punishment. But I think there needs to be more. One incentive to cheat is that the punishment is lax or minimal. If there's no punishment there's no deterrent.

John Gallagher: For us, the maximum punishment is rescinding the degree. We've had five cases of alumni where it was later discovered they cheated in one of their courses and their degrees were revoked. The next is that people are simply expelled from the university and there is a notation on their official university transcript stating they were dismissed from the university because of a cheating conviction.

The least severe punishment I have ever seen is mandatory failing of the course, but in our particular world that has significant ramifications. Anyone who fails a course must take a mandatory one-year leave of absence before being allowed to return to retake the failed course and finish the program. Everyone who graduates must have a minimum 3.0 GPA. If you can imagine a five-semester program with a conviction of cheating the fourth semester and you were given a grade of F in a course, looking at the number of courses remaining, it might be mathematically impossible to maintain a GPA and you'd be academically dismissed.

What do you do when a cheating conviction happens? What happens to the student?

John Gallagher: I never speak to companies [who sponsor EMBA students] because of student privacy issues, but I have witnessed the impact of convictions on students. In my experience, companies treat this very severely. It's a severe violation of ethics and it is not something that I would ever expect a company would ignore or have a wink-wink-nudge-nudge attitude toward at all. In many cases, these companies are paying students' tuition and if they're not financially involved, then they've given them the time they need. They are stakeholders in the student's education, and now the student is caught in an extremely awkward situation having to explain the circumstances. It is very serious. It can destroy someone's career and professional reputation.

What should a school do when this happens?

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Professors Who Let Students Cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#RebeccaHoward

Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm

"U. of Utah Fires Faculty Member Deemed to Have Plagiarized," Inside Higher Ed, August 19, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/19/qt#268194

The University of Utah has fired a political science professor after concluding that he engaged in a "pattern of plagiarism," the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The newspaper said that a faculty panel determined that Bahman Bakhtiari, former head of the university's Middle East Center, had committed plagiarism, but that the panel recommended against dismissing him. But according to documents provided to the Tribune, it said, Utah's interim president overruled the faculty body. "Plagiarism -- holding out the work of another as one’s own -- strikes at the very core of academic integrity," the newspaper quoted the interim president, Lorris Betz, as writing in a June 30 letter. "The only appropriate sanction in this case is dismissal, which is necessary to preserve the academic integrity of the institution and to restore public confidence in the university." Bakhtiari has contended that the overlap in his work and that of others was unintentional and too limited to qualify as a pattern.

Bob Jensen's threads on Professors Who Cheat and Professors Who Let Students Cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#RebeccaHoward

Some years back the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy (TSBPA) declared war on distance education by requiring a minimum of five semester courses (15 credits) of accounting onsite instead of online ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/TexasBigBrother.htm

Large universities in Texas such as the University of Texas and Texas A&M have extensive online degree programs in such areas in science and engineering, but not in accountancy where very large and highly-rated onsite accounting degree programs have shown virtually no interest in reaching out to students who are unable to attend classes on campus. In fact, I've suspected for a long time that these major universities have pressured the TSBPA to discourage distance education.

Western Governors University --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Governors_University

WGU is a competency-based online university where course instructors do not assign grades. Instead the grading is competency based much like professional certification examinations such as the CPA Examination and medical board examinations ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ComputerBasedAssessment
The reason why is explained at
http://chronicle.com/blogs/afterword/2011/08/05/what-if-professors-arent-good-at-grading/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

"WGU Lassoes Texas," by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed, August 4, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/04/governor_perry_partners_with_western_governors_university

Western Governors University continued to live up to its name on Wednesday, as Texas Governor Rick Perry announced a partnership with the fast-growing online institution — and was promptly showered with praise from nearly everyone.

Western Governors, a regionally accredited, nonprofit university founded in 1997 by 18 politicians who held that office at that time, represents an alternative model of higher education that has garnered both praise and skepticism.

Aimed at working adults (the average student is 36), Western Governors confers bachelors and master’s degrees based on a student’s ability to demonstrate skills. There are no classrooms and no professors. Students learn online and mostly on their own, with light guidance from their advisers. They take proctored tests at local testing centers whenever they feel they are ready. Students pay tuition — between $2,890 and $4,250, depending on the program — every six months until they graduate, which 40 percent of them do within four years. (First-time, full-time students are considerably less successful, graduating at a 22 percent rate.)

The partnership with Texas will create a state-branded version of Western Governors called WGU-Texas. Texas is the third state to create a local version of Western Governors, which is based in Salt Lake City, Utah; Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels created WGU-Indiana last summer, and the Washington State legislature voted WGU-Washington into existence earlier this year.

Like Indiana and Washington, Texas will not allocate any money out of its state budget to Western Governors, which supports itself based on tuition. However, a Western Governors spokeswoman says the university is currently working with Texas officials to allow Texas residents to spend in-state financial aid grants on the Utah-based institution.

Amid deep cuts to public higher education budgets, Governor Perry earlier this year challenged state institutions to come up with some way to offer a four-year degree program for the total price of $10,000. Alas, WGU-Texas is not the answer to that challenge, said Catherine Frazier, a Perry spokeswoman. The average Western Governors graduate earns a degree in 30 months, or five pay periods; including fees, that means $14,735 for the least expensive degrees (information technology and business), and $21,890 for the most expensive (nursing pre-licensure).

“But, certainly, having this affordable option does prove that a degree can be offered by an institution at an affordable price,” Frazier said.

In its effort to expand into various states, Western Governors has faced criticism from some educators, particularly in Washington state. “[B]rain research demonstrates that real learning requires students to struggle with difficult material under the consistent guidance of good teachers,” wrote Johann Neem, an associate professor of history at Western Washington University, in an April op-ed for The Seattle Times. “WGU denies students these opportunities. In fact, its advertisements pander to prospective students by offering them credit for what they already know rather than promising to teach them something new.”

But advocates say the Western Governors model has its place in the constellation of state higher education systems. For adult students who possess the knowledge and skills to bypass a chunk of the curriculum — either because they have some prior college or because they have picked it up in their working lives — the competency-based model is a good way to avoid the tedium and expense of sitting through redundant classes, the Center for Adult and Experiential Learning has said.

“The idea is that these adult learners will bring certain skills and knowledge to the table and that they [will] be able to use them to accelerate progress toward an academic degree and advance in the workforce,” said Dominic Chavez, a spokesman for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in an e-mail. “While students will typically be able to gain course credit for having specific knowledge in certain areas, students reach a point at which they acquire new knowledge and skills beyond their existing levels,” Chavez said. “These are the skills that take them to the next level and that offer increased workforce opportunities.”

The WGU-Texas announcement met with glowing praise elsewhere. The partnership “will help address our state's key workforce needs while offering affordable career and continuing education opportunities to Texans over 30," said State Senator Judith Zaffirini, a Democrat who chairs the state senate’s higher education committee, in a statement.

“This low-cost alternative will expand access to more Texans, engaging our diverse student population and upholding our statewide commitment to help more students reach their academic and lifelong goals,” wrote the Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a group of former administrative heavyweights from the Texas higher ed system who have challenged much of Governor Perry's higher education agenda.

Rey Garcia, president of the Texas Association of Community Colleges, said his organization was planning a statewide articulation agreement with WGU-Texas that would make it easy for students to finish their bachelor’s degrees at Western Governors after two years at community college. “The traditional universities don’t make it terribly easy for students with an applied science degree [at a community college] to transfer into a baccalaureate,” Garcia said in an interview. “WGU is a lot more flexible in that regard.”

Garcia added that he is not worried students will skip the community colleges altogether and opt for all four years at WGU-Texas because “they’re considerably more expensive than we are.”

But Mary Aldridge Dean, executive director of the Texas Faculty Association, said prospective students — especially younger ones — should consider more than just the price tag when considering enrolling at WGU-Texas.

Continued in article

Question
Why can't the highest scoring CPA Exam taker in the nation probably can't become a licensed CPA in Texas?

Answer
Because in Texas, unlike the other 49 states, nobody can become a CPA without having taken at least five accounting courses onsite. Distance education graduates need not apply for a CPA certificate if they have distance education degrees and/or did not take about half of the required accounting, auditing, and tax courses onsite instead of online.

In effect this means that Texas does not allow full distance education accounting degrees such that even flagship universities like Texas and Texas A&M like flagship universities in Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Maryland have distance education accounting degrees.

March 31, 2011 message from Barbara Scofield

In the state of Texas educators are struggling with ever more onerous rules for candidacy. The AICPA, however, seems to be ignoring issues that loom large for the TSBPA. One of their newly featured "new CPAs" at the link below is an award winner from Colorado (not a 150 hour state) who took her accounting courses online (Texas requires 15 credit hours face to face of upper division accounting courses) from DeVry.

http://www.thiswaytocpa.com/exam-licensure/exam-diary/leslie-rezgui/

Could this person work as a CPA in Texas?

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)

November 5,. 2010 reply from Bruce Lubich <BLubich@umuc.edu>
Note that Bruce is the Director of an online accounting distance education program in the University of Maryland System

Hi Bob,  

When TX first went to the 15 credit requirement, we had a couple of  University of Maryland University College students apply for the exam there,  and be rejected. Our transcript doesn't show which courses were taken  online. Apparently it's on the TX paperwork. Lying on that is not  something to be encouraged for future CPAs. So, unless a student has no  desire to sit for the CPA exam or they just need to fill in a few holes to  qualify, the TX market has dried up for all online programs.

Evidently, the  TX board takes this requirement very seriously, so my guess is that your  Deloitte hire would be denied the ability to sit. Seems to me Deloitte  would need to send the student to a different office until they pass the  exam.   As for reciprocity, I haven't heard of any problems. That doesn't mean  they're not out there, but I haven't heard of them.   Bottom line is TX has protected their investment in their brick & mortar  schools.   At one time LA and New Mexico had similar, though weaker rules like this.  I believe both have woken up and done away with those rules.  

Bruce Lubich 
University of Maryland University College

November 6, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for this.
What you are saying is that the Texas Board may be cooperating with Texas Universities to reserve all entry-level accounting jobs in Texas for only graduates of Texas universities. Graduates from your program in the University of Maryland system can, thereby, not compete for jobs in Texas CPA firms. .

Out-of-state graduates need not apply. Seems like a great idea for the other 49 states so that graduates of a given state have a monopoly on jobs within the state. Of course the national and international CPA firms might object to complications this creates in hiring. And students who want to leave a state might object to not having jobs available anywhere other than the state where they graduated.

Why didn't the European Union think of this as a clever way of restricting labor flows between borders?

Bob Jensen

My threads (rough draft notes) on this antiquated and absurd ruling by the TSBPA (read that Big Brother) can be found at
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/TexasBigBrother.htm

What I like about Gina's site is that it does not avoid programs in major colleges and universities.

August 8, 2011 message from Gina

Hi Bob Jensen,
I maintain http://www.lawenforcementtraining.org. I have spent many
years as a law enforcement officer, and love my field of work. I decided to
make a website to help up and coming law enforcement students explore
schools that offer this degree degree. Do you mind taking a look and adding
it to your resource page of : http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm ?

http://www.lawenforcementtraining.org has become a fun passion
project of mine, and I think it serves as a great resource for anyone looking
to get a degree and start a career in law enforcement.  I would greatly
appreciate any feedback, and hope you will find it as a useful addition to your
site.

Thanks for taking a look!
Gina

Bob Jensen's threads on careers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#careers

Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education alternatives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm

"Crooked CFO: KPMG knows nothing about the character traits of criminals,” by Calib Newquist, Going Concern, August 19, 2011 ---
http://goingconcern.com/2011/08/crooked-cfo-kpmg-knows-nothing-about-the-character-traits-of-criminals/

Earlier this week we shared with you the latest analysis from KPMG that listed “key fraudster traits” and some of them seemed to describe a lot of the people you have worked or are currently working for. Things like “volatile,” “unreliability,” “unhappy,” and “self-interested” describes everyone I’ve ever been in around in the corporate world to one extent or another.

Since I was skeptical of this list, I asked Sam Antar what he thought of it. If you’ve been reading us for awhile, you’re familiar with Sam. If you’re new, I’ll do a quick refresher. Sam was the CFO of Crazy Eddie’s and was one of the masterminds behind one of the biggest financial frauds of the 1980s. While you (and I) were eating cereal in front of the TV on Saturday morning, Sam and his cousin Eddie were selling electronics and home appliances to our parents for rock bottom prices, while ripping off the government and investors for untold millions of dollars. In other words, the guy is a crook and knew/knows lots of crooks and knows their hopes (read: money), their dreams (read: money) all that crap (read: more money) and what they’ll do to get them. With that, Sam told me what he thought of KPMG’s analysis:

Continued in article

"Guest Post: Fraud Girl – Can We Detect Lying From Nonverbal Cues?" Simoleon Sense, June 20, 2010 ---
 http://www.simoleonsense.com/guest-post-fraud-girl-can-we-detect-lying-from-nonverbal-cues/
 This includes a video of Jeff Skilling's testimony:  Can you detect his lies?

"Spotting a hoax using statistics," Understanding Uncertainty, August 3, 2011 --- Click Here
http://understandinguncertainty.org/spotting-hoax-using-statistics?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UnderstandingUncertainty+%28Understanding+Uncertainty%29

Bob Jensen's threads on fraud are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

How to Lie With Statistics
"On Economy, Raw Data Gets a Grain of Salt," by Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times, August 16. 2011 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/business/economy/raw-data-on-economic-growth-paints-fuzzy-picture.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

“People want the best information that we have right now. But people need to understand that the best information that we have right now isn’t necessarily very informative,” said Tara M. Sinclair, an assistant professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University. “It’s just the best information that we have.”

¶ The growth rate that the government announces roughly one month after the end of each quarter — news much anticipated in Washington and on Wall Street — has been off the mark over the period from 1983 to 2009 by an average of 1.3 percentage points, compared with more fully analyzed figures released years later, according to federal data.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
There is great pressure on audit firms and clients to produce financial statement numbers more quickly since the typical annual financial statements are so delayed. But increasing the frequency of audited financial statement numbers is very costly and perhaps will suffer from the same reporting problems as are faced with monthly economic growth numbers versus long-delayed corrections of those numbers.

Methodology to Identify Small Businesses and Their Owners
Department of the U.S. Treasury
Technical Paper 4
August 2011 --- Click Here
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/tax-analysis/Documents/OTA-T2011-04-Small-Business-Methodology-Aug-8-2011.pdf

Comments from Paul Caron on August 9, 2011 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/

The Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis has released Methodology to Identify Small Businesses and Their Owners:

Due to data constraints and the lack of clear definitions, prior analyses of the tax code’s impact on small business owners were flawed. In this paper, we develop a methodology to define and identify small businesses. We then apply that methodology to a new data source to identify the individual owners of those small businesses. Having matched owners to their small business entities, we present tabulations that detail various tax characteristics of small businesses and their owners for tax year 2007. ...

For tax year 2007, our previous methodology counted 34.7 million filers reporting $662 billion of net flow-through business income as small business owners. Using our revised methodology, we count 20.0 million filers reporting $376 billion of net business income as small business owners under a broad measure of small business owner. Under our narrow definition, we count 9.4 million filers reporting $335 billion of net business income as small business owners.

• The Hill, Treasury Looks to Redefine Small-Business Label
• Wall Street Journal, Using New Definition, US Treasury Report Finds Fewer Small Businesses

If colleges want to make it more difficult to earn an A, they need to consider why faculty members feel pressure to award them.
Peter Eubanks

"Why We Inflate Grades," by Peter Eubanks, Inside Higher Ed, August 9, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/08/09/essay_on_why_faculty_members_participate_in_grade_inflation

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill made headlines recently by announcing a plan to fight grade inflation: all grades received will be contextualized on student transcripts, allowing graduate schools and potential employers to see grade distributions for each course and thus to determine just how much value to attach to those ever-prevalent As and Bs. This move is the latest in a series of attacks on what is perceived by many (rightly) to be an epidemic in higher education today, particularly among those institutions that seem to do well in the national rankings.

Student anxiety about such policies is understandable. Graduating seniors are naturally concerned about their competitiveness during difficult economic times, while juniors and seniors worry that they may be passed up for fellowships, summer programs, or other academic opportunities on account of a lowered grade-point average.

Professors, too, have their concerns about grade deflation; we not only care about our students’ successes but also about the implications of anti-inflation policies on our own careers. While institutions are increasingly taking measures to combat grade inflation, there are several key pressures faculty members face when assigning grades, and these may cause us to feel uneasy or hesitant about immediately subscribing to a strict regimen of grade deflation. These pressures in no way excuse or minimize the ethical implications of grade inflation, nor do I seek to undermine the efforts of those striving to curtail what is indeed a significant and widespread problem in higher education today. My purpose is only to suggest some of the underlying causes of this epidemic from a faculty perspective; to point out some of the pressures faculty face as they assign their students grades. These pressures, as I see it, come from three primary sources:

Pressure from students: Most professors are experienced in the familiar end-of-semester scene in which a student comes to office hours to argue for a higher grade. Such discussions often involve a student’s disputation of minutiae from past exams, papers, and assignments, all in the hope of gaining a point or two here and there and thus retroactively improving his or her grade. Such discussions can be quite time-consuming, and they often come at the busiest time of the semester, thus bringing with them the temptation to do whatever it takes to close the matter and move along. There may also be a nagging fear that minor grading errors have indeed been made and that the student should be given the benefit of the doubt. With ever-increasing college costs and the inevitable sense of student entitlement and consumerism that follow, such discussions are becoming all too common. and are not always limited to the end of the semester. Even more important, many faculty members dread and even fear the negative classroom atmosphere that often results from giving students "bad" grades (i.e.. C or below, though even a B fits this category for many), particularly in courses dependent on student discussion and participation, such as a seminar or a foreign language class.

Pressure from administrators: Success with student evaluations is a career necessity, whether one is a young scholar seeking the elusive Elysium of tenure or one belongs to that now-majority of faculty members who teach part-time or on an adjunct basis and are dependent on positive student evaluations for reappointment. At teaching-intensive colleges and universities, in particular, student evaluations are often of paramount importance, and faculty members must do what they can to keep their customers happy. Many faculty members feel, and numerous studies seem to suggest, that generous grade distributions correspond to positive teaching evaluations, so many faculty members, under pressure from administrators to produce good evaluations, feel a temptation to inflate grades to secure their own livelihoods. Since administrators usually have neither the time nor the expertise to make independent evaluations of a professor’s teaching ability (imagine a dean with both the leisure and the proficiency to sit in on and evaluate in the same semester both a Russian literature course and an advanced macroeconomics course, without having done any of the previous coursework...) they must rely heavily on student descriptions of what goes on in the classroom, descriptions that are often contradictory and that unfortunately do not always cohere.

Pressure from colleagues: Some faculty who wish to curb grade inflation may feel that they are the only ones fighting the problem. If everyone else is giving out inflated grades, why should they be the ones to stand alone, only to incur the displeasure of students who may be confused by inconsistent standards? As college freshmen arrive on campus increasingly unprepared for college work, faculty members, inheriting a problem passed on to them by their colleagues in secondary education, often have the difficult task of trying to determine reasonable standards of achievement. It takes effort and planning for faculty to balance their professional responsibilities to both their respective disciplines and to their students’ positive academic experience. In an era where budget cuts affect most severely those departments and programs with low enrollments, no one wants to lose the bidding war for students, and many professors, particularly those in vulnerable fields, fear that a "strict constructionist" approach to grade deflation may cost them student interest and consequently much-needed institutional support, both of which risk being redistributed to more favored colleagues. Furthermore, the seemingly ubiquitous nature of grade inflation may simplify the ethical quandaries involved: if everyone understands that grades are being unfairly inflated, then there may, in fact, be no unfairness involved at all, since the very transparency of grade inflation thus removes any sense of deception that may linger in our minds.

There is a final pressure to grade inflate, and it comes from ourselves. It may be the disquieting feeling that our own efforts in the classroom have sometimes been inadequate, that poor student performance reflects poor preparation or teaching on our part, and that grades must be inflated to compensate for our failings. It may come from the difficulties inherent in assigning grades to elusive and ultimately unquantifiable phenomena such as class participation, essays, student presentations, and the like. In such cases, grade inflation ceases to function as a lazy or disinterested tool for maintaining steady waters; it becomes, instead, a corrective measure seeking to make restitution for our own perceived shortcomings.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on the utter disgrace of grade inflation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#GradeInflation

Competency-Based Grading
"Professors Cede Grading Power to Outsiders—Even Computers:  One college gives the job to software, while another employs independent 'evaluators," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 7, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/To-Justify-Every-A-Some/128528/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

The best way to eliminate grade inflation is to take professors out of the grading process: Replace them with professional evaluators who never meet the students, and who don't worry that students will punish harsh grades with poor reviews. That's the argument made by leaders of Western Governors University, which has hired 300 adjunct professors who do nothing but grade student work.

"They think like assessors, not professors," says Diane Johnson, who is in charge of the university's cadre of graders. "The evaluators have no contact with the students at all. They don't know them. They don't know what color they are, what they look like, or where they live. Because of that, there is no temptation to skew results in any way other than to judge the students' work."

Western Governors is not the only institution reassessing grading. A few others, including the University of Central Florida, now outsource the scoring of some essay tests to computers. Their software can grade essays thanks to improvements in artificial-intelligence techniques. Software has no emotional biases, either, and one Florida instructor says machines have proved more fair and balanced in grading than humans have.

These efforts raise the question: What if professors aren't that good at grading? What if the model of giving instructors full control over grades is fundamentally flawed? As more observers call for evidence of college value in an era of ever-rising tuition costs, game-changing models like these are getting serious consideration.

Professors do score poorly when it comes to fair grading, according to a study published in July in the journal Teachers College Record. After crunching the numbers on decades' worth of grade reports from about 135 colleges, the researchers found that average grades have risen for 30 years, and that A is now the most common grade given at most colleges. The authors, Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, argue that a "consumer-based approach" to higher education has created subtle incentives for professors to give higher marks than deserved. "The standard practice of allowing professors free rein in grading has resulted in grades that bear little relation to actual performance," the two professors concluded.

Naturally, the standard grading model has plenty of defenders, including some who argue that claims of grade inflation are exaggerated—students could, after all, really be earning those higher grades. The current system forges a nurturing relationship between instructor and student and gives individualized attention that no robot or stranger could give, this argument goes.

But the efforts at Western Governors and Central Florida could change that relationship, and point to ways to pop any grade-inflation bubble.

An Army of Graders

To understand Western Governors' approach, it's worth a reminder that the entire institution is an experiment that turns the typical university structure on its head. Western Governors is entirely online, for one thing. Technically it doesn't offer courses; instead it provides mentors who help students prepare for a series of high-stakes homework assignments. Those assignments are designed by a team of professional test-makers to prove competence in various subject areas.

The idea is that as long as students can leap all of those hurdles, they deserve degrees, whether or not they've ever entered a classroom, watched a lecture video, or participated in any other traditional teaching experience. The model is called "competency-based education."

Continued

Bob Jensen's threads on competency-based grading ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#ECA

"Success Comes From Better Data, Not Better Analysis," by Daryl Morey, Harvard Business Review Blog, August 8, 2011 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/success_comes_from_better_data.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Jensen Comment
I think accountics researchers often use purchased databases (e.g., Compustat, AuditAnalytics, and CRSP) without questioning the possibility of data errors and limitation. For example, we recently took a look at the accounting litigation database of AuditAnalytics and found many serious omissions.

These databases are used by multiple accountics researchers, thereby compounding the felony,.

Bob Jensen's threads on what went wrong with accountics research are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

"New Process Could Make Canadian Oil Cheaper, Cleaner:  A method for getting oil out of tarry sands could reduce the costs and lower the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with its extraction," by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology Review, August 3, 2011 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/38204/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-03

"College-Made Device Helps Visually Impaired Students See and Take Notes," by Rachel Wiseman, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 1, 2011 --- Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/college-made-device-helps-visually-impaired-students-see-and-take-notes/32527?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

College students with very poor vision have had to struggle to see a blackboard and take notes—basic tasks that can hold some back. Now a team of four students from Arizona State University has designed a system, called Note-Taker, that couples a tablet PC and a video camera, and could be a major advance over the small eyeglass-mounted telescopes that many students have had to rely on. It recently won second place in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup technology competition.

There are roughly 75,000 students at colleges and trade schools who are visually impaired. The telescopes allow students with low vision to see the blackboard, but they can only focus on one section at a time. Then they have to take off the telescope, write notes, and then go back to the board and try and catch up with the lecture.

David S. Hayden, who graduated from Arizona State in May, understands these challenges—he can only read texts if he gets about two inches away from the material. Mr. Hayden, the lead designer of Note-Taker, says he faced a “morbid tradeoff” in class. Using the assistive technology that was available to him, he could either take notes or listen and absorb the information, but never both. After he had to withdraw from three senior-level math classes, he says, “I realized the existing technologies weren’t going to assist my needs, so I had a project on my hands.”

The result was Note-Taker, which connects a tablet PC (a laptop with a screen you can write on) to a high-resolution video camera. Screen commands get the camera to pan and zoom. The video footage, along with audio, can be played in real time on the tablet and are also saved for later reference. Alongside the video is a space for typed or handwritten notes, which students can jot down using a stylus. That should be helpful in math and science courses, says Mr. Hayden, where students need to copy down graphs, charts, and symbols not readily available on a keyboard.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on learning helpers for disabled persons ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped

 Required:  Go Easy of Students at LSU
"AAUP Faults Louisiana State for Its Treatment of 2 Scholars," by Peter Schmidt, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 1, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/AAUP-Faults-Louisiana-State/128442/?sid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

August 5, 2011 message from Richard Campbell About the Disastrous Version 9.1 of Blackboard

I am amazed at the significant retrogression from prior versions. Tasks that were previously very simple to do, are now very difficult. Even the Help utility is bizarre - in doing a key word search, you get solutions for multiple prior versions.

Instead of suing and buying their competition, they should have more closely kept their eyes on the home turf.

Bob Jensen's threads on Blackboard are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Blackboard.htm

Question
How do GMAT scores in your MBA program stack up against the competition from the most prestigious MBA Programs?

"GMAT::  How Low is Too Low for Top B-Schools?" by: Louis Lavelle, Business Week, August 3, 2011 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/blogs/mba_admissions/archives/2011/08/gmat_how_low_is_too_low_for_top_b-schools.html

Below is a list of publicly available information (or information obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek) on the most recent lowest score or lowest range of scores for our top ten schools. All information is for the Class of 2012. Where available, we’ve provided links to current class profiles.
 

1. Booth School of Business
Median score: 720
Lowest 10 percent: 660 or below
Source: Booth spokesperson

2. Harvard Business School
Median score: 730
Lowest score: 550
Class Profile

3. Wharton School
Median score: 720
Lowest 10 percent: 540
Class Profile

4. Kellogg School of Management
Median score: 720
Lowest 10 percent: 670 or below
Source: Bloomberg Businessweek survey

5. Stanford Graduate School of Business
Median score: 730
Lowest score: 580
Source: Stanford GSB spokesperson

6. Fuqua School of Business
Median Score: 700
Lowest 10 percent: 640 or below
Class Profile

7. Ross School of Business
Average score: 704
Lowest 10 percent: 650 or below
Class Profile

8. Haas School of Business
Average score: 718
Lowest 10 percent: 680 or below
Class Profile

9. Columbia Business School
Median score: NA
Lowest 10 percent: 680 or below
Class Profile

10. Sloan School of Management
Average score: 717
Lowest 10 percent: 680 or below
Class Profile

 

From the Scout Report on July 29, 2011

Cammster --- http://cammster.com/ 

Home security monitoring devices can be pricey, so it's nice to learn about a low-cost alternative. The Cammster program operates a type of motion detector, and users can set up their web camera to keep tabs on a certain area of their residence while they are away. Visitors just need to install the Cammster program and they will be sent "alert" emails at no cost if the program detects any motion. Also, the program has customized settings for those users who might have pets. This version of Cammster works with operating systems running Windows 2000 and newer or Mac OSX 10.3.1 and newer.

---

ClustrMaps --- http://www.clustrmaps.com/ 

Who visits your website? And perhaps more importantly, where are they from? ClustrMaps can provide answers to such questions, and users might even be entertained along the way. Visitors can use the link here to create a counter on their website that will list where visitors are located (using their IP address), along with showing an interactive world map of their respective locations. It's quite useful, and it is completely free for those users who receive fewer than 2500 visitors daily. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

---

States look to collect taxes from online retailers Amazon tax battle: However we vote, Amazon loses
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-amazon-tax-20110725,0,114958.column 

Sales-tax issues make Indiana attractive to Amazon, but at what cost?
http://www.indystar.com/article/20110724/BUSINESS04/307240001/Sales-tax-issues-make-Indiana-attractive-Amazon-what-cost-  

Amazon.com makes a taxing argument http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/jontalton/2015689390_biztaltoncol24.html 

Wal-Mart vs. Amazon in California tax law battle: Booksellers in the crossfire
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/wal-mart-vs-amazon-in-california-tax-law-battle-booksellers-in-the-crossfire/552 

Book lovers mourn Borders closure http://www.dailymail.com/News/Kanawha/201107241299 

Amazon.com Help: Sales Tax http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468512

 

From the Scout Report on August 5, 2011

Aardvark --- http://vark.com/ 

Recently purchased by Google, the Aardvark site is a great way to get quick answers to questions large and small. Visitors can type in their question into the text box on the Aardvark site, and the site will find just the right person to answer the question. Users are encouraged to send questions via Twitter or email as well, and it will generally take just a few minutes to get an answer. Essentially, Aardvark sends out these questions to people in a users' network who are available via IM or email in order to find a suitable response. The site also includes sample questions and contact information. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

---

DuckDuckGo --- http://duckduckgo.com/ 

You may have played "duck duck goose" growing up, but have you used "DuckDuckGo" yet? It's a new search engine that is geared towards those folks browsing the web who are looking for a general, all-purpose way to search for materials online. DuckDuckGo doesn't track users like some search engines, and there's even a "Goodies" section. In this section, users can personalize their search homepage, learn about their syntax commands, and also find out information about their keyboard shortcuts. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

---

After an official declaration of famine in Somalia, supplies begin toarrive
The Horn of Africa: Chronicle of a famine foretold
http://www.economist.com/node/21524864

Somali-Americans Join Fight Against Drought
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Somali-Americans-Join-Fight-
Against-Drought-in-the-Horn-of-Africa-126392493.html

With famine in Somalia, a case of leadership (not compassion) fatigue
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/with-famine-in-somalia-
a-case-of-leadership-not-compassion-fatigue/2011/08/03/gIQAulkerI_story.html

Video: Africa famine: Thousands of Somalis continue to flood to Kenyan
refugee camps
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/8678815/Africa-
famine-thousands-of-Somalis-continue-to-flock-to-Kenyan-refugee-camp.html

United Nations World Food Programme: Somalia
http://www.wfp.org/countries/somalia

BBC News: Somalia country profile
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1072592.stm

Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

Education Tutorials

Teacher Institute: Exploratorium [iTunes] --- http://www.exploratorium.edu/teacher_institute/

Center for Research and Learning: Multicultural Teaching Strategies --- http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tsmdt.php

The Higher Education Academy: Case studies: Bioscience learning and teaching --- http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/cslandt.aspx

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science --- http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/

The Center for Digital Initiatives: Arkansas State University (cross-discipline teaching) --- http://www.astate.edu/cdi/

Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch

Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

125 Great Science Videos: From Astronomy to Physics & Psychology ---
http://www.openculture.com/science_videos

Society for Neuroscience: Neuroscience Education Resources Virtual Encycloportal [pdf, Flash Player]
http://www.ndgo.net/sfn/nerve/

Neuroscience for Kids (Science, Medicine, Children) ---  http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html 
Other resources for neuroscience can be found at http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ehc.html 

Neuroscience Information Framework --- http://neuinfo.org/

Exploring Life's Origins: A Virtual Exhibition --- http://exploringorigins.org

Video
Astonish Me: A Magical Mystery Through Nature’s Hidden Secrets --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/astonish_me_the_mysteries_nature_holds.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

BioEd Online: Spider in Space Mission Page --- http://www.bioedonline.org/space/STS_Mission_134S.cfm

Video
The Moon Up Close in High Definition --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/the_moon_up_close_in_hd.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Related Content:

Touring the Earth from Space (in HD)

The Best of NASA Space Shuttle Videos (1981-2010)

 

The Higher Education Academy: Case studies: Bioscience learning and teaching --- http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/cslandt.aspx

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science --- http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/

STEM - Minnesota State Colleges and Universities --- http://www.stem.project.mnscu.edu/

MESSENGER (NASA investigation of the planet Mercury) ---  http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/index.php

Going Supernova | Amazing Space Photos --- http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/news-spacepictures/39/#

American Association of Physicists in Medicine Medical Physics Resource Page --- http://www.aapm.org/links/medphys/

The Animal Communication Project --- https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/1317670940060d22

Natural History Museum - Other Invertebrates --- http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/other-invertebrates/index.html

Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach --- http://www.ceeo.tufts.edu/

Woods Institute for the Environment --- http://woods.stanford.edu/cgi-bin

August 8, 2011 message from biology professor Bob Blystone

I wish I had discovered this before the end of summer.  Baylor College of Medicine has an interesting education project known as BioEd Online.  One of their projects might interest middle school aged kids...  Spiders in Space.  A variety of activities and a possible science fair project, all done digitally.

http://www.bioedonline.org/space/STS_Mission_134S.cfm

Have a look before we are all back to school.

Bob Blystone
 

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

125 Great Science Videos: From Astronomy to Physics & Psychology ---
http://www.openculture.com/science_videos

Video Lectures in Finance from Yale
Financial Markets Course with Yale
Finance and Economics Professor Robert Shiller
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/robert_shiller_course.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Bob Jensen's threads on free video lectures and courses from prestigious universities
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

National Security Archive: Eleven Possibilities for Pentagon Papers' 11 Words --- http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB350/

TED Video Featuring a Brilliant Physicist:  You Will Be Mesmerized
Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations --- Click Here
http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+%28video%29%29

"Stanford U. Offers Free Online Course in Artificial Intelligence," Jie Jenny Zou, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/stanford-u-offers-free-online-course-in-artificial-intelligence/32622

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco: Center for Pacific Basin Studies --- http://www.frbsf.org/economics/pbc/

Educational Resources from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco --- http://www.frbsf.org/education/

Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPM

This is a Must Read
Dartmouth Professor Ken French comes in for the rescue of CAPM!
"How to use the Fama French Model," Empirical Finance Blog, August 1, 2011 ---
http://blog.empiricalfinancellc.com/2011/08/how-to-use-the-fama-french-model/

The CAPM is prolific, but doesn’t appear to work!

For example, in the figures below I’ve plotted the Fama-French 25 (portfolios ranked on size and book-to-market) against beta.

In the first figure, I plot the average excess return to the FF 25 against the average excess return one would expect, given beta.

If you’d like to see how I calculated the charts above, please reference the excel file here.

Given such a poor track record, is anyone still using the CAPM?

Lot’s of people, apparently…

Welch (2008) finds that ~75% of professors recommend the use of the model when estimating the cost of capital, and Graham and Harvey (2001) find that ~74% of CFOs use the CAPM in their work.

A few quotes from Graham and Harvey 2001 sum up common sentiment regarding the CAPM:

“While the CAPM is popular, we show later that it is not clear that the model is applied properly in practice. Of course, even if it is applied properly, it is not clear that the CAPM is a very good model [see Fama and French (1992)].

“…practitioners might not apply the CAPM or NPV rule correctly. It is also interesting that CFOs pay very little attentionto risk factors based on momentum and book-to-market-value.”

Of course, there are lots of arguments to consider before throwing out the CAPM. Here are a few:

• Everyone learns about it and knows how to use it (although, Graham and Harvey suggest that many practitioners don’t even apply the CAPM theory correctly)
• Data is easy to obtain on betas.
• Roll’s critique–maybe the CAPM isn’t a junk theory, rather, the empirical tests showing the CAPM doesn’t work are bogus.

Regardless, being that this blog is dedicated to empirical data and evidence, and not about ‘mentally masturbating about theoretical finance models,’ we’ll operate under the assumption that the CAPM is dead until new data comes available.

The Fama French Alternative?

Given the CAPM doesn’t work that well in practice, perhaps we should look into the Fama French model (which isn’t perfect or cutting edge, but a solid workhorse nonetheless). And while the FF model inputs are highly controversial, one thing is clear: the FF 3-factor model does a great job explaining the variability of returns. For example, according to Fama French 1993, the 3-factor model explains over 90% of the variability in returns, whereas the CAPM can only explain ~70%!

The 3-factor model is great, but how the heck does one estimate the FF factors?

Dartmouth Professor Ken French comes in for the rescue!

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's criticisms of accounting studies based on misuse of the CAPM
Slow Loading ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccentuateTheObvious

The Demise of Guys
Questions
Why do guys prefer male bonding over female mating?
Why are guys 30% more likely to drop out of college?
Why do guys underperform relative to women at all levels of schooling?
Why are males 2/3 more likely to need special education?
Why are men much more likely to become addicted to drugs and porn?
Why do accounting firms hire more women than men?

Phil Zimbardo is one of the most successful psychology professors in the world and one of this discipline's most well-known authors ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_zimbardo

TED Video
"The Demise of Guys," by Phil Zimbardo, TED --- Click Here
http://www.ted.com/talks/zimchallenge.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+%28video%29%29

Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs --- http://afop.org/

Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing courses, course materials, and videos ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI 

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

Plat Books of Missouri --- http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?c=platic; 

Fair Use Section 107 of the DMCA --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Use
Note that many nations such as Canada do not have Fair Use safe harbors for educators

"Last Round of Filings Made in Georgia State U. Fair-Use Lawsuit," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 4, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/last-round-of-filings-made-in-georgia-state-u-fair-use-lawsuit/35088?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

The plaintiffs and the defendants in the fair-use lawsuit that has pitted three academic publishers against Georgia State University have now filed their final post-trial briefs. That was the last opportunity for each side to make its case before the federal judge overseeing the case in Atlanta delivers a ruling. No date has been set for a decision in the closely watched case, but observers say one is likely by early fall. Cambridge U. Press, Oxford U. Press, and SAGE Publications have alleged that the use of copyrighted material in e-reserves and on faculty Web sites has exceeded the bounds of fair use. (See here for different opinions on what’s at stake for higher education.)

Bob Jensen's threads on Section 107 of the dreaded DMCA ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law

Math Tutorials

"Spotting a hoax using statistics," Understanding Uncertainty, August 3, 2011 --- Click Here
http://understandinguncertainty.org/spotting-hoax-using-statistics?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UnderstandingUncertainty+%28Understanding+Uncertainty%29

The Math Guy Radio Archive
Keith Devlin, a Stanford math professor's 78 Tutorials on NPR --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/the_math_guy_radio_archive.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29 

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

History Tutorials

Video:  Richard Dawkins’ Uncut Interviews with Peter Singer & Big Thinkers --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/07/richard_dawkins_uncut_interviews_with_peter_singer_big_thinkers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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  

Pakistan during border disputes with India in 1935
Video: Wings over Waziristan http://airminded.org/2010/04/20/wings-over-waziristan/

25Great Culture Links --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/open_culture_beat_no_8_.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Vladimir Nabokov & Lionel Trilling on Lolita: Another Great Love Story? --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/vladimir_nabokov_lionel_trilling_on_lolita.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Shelburne Museum (paintings, American History) --- http://shelburnemuseum.org/

Name That Painting! --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/07/name_that_painting.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Louisville Herald-Post Collection --- http://digital.library.louisville.edu/collections/heraldpost/

Colorado State University: Great Western Sugar Digital Collection --- http://lib.colostate.edu/archives/greatwestern/

National Security Archive: Eleven Possibilities for Pentagon Papers' 11 Words --- http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB350/

The Food Museum --- http://www.foodmuseum.com/

Colorado State University: Great Western Sugar Digital Collection (note Film Collection)---
http://lib.colostate.edu/archives/greatwestern/

Video:  VJ Day, Honolulu Hawaii, August 14, 1945 --- http://vimeo.com/5645171

50 Famous Scientists & Academics Speak About God: Part II --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/50_famous_scientists_academics_speak_about_god_part_ii.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Hiroshima After the Atomic Bomb in 360 Degrees --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/08/hiroshima_after_the_atomic_bomb_in_360.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Nevada Division of State Parks --- http://parks.nv.gov/

Online Nevada Encyclopedia --- http://www.onlinenevada.org/

From Auburn University
Eugene B. Sledge Collection (Historical Photographs) --- http://diglib.auburn.edu/collections/ebsledge/

Plat Books of Missouri
http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?c=platic;

University of Idaho Historical Photograph Collection --- http://contentdm.lib.uidaho.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/spec_uihp

Forwarded by Paula

JUST CLICK ON A DATE AND SIT BACK AND ENJOY

 

1. JACKIE GLEASON ON THE ROCKY MARCIANO SHOW THE MAIN EVENT (1960) 
2.  JAMES DEAN: HIS FINAL TV APPEARANCE (1954)  
3.  ELVIS SINGS BLUE SUEDE SHOES (1956)  
4.  A TRIBUTE TO ELVIS PRESLEY, THE KING OF ROCK & ROLL (1959-62)  
5.  THE EDSEL INTRODUCED ON NBC (1957)  
6.  BOBBY DARIN'S "MACK THE KNIFE" (1959)  
7.  WESTINGHOUSE DEBUTS HI-TECH "ADVANCED TV" (1951) 
8.  WILLIAM BENDIX AS LOVABLE CHESTER A. RILEY (1956)  
9.  ICONS I: WHAT MADE 50'S TV GOLDEN (COMPILATION, (1952-60)  
10.  THE PATTI PAGE SHOW (1958) 
11. BLOOPERS FROM THE HONEYMOONERS (1957-58) 
12.  THE CENSORED JERRY LEE LEWIS HERE UNCENSORED! (1957-59) 
13.  A TRUE 50's DOO WOP TV CLASSIC (1958) 
14.  FAMILY AFFAIR (1966) 
15.  ALAN FREED'S BIG BEAT DANCE PARTY DANCERS (1959) 
16.  THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW (1957) 
17.  The Inventor Of TV Sketch Comedy ERNIE KOVACS (1954) 
18.  THE RED SKELTON SHOW (1959) 
19.  ICONS: THE DELINQUENCY RAMPAGE! (COMPILATION, 1957-60) 
20.  FATHER KNOWS BEST (1953) 
21.  PETTICOAT JUNCTION (1962) 
22.  OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST BOB MATTHIAS (1956) 
23.  DANCES OF THE 1950's: THE HAND JIVE (1957) 
24.  GROUCHO MARX YOU BET YOUR LIFE (1959) 
25.  DRAGNET (1959) 
26.  THE IMMORTAL MUSICAL COMEDY OF VICTOR BORGE 1951 
27.  EDDIE FISHER SINGS A MEDLEY OF HIS BIGGEST HITS 1953 
28.  ABBOTT & COSTELLO: WHO'S ON FIRST? 1951 
29.  MORE DANCES OF THE 1950's THE JITTERBUG 1958 
30. THE HONEYMOONERS ... IN COLOR! 1969 
31.  THE ORIGINAL FLASH GORDON SERIAL theatres-1939; TV-1960's 
32.  THE LONE RANGER 1955 
33.  THE ENDEARING GRIMACES OF EDDIE CANTOR 1952 
34.  BOBBY DARIN NERVOUSLY HOSTS A BEAUTY CONTEST 1957 
35.  MORE DANCES OF THE 1950's: THE LINDY HOP 1959 
36.  SHAKE, BABY, SHAKE!  IT'S THE KILLER AGAIN! 1958 
37.  THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW 1958 
38.  SID CAESAR: YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS 1957 
39.  HERE COMES TOBOR! 1954 
40.  THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN 1954 
41.  THE ADVENTURES OF FLIPPER 1964 
42.  SPIKE JONES 1951 
43.  CAPTAIN VIDEO & HIS VIDEO RANGERS 1950 
44.  THE LIBERACE SHOW 1952 
45.  MEDIC 1954 
46.  THE BIG VALLEY 1965 
47.  THE ROOTS OF TV BASEBALL 1950-57 
48.  Mc HALE'S NAVY 1962 
49.  HOPALONG CASSIDY 1952 
50.  DARK SHADOWS 1966 
51.  FADS & FANCIES OF THE 50s & 60s 
52.  I LOVE LUCY 1952 
53.  THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW 1962 
54.  THE BEATLES FIRST TELEVISION APPEARANCE 1963 
55.  BAT MASTERSON 1958 
56.  MARTY ROBBINS ON THE JOHNNY CASH SHOW 1964 
57.  FRANK SINATRA SPEAKS CANDIDLY 1954 
58.  PASSWORD 1962 
59.  STAR TREK TV ON DEMAND 1966-present 
60.  MORE DANCES OF THE 50's: THE SWINGBACK 1958 
61.  THE LIVE TV FRIDGE COMMERCIAL CATASTROPHE 1954 
62.  THE ARTHUR GODFREY SHOW 1957 
63.   BUILDING THE 1958 DODGE 1957 
64.  FIGHT CLASSIC: ROCKY MARCIANO vs. JERSEY JOE WALCOTT 1952 
65.  AND MORE GREAT ICONS OF THE 50's VOL III 1952-59 
66.  ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS 1959 
67.  SATURDAY NIGHTLIVE~~ BEFORE SNL 1954-58 
68.  FELIX THE CAT 1959 
69.  THE DONNA REED SHOW 1958 
70.  THE GOLDBERGS 1952 
71.  LUCILLE BALL & CAROL BURNETT 1965 
72.  THE LITTLE RASCALS 1955 
73.  HIGHWAY PATROL 1956 
74.  LOST IN SPACE 1966 
75.  BEULAH 1951 
76.  BEWITCHED 1966 
77.  I DREAM OF JEANIE 1966 
78.  SEA HUNT 1957 
79.  DYNAMITE JOE RINDONE 1954 
80.  THE MILTON BERLE SHOW 1957 

 

Language Tutorials

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages

Music Tutorials

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music

Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

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/

August 2, 2011

• Mold Exposure in Infancy Raises Asthma Risk
• How Does Your Brain Respond to Food?
• No More Co-pay for Birth Control
• DHA During Pregnancy May Cut Infant Colds
• Colon Cleansing May Be Risky, Study Finds
• Little Exercise Beats None
• New Asthma Genes Found in Africans, Japanese
• Brain Shrinkage Linked to Smoking, Obesity, Diabetes
• Statins Lower Risk of 2nd Stroke in Young Adults
• Electromagnetic Fields Linked to Asthma in Kids

August 3, 2011

• Mold Exposure in Infancy Raises Asthma Risk
• Salmonella-Tainted Ground Turkey Outbreak Hits 26 States
• CDC Report: Hospitals Need to Improve Breastfeeding Support
• Heart Testing Overused, Report Finds
• Study: Antipsychotic Drug Does Not Help Veterans With PTSD
• Little Exercise Beats None
• Brain Shrinkage Linked to Smoking, Obesity, Diabetes
• New Asthma Genes Found in Africans, Japanese
• How Does Your Brain Respond to Food?
• DHA During Pregnancy May Cut Infant Colds

August 4, 2011

• Flame Retardants, Chemicals Found in Child Car Seats
• 50,000 New HIV Infections Each Year in U.S.
• New Strain of Tick-Borne Disease Discovered
• Very Old Don't Always Have Healthy Habits
• Urine Test May Help Predict Prostate Cancer
• Suicide Brain May Hold Key to Depression
• Mold Exposure in Infancy Raises Asthma Risk
• Salmonella-Tainted Ground Turkey Outbreak Hits 26 States
• CDC Report: Hospitals Need to Improve Breastfeeding Support
• Heart Testing Overused, Report Finds

August 5, 2011

• FDA Approves First Drug for Scorpion Stings
• Survey: Americans Aware of Functional Foods, Don't Eat Them Enough
• 36 Million Pounds of Ground Turkey Recalled
• Antidepressants Prescribed Without Psychiatric Diagnosis
• Study: Healthy Eating Costs More
• Steep Decline in Autopsy Rate Since 1970s
• Gene Discovery Could Lead to New Stroke Treatments
• 6 Steps to Improved Nail -- and Overall -- Health
• Very Old Don't Always Have Healthy Habits
• Suicide Brain May Hold Key to Depression

August 6, 2011

• Eating Disorders Affect Fertility, Pregnancy
• Ways to Combat Mindless Eating
• Some Weight Loss Improves Erections in Obese Men With Diabetes
• Expert Tips on Turning Back the Hands of Time
• Survey: Americans Aware of Functional Foods, Don't Eat Them Enough
• Steep Decline in Autopsy Rate Since 1970s
• 6 Steps to Improved Nail -- and Overall -- Health
• Gene Discovery Could Lead to New Stroke Treatments
• Study: Healthy Eating Costs More
• Antidepressants Prescribed Without Psychiatric Diagnosis

August 9, 2011

• Deep Brain Stimulation May Offer Lasting Benefits for Parkinson’s Disease
• Early Morning Smokers Have Higher Cancer Risk
• Teething May Not Be Linked to Fever
• Love May Boost Athletic Performance
• New Advice for Keeping Young Athletes Safe in Heat
• Dieters Tend to Overeat When Stressed
• Facebook: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• Low-Carb Diets May Improve Acne
• Soy Tablets Little Help for Bone Loss, Hot Flashes
• Schizophrenia Cause: Neural Circuits, Not Mom

August 10, 2011

• Gene Therapy Cures Adult Leukemia
• 57 Genes Now Linked to MS
• Red Meat, Processed Meat Linked to Diabetes Risk
• How Fast Is Your Biological Clock Ticking?
• Breathing Problems During Sleep Linked to Memory Problems
• Curry Spice Offers Hope for Tendinitis Pain
• Men vs. Women: Personality Traits Similar, but Job Success Differs
• Deep Brain Stimulation May Offer Lasting Benefits for Parkinson’s Disease
• Early Morning Smokers Have Higher Cancer Risk
• Teething May Not Be Linked to Fever

August 11, 2011

• Risk of Heart Disease 25% Higher for Women Smokers
• New Blood Thinner Prevents Strokes in Heart Patients
• Gene Therapy Cures Adult Leukemia
• Red Meat, Processed Meat Linked to Diabetes Risk
• Music Therapy May Ease Anxiety of Cancer Patients
• Study: Alzheimer's Harder to Spot Past Age 80
• Experimental Drug May Treat Chronic Constipation
• 57 Genes Now Linked to MS
• Parkinson's Patients Do Best if Treated by Neurologist
• Curry Spice Offers Hope for Tendinitis Pain

August 12, 2011

August 13, 2011

• What Face Transplants Can, Can't Do
• Study: Paper Money Contains Traces of BPA
• Rapid Blood Test Identifies Infection Type
• Uncommon Skin Infection Linked to Tattoos
• FDA Approves Once-Daily HIV Pill Complera
• Hib Disease Increasing Among Adults
• Depression Raises Women's Stroke Risk
• Risk of Heart Disease 25% Higher for Women Smokers
• Red Meat, Processed Meat Linked to Diabetes Risk
• Experimental Drug May Treat Chronic Constipation

August 17, 2011

• New Study May Aid Search for AIDS Vaccine
• 5 Genes Linked to Aggressive Prostate Cancer
• 15 Minutes of Exercise Every Day Reduces Risk of Death
• Smoking Increases Bladder Cancer Risk More Than Thought
• Fat Around Heart May Be Linked to Clogged Arteries
• Study: Obese People Live as Long as Slimmer People
• Childhood Obesity, Drug Abuse Top Concerns for Children
• West Nile Virus in 15 States
• 'Bath Salts' Have Effects Similar to Meth, Ecstasy
• Breastfeeding May Cut Risk of Some Breast Cancers

August 18, 2011

• Dogs Sniff Out Lung Cancer in Humans
• Zelboraf Approved for Late-Stage Melanoma
• Ultrasound of Neck Predicts Who Will Have a Stroke
• Moderate Alcohol Drinking May Cut Alzheimer's Risk
• New Study May Aid Search for AIDS Vaccine
• Antibody Could Help Predict Ovarian Cancer
• Fat Around Heart May Be Linked to Clogged Arteries
• 5 Genes Linked to Aggressive Prostate Cancer
• Study: Obese People Live as Long as Slimmer People
• Smoking Increases Bladder Cancer Risk More Than Thought

August 19, 2011

• Brain-Eating Amoeba FAQ
• Is Calcium Test the Best Way to Check Heart Risk?
• Marital Conflict May Not Ease Over Time
• Many Health Care Workers Don't Get Flu Vaccines
• 4 Keys to a Long Life
• ADHD in Children Is on the Rise
• Many Doctors Ignore Guidelines, Order Annual Pap Test
• Ultrasound of Neck Predicts Who Will Have a Stroke
• Dogs Sniff Out Lung Cancer in Humans
• New Study May Aid Search for AIDS Vaccine

August 21, 2011

• FDA Approves New Drug for Lymphoma
• Vitamins May Lower Risk of Birth Complication
• Whey Protein May Beat Casein After Workouts
• Is Calcium Test the Best Way to Check Heart Risk?
• Many Health Care Workers Don't Get Flu Vaccines
• Marital Conflict May Not Ease Over Time
• Brain-Eating Amoeba FAQ
• 4 Keys to a Long Life
• Many Doctors Ignore Guidelines, Order Annual Pap Test
• ADHD in Children Is on the Rise

Should you not lie down while having a heart attack?
http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/aspirin.asp

Forwarded by Eileen

Let's put the seniors in jail and the criminals in a nursing home. This way the seniors would have access to showers, hobbies and walks. They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs, etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out.They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly if they fell, or needed assistance.

Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.

They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request. Private, secure! rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens. Each senior could have a PC, a TV, radio and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.

The "criminals" would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay $1,500.00 per month and have no hope of ever getting out.

Justice for all we say.

Case Illustration of How to Compound a Felony

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/

Find a College
College Atlas --- http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone of Fraud  (College, Inc.) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud

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

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

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

All my online pictures --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/

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