Tidbits on October 11, 2012
Bob Jensen?
at Trinity University
Set 4
of My Favorite Foliage Photographs (2012)
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Foliage/Set14/FoliageSet03.htm
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Tidbits on October 11, 2012
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/
The Cult of Statistical Significance:
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
How Accountics Scientists Should Change:
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review
I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
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
CPA, CPA, CPA ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXaVOkv_tyA&feature=share
Peter Sellers Gives a Quick Demonstration of British Accents
---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/peter_sellers_gives_a_quick_demonstration_of_british_accents.html
How to Make Better Decisions, a Thought-Provoking Documentary by the BBC ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/ihow_to_make_better_decisionsi_a_thought-provoking_documentary_by_the_bbc.html
Neil Armstrong’s Parents Appear on the Classic American TV
Show “I’ve Got a Secret,1962" ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/neil_armstrongs_parents_appear_on_the_classic_american_tv_show_ive_got_a_secret_1962.html
Hint: This isn't connected to the joke that "we'll have oral sex when the
kid next door walks on the moon" ---
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mrgorsky.asp
NPR Video on Pacioli: The Accountant Who Changed The
World ---
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/10/04/162296423/the-accountant-who-changed-the-world
Jensen Comment
It's never been clear how much the mathematician Pacioli changed the accounting
world since his brand of double entry accounting was here long before he was
born and long after he died. He did reduce it to s set of equations, but did
this change the world?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
An Unusual Rendition of the U.S. National Anthem
---
http://www.starspangledbannerchallenge.com/
Flash-mob Ode to Joy ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJcQYVtZMo
Thank you Aaron Konstam for the heads up.
James Cagney and Bob Hope ---
http://videos2view.net/Hope-Cagney.htm
Sean Connery Reads C.P. Cavafy’s Epic Poem
“Ithaca,” Set to the Music of Vangelis ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/sean_connery_reads_cp_cavafys_epic_poem_ithaca_set_to_the_music_of_vangelis.html
Tango Flamenco (Guitar) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWCmubP5h9c&feature=related
Tango Viena 2012 ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=wd5xaPT2I9M
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
3D Panorama Videos Cities all over the World ---
http://www.360cities.net/map#lat=45&lng=19&zoom=2
What an Astronaut’s Camera Sees (and What a
Geographer Learns About Our Planet) from the ISS ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/what_an_astronauts_camera_sees_at_night.html
Photographs of Wonderful Places Around the World
---
http://www.airpano.com/360Degree-VirtualTour.php?3D=Victoria-Falls-Zambia-Zimbabwe
NSSN Virginia Class Attack Submarine, United
States of America ---
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nssn/
Dwell (interior building designs) ---
http://www.dwell.com/
Queen Elisabeth Morphing ---
http://www.flixxy.com/queen-elisabeth-morphing.htm#.UGh7HWcsGN8
Noah's Ark in Hong Kong ---
http://www.noahsark.com.hk/eng/index.php
Art Lovers Rejoice! New Goya and Rembrandt
Databases Now Online ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/art_lovers_rejoice_new_goya_and_rembrandt_databases_now_online.html
Incredible Finger Drawings by Judith Braun ---
http://www.boredpanda.com/finger-paintings-judith-braun/
Transcontinental Railroad Pictures and Exhibits ---
http://cprr.org/Museum/Exhibits.html
Steamtown National Historic Site (steam locomotives) ---
http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm
American Railroad Journal ---
http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?page=home;c=arj
Railroad Picture Archives ---
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/
American Railroad Journal ---
http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?page=home;c=arj
The Countryside Transformed: The Railroad and the Eastern Shore of Virginia,
1870-1935 ---
http://eshore.vcdh.virginia.edu/index.php
City of Chicago Landmarks ---
http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/landmarksweb/web/home.htm
Picture Chicago ---
http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/chicago/index.asp
Historical Society of Michigan ---
http://www.hsmichigan.org/
Joel Halpern in Macedonia Photographs (anthropology) ---
http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/galleries/halpern.htm
Ward Morgan Photography, Southwest Michigan 1939-1980 ---
http://cdm16259.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p124301coll2
Dementia: The Self-Portraits of William
Utermohlen: When he learned in 1995 that he had Alzheimer’s disease,
William Utermohlen, an American artist living in London, immediately began work
on an ambitious series of self-portraits ---
Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/photogallery/429486/dementia-the-self-portraits-of-william-utermohlen/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121005
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
LibriVox (audio books) ---
http://librivox.org/
LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the
public domain. There are several options for listening. The first step is to
get the mp3 or ogg files into your own computer:
Would you like to record chapters of books
in the public domain?
It's easy to volunteer. All you
need is a computer, some free recording software, and your own voice.
Bob Jensen's links to audio versions of books and poems ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Audio
Choices Reading Lists ---
http://www.reading.org/resources/booklists.aspx
Moby Dick Big Read (audio version) ---
http://www.mobydickbigread.com/
Frequently Challenged Books ---
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged
Sean Connery Reads C.P. Cavafy’s Epic Poem “Ithaca,” Set to
the Music of Vangelis ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/sean_connery_reads_cp_cavafys_epic_poem_ithaca_set_to_the_music_of_vangelis.html
Vladimir Nabokov Makes Editorial Tweaks to Franz Kafka’s
Novella The Metamorphosis ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/vladimir_nabokov_makes_editorial_tweaks_to_franz_kafkas_novella_ithe_metamorphosisi.html
Read Joyce’s Ulysses Line by Line, for the Next 22 Years, with
Frank Delaney’s Podcast ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/the_irejoycei_podcast_takes_you_through_james_joyces_iulyssesi_line_by_line_for_the_next_22_years.html
William Faulkner Tells His Post Office Boss to Stick It (1924)
Drinking with William Faulkner
William Faulkner Audio Archive Goes Online
William Faulkner Reads from As I Lay
Dying
Free Electronic Literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Book---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookselling
Center for History of the Book ---
http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb/
Find Books to Read
Bob Jensen's threads on free
electronic literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Best Selling Books ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_books
"Amazon Lights the Fire With Free BooksL Today, Amazon unveiled
something radical: the Kindle Lending Library," by David Pogue, The New
York Times, November 2, 2011 ---
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/amazon-lights-the-fire-with-free-books/
Especially for Children ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Children
Choices Reading Lists ---
http://www.reading.org/resources/booklists.aspx
Goodreads ---
http://www.goodreads.com/
The Book Cover Archive ---
http://bookcoverarchive.com/
Lesson Planet: Poetry Lesson
Plans ---
http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=poetry&media=lesson
Reading Rockets: Literary
Resources for Teachers ---
http://www.readingrockets.org/audience/teachers/
Frequently Challenged Books
---
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged
The Harvard Classics: A Free,
Digital Collection ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/07/the_harvard_classics_a_free_digital_collection.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
The
University of Michigan Digital Humanities Series ---
http://www.digitalculture.org/books/book-series/digital-humanities-series/
Free eBooks
"How to Download Free Ebooks With just a little searching, you can
find and download free, legal ebooks for your e-reader, smartphone, or
tablet," by Michael King, PC World, Oct 15, 2011 ---
http://www.pcworld.com/article/241717/how_to_download_free_ebooks.html#tk.nl_wbx_t_crawl2
Digital Public Library of America ---
http://dp.la/
Google Book
Search ---
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/08/books-of-world-stand-up-and-be-counted.html
"Google's Book Search: A Disaster for
Scholars," by Geoffrey Nunberg, Chronicle of Higher Education,
August 31, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Googles-Book-Search-A/48245/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Hundreds of Other links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Lost Titles, Forgotten Rhymes: How to Find a Novel, Short
Story, or Poem Without Knowing its Title or Author ---
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/lost/
"QuickWire: Top 10 Trends in Academic Libraries," by
Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 16, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/quickwire-top-10-trends-in-academic-libraries/31796?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
eBook Readers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Ebooks.htm
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on October 11, 2012
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2012/TidbitsQuotations101112.htm
U.S. National Debt Clock ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Also see
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
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
"Who is Telling the Truth? The Fact Wars: ," as written on
the Cover of Time Magazine
Jensen Comment
Both U.S. presidential candidates are spending tends of millions of dollars to
spread lies and deceptions.
Both are alleged Christian gentlemen, a faith where big lies are sins
jeopardizing the immortal soul.
The race boils down to the sad fact that the biggest Christian liar will win the
race for the presidency in November 2012.
"Who is Telling the Truth? The Fact Wars: ," as written on
the Cover of Time Magazine
"Blue Truth-Red Truth: Both candidates say White House hopefuls should
talk straight with voters. Here's why neither man is ready to take his own
advice ,"
by Michael Scherer (and Alex Altma), Time Magazine Cover Story, October
15, 2012, pp. 24-30 ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/PresidentialCampaignLies2012.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on Rotten to the Core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
Center for Financial Services Innovation
---
http://cfsinnovation.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on personal finance
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers
Think of a dubious tactic of doubling tuition
and then giving all student prospects 50% scholarships to attract more
applicants
"Net-Price Calculators Get the Kayak
Treatment," by Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, October
9, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/net-price-calculators-get-the-kayak-treatment/32238?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Remember when
net-price calculators were going to be the
next U.S. News & World Report rankings? That’s the comparison
that staff members at Maguire Associates, a consulting firm, made a
couple of years ago in a paper
explaining what the calculators could mean for
admissions.
But the calculators, which allow students to
estimate what they would pay at a particular college after grants and
scholarships, don’t seem to have gained much traction yet. While
colleges have been required to post the calculators on their Web sites
for nearly a year now,
early evidence shows that only about a third
of prospective students have tried one out.
The Maguire
Associates paper predicted that online aggregators would spring up to
allow students to compare their net prices at different colleges, much
as Kayak.com lets travelers compare air fares. The prediction has come
true: A new Web site,
College Abacus,
lets students do just that.
Whether this new
comparison tool will encourage more prospective students to use the
calculators, though, remains to be seen.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education
controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Sukuk ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukuk
Islamic Bond Excitement in Financial Markets
"Interested in buying sukuk? by Sabine Vollmer, CGMA Magazine, October 5,
2012 ---
http://www.cgma.org/magazine/news/pages/20126503.aspx
Following financial crises in the US and Europe,
investors are increasingly attracted to raising funds for investments
through Islamic bonds called “sukuk.”
Sukuk are an alternative to conventional bonds that
governments and companies sell regularly to raise funds. They comply with
sharia law, the moral code of conduct based on the Quran, which prohibits
charging interest and trading in debt.
Ernst & Young’s Global Islamic Banking Centre of
Excellence projects that global demand for sukuk is likely to triple
to $900 billion in 2017. Here are a few reasons
for the surge:
- The world’s Muslim population is growing at
about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population, the
Pew Research Center estimates, driving the
growth of the Islamic banking industry.
- Banks in the Middle East are flush with cash
because of high oil prices. Islamic banks, particularly those that were
not hard hit by the financial crises in the US and Europe, are looking
for opportunities to park their cash. Worldwide, Islamic assets held by
banks account for an estimated $1.1 trillion, according to Ernst &
Young’s
Islamic banking report. Their share of all
commercial bank assets varies from country to country. In the Middle
East and North Africa, Islamic assets constitute an average 14% of
banks’ assets.
- Muslim countries have increased government
spending to stimulate, develop and sustain economic activity since the
beginning of the Arab Spring.
- Investors worldwide are seeking safer
investments following global financial crises. Sukuk are unsecured,
asset-based loans. Unlike asset-backed loans, which use buildings, land
or patents as collateral, sukuk must be based at least 51% on an asset
that generates rent, such as a building. The sukuk issuer can make
amortised payments or a bullet payment at the end to pay off the sukuk.
While the majority of the payments must come from the rent, a smaller
portion can come from profits that a business generated.
“Would the growth be the same if the US and the
European market weren’t in crisis? Perhaps yes, but not at the rate you see
now,” said Rizwan Kanji, a lawyer who specialises in sukuk transactions in
the Dubai office of the law firm King & Spalding. “… The growth of sukuk
will continue while the Western markets recover.”
Establishing a global standardised sukuk trading
platform that is open to all financial institutions would go a long way
toward spurring more supply, according to Ashar Nazim, E&Y’s MENA Islamic
finance services leader.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
CGMA Magazine seems to be getting more and more innovative ---
http://www.cgma.org/magazine/Pages/MagazineHome.aspx
Bob Jensen's threads on Islamic and Social Responsibility Accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#IslamicAccounting
Tenure Track Versus Non-Tenure Track Versus ??????
"A New Faculty Path," by Adrianna Kezar, Susan Albertine and Dan
Maxey, Inside Higher Ed, October 2, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/10/02/essay-new-effort-rethink-faculty-roles-and-treatment-adjuncts
With all the recent discussions about disruptive
technologies and ways to increase completion rates, too little attention has
been paid to the roles of faculty members in the emerging new academy. What
kinds of faculty do we need to ensure the success of today’s "new majority"
students who are older, attend multiple institutions, come from families
whose members have not attended college, and who have increased need for
remediation and attention from faculty ? Who is currently carrying the
biggest load in teaching these students, especially at the introductory
levels, where far too many students drop out of college? How will faculty
roles evolve in this new environment? To answer these questions, we need to
take a hard look at the current status of college faculty — including the
large percentage of those not tenured nor on the tenure track.
Today, more than 70 percent of all faculty members responsible for
instruction at not-for-profit institutions serve in non-tenure-track (NTT)
positions. The numbers are startling, but numbers alone do not capture the
essence of this problem. Many of our colleagues among this growing category
of non-tenure-track faculty experience poor working conditions and a lack of
support. Not only is it difficult for them to provide for themselves and
their families, but their working conditions also interfere with their
ability to offer the best educational experience for their students.
Emerging research demonstrates that increases in the numbers of
non-tenure-track faculty, particularly part-time faculty, and the lack of
support they receive have adverse effects on our most important goals for
student learning. For example, studies connect rising contingency to
diminished graduation rates, fewer transfers from two- to four-year
institutions, and lower grade-point averages. Other studies have found that
non-tenure-track faculty make less frequent use of high-impact practices and
collaborative, creative teaching techniques that we know are associated with
deeper learning. They may not utilize innovative pedagogies for fear of poor
student evaluations that might jeopardize their reappointment; they may have
been excluded from professional development intended to hone faculty skills;
they may be driving long distances to accumulate courses in several
institutions. And to be clear, it is non-tenure-track faculty’s working
conditions, exclusion from campus life, and lack of support that accounts
for these findings. (A summary of all this research may be
found here.)
Even after years of urging and mounting calls for
change, few institutions have developed policies and practices to support
non-tenure-track faculty members or include them more completely in the life
of our campuses. They remain "adjunct" to the institution -- something
supplemental and perhaps not treated as an essential part of the whole. A
growing number of educators agree this situation cannot continue if we are
to have any success in improving the quality of student learning -- the core
of our mission and the source of our collective future well-being.
Seeing so little action toward change, advocates for these faculty members
from among the various stakeholder groups, ourselves included, are growing
frustrated by what is not being done. However, where many see willful
neglect, we see complicated systemic problems and compelling numbers of
well-intentioned educators who simply do not know how to address what they
know to be a problem. Important efforts by academic unions and disciplinary
societies have increased awareness of the problem and offered new
professional standards to respond to the inequities in contingent
employment. However, no group working alone has been able to make meaningful
progress.
So, we are stuck. It is for this reason that we started the
Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success
in partnership with the Association of American
Colleges and Universities. We sought to do something that has never been
done before, to convene a broad range of key stakeholders interested in the
changing faculty and student success to seek a better understanding of these
issues in our time and develop strategies to address contingency and a
vision for the new faculty together.
In using a Delphi approach, key stakeholders or experts on an issue are
first surveyed on a complex policy issue; these stakeholders are then
convened in person to discuss the issue – including their points of
consensus and divergence – and to develop thoughtfully conceived solutions.
We invited leaders from national associations such as the American Council
on Education and the American Association of Community Colleges. Policy
groups such as the Education Commission of the States and Western Interstate
Commission on Higher Education joined the project. In addition to these
groups, we invited the leaders of accreditation agencies, disciplinary
societies, academic unions, faculty researchers, and academic leaders such
as presidents, representatives of governing boards, deans and provosts. We
also included advocacy organizations for NTT faculty, such as New Faculty
Majority.
In May, we came together outside Washington.
A report from our
deliberations is now available on the project website, as are several
resources that were prepared for the meeting to frame participants’
understanding of the research that has been conducted on non-tenure track
faculty and national trend data about their growth in numbers over 40 years.
The end result of the meeting was the formation of two major, parallel
strategies for moving forward:
The first strategy will engage higher education organizations and
stakeholders in reconceptualizing the professoriate, including redefined
faculty roles (beyond existing tenure or non-tenure-track faculty), rewards,
and professional standards. A second strategy will lead to the creation of
data and resource tool kits for use by campus stakeholders including faculty
task forces, administrators, and governing boards, as well as accrediting
agencies. The tool kits will draw upon existing knowledge and data,
providing a blueprint for promoting greater awareness of non-tenure-track
faculty issues. They will also provide examples of positive practices to
support non-tenure-track faculty and show how policy change is possible
among different types of institutions.
Undergirding all of our discussions was a shared acknowledgement that the
academy lacks the information, data, shared awareness, and models necessary
for supporting non-tenure-track faculty and achieving a vision for the
future of the professoriate — even as the pace of change in higher education
accelerates. Throughout our efforts, we have been attentive to the vast
heterogeneity of non-tenure-track faculty as a group and the idea that the
character of higher education institutions is extremely diverse. We have
worked from a common understanding that any set of recommendations must be
attuned to this heterogeneity and diversity.
Key insights and ways to begin addressing this problem include:
1. Collective action: No one group can effectively solve
this problem alone. Collective action is needed to address its many
complicated parts – the growing expenses of providing a high-quality college
education amid declining state support, a lack of good faculty data, the
scarcity of campus staffing plans, minimal access to best practices or
effective models, the potential overproduction of Ph.D.s, and a tendency for
prestige-seeking and mission drift by colleges and universities, to name
only a few. The multifaceted and complicated nature of the problem is the
reason why it persists and has endured so long. In coming together, we have
to understand the priorities that connect us and the serious implications of
inaction.
2. Perspective: Bringing together
stakeholders with diverse perspectives helped us to identify all of the
aspects of the problem so that they could be addressed in new ways.
Perspective-taking is helpful. Coming to see the issue through the point of
view of other stakeholders, many participants began to understand the issues
differently and to see their role in creating solutions.
3. Common ground: There are many
more common perspectives than would be expected among such a diverse group
of stakeholders. Project participants generally agreed that the current
three-tiered system (tenure-track, full-time non-tenure-track and part-time
non-tenure track) is broken, that student success is being compromised, and
that better data systems and greater awareness can promote movement toward
better policies and practices to support non-tenure-track faculty.
4. The future professoriate: While
we could not come to full agreement about what the nature of the future
professoriate should be, we did agree to many common principles. They
include the importance of academic freedom, shared governance, a livable
wage, and greater job security for non-tenure-track faculty (in the form of
multiyear contracts). There was also agreement that teaching and scholarship
cannot be fully unbundled, that institutional roles should differ by
institutional type, and that above all other goals, student success should
be the primary focus of any faculty work. As we continue our work, we will
refine these ideas into a workable vision for our future.
5. Trust: We need to learn to
trust each other in order to address this problem. Unfortunately, trust in
higher education has worn thin following the decline of shared governance,
the rise in unilateral decision-making, and the apparent protectionism of
narrow interests among the various stakeholders.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on tenure-track versus non-tenure track faculty ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#TenurePQ
Above all, Mr. Silver urges forecasters to become
Bayesians. The English mathematician Thomas Bayes used a mathematical rule to
adjust a base probability number in light of new evidence
Book Review of The Signal and the Noise
by Nate Silver
Price: 16.44 at Barnes and Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-signal-and-the-noise-nate-silver/1111307421?ean=9781594204111
"Telling Lies From Statistics: Forecasters must avoid
overconfidence—and recognize the degree of uncertainty that attends even the
most careful predictions," by Burton G. Malkiel, The Wall Street Journal,
September 24, 2012 ---
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444554704577644031670158646.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t&mg=reno64-wsj
It is almost a parlor game, especially as elections
approach—not only the little matter of who will win but also: by how much?
For Nate Silver, however, prediction is more than a game. It is a science,
or something like a science anyway. Mr. Silver is a well-known forecaster
and the founder of the New York Times political blog FiveThirtyEight.com,
which accurately predicted the outcome of the last presidential election.
Before he was a Times blogger, he was known as a careful analyst of (often
widely unreliable) public-opinion polls and, not least, as the man who hit
upon an innovative system for forecasting the performance of Major League
Baseball players. In "The Signal and the Noise," he takes the reader on a
whirlwind tour of the success and failure of predictions in a wide variety
of fields and offers advice about how we might all improve our forecasting
skill.
Mr. Silver reminds us that we live in an era of
"Big Data," with "2.5 quintillion bytes" generated each day. But he strongly
disagrees with the view that the sheer volume of data will make predicting
easier. "Numbers don't speak for themselves," he notes. In fact, we imbue
numbers with meaning, depending on our approach. We often find patterns that
are simply random noise, and many of our predictions fail: "Unless we become
aware of the biases we introduce, the returns to additional information may
be minimal—or diminishing." The trick is to extract the correct signal from
the noisy data. "The signal is the truth," Mr. Silver writes. "The noise is
the distraction."
The first half of Mr. Silver's analysis looks
closely at the success and failure of predictions in clusters of fields
ranging from baseball to politics, poker to chess, epidemiology to stock
markets, and hurricanes to earthquakes. We do well, for example, with
weather forecasts and political predictions but very badly with earthquakes.
Part of the problem is that earthquakes, unlike hurricanes, often occur
without warning. Half of major earthquakes are preceded by no discernible
foreshocks, and periods of increased seismic activity often never result in
a major tremor—a classic example of "noise." Mr. Silver observes that we can
make helpful forecasts of future performance of baseball's position
players—relying principally on "on-base percentage" and "wins above
replacement player"—but we completely missed the 2008 financial crisis. And
we have made egregious errors in predicting the spread of infectious
diseases such as the flu.
In the second half of his analysis, Mr. Silver
suggests a number of methods by which we can improve our ability. The key,
for him, is less a particular mathematical model than a temperament or
"framing" idea. First, he says, it is important to avoid overconfidence, to
recognize the degree of uncertainty that attends even the most careful
forecasts. The best forecasts don't contain specific numerical expectations
but define the future in terms of ranges (the hurricane should pass
somewhere between Tampa and 350 miles west) and probabilities (there is a
70% chance of rain this evening).
Above all, Mr. Silver urges forecasters to become
Bayesians. The English mathematician Thomas Bayes used a mathematical rule
to adjust a base probability number in light of new evidence. To take a
canonical medical example, 1% of 40-year-old women have breast cancer:
Bayes's rule tells us how to factor in new information, such as a
breast-cancer screening test. Studies of such tests reveal that 80% of women
with breast cancer will get positive mammograms, and 9.6% of women without
breast cancer will also get positive mammograms (so-called false positives).
What is the probability that a woman who gets a positive mammogram will in
fact have breast cancer? Most people, including many doctors, greatly
overestimate the probability that the test will give an accurate diagnosis.
The right answer is less than 8%. The result seems counterintuitive unless
you realize that a large number of (40-year-old) women without breast cancer
will get a positive reading. Ignoring the false positives that always exist
with any noisy data set will lead to an inaccurate estimate of the true
probability.
This example and many others are neatly presented
in "The Signal and the Noise." Mr. Silver's breezy style makes even the most
difficult statistical material accessible. What is more, his arguments and
examples are painstakingly researched—the book has 56 pages of densely
printed footnotes. That is not to say that one must always agree with Mr.
Silver's conclusions, however.
Continued in article
Bayesian Probability ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_probability
Bayesian Inference ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference
How to Make Better Decisions, a Thought-Provoking Documentary by the BBC ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/ihow_to_make_better_decisionsi_a_thought-provoking_documentary_by_the_bbc.html
The Cult of Statistical Significance:
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
Thank you Jagdish Gangolly for the heads up.
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics and statistics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
"Hydrogen Cars: A Dream That Won't Die: Better technology and high
battery costs have revived interest in hydrogen-guzzling vehicles," by Peter
Fairley, MIT's Technology Review, October 8, 2012 ---
Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429495/hydrogen-cars-a-dream-that-wont-die/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121008
Jensen Comment
It might be an interesting student project to have students investigate what the
price of hydrogen would have to become to make the prototype hydrogen automobile
models competitive with hybrids on the road today.
The race, class, gender swindle
Eugene D. Genovese ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Genovese
Eugene Dominic Genovese (born May 19, 1930 –
September 26, 2012)
was an
American
historian of the
American South and
American slavery. He has been noted for bringing a
Marxist perspective to the study of power, class
and relations between
planters and slaves in the South. His work
Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made won the
Bancroft Prize. He later abandoned the Left and
Marxism, and embraced
traditionalist conservatism.
. . .
Starting in the 1990s, Genovese turned his
attention to the history of conservatism in the South, a tradition which
Genovese came to celebrate and adopt. In his study, The Southern Tradition:
the Achievements and Limitations of an American Conservatism, he examined
the Southern Agrarians. In the 1930s, these critics and poets collectively
wrote I'll Take My Stand, their critique of Enlightenment humanism. Genovese
concluded that by recognizing human sinfulness and limitation, the critics
more accurately described human nature than did other thinkers. The Southern
Agrarians, he noted, also posed a challenge to modern American
conservatives, with their mistaken belief in market capitalism's
compatibility with traditional social values and family structures. Genovese
agreed with the Agrarians in concluding that capitalism destroyed those
institutions.
In his personal views, Genovese also moved to the
right. Where he once denounced liberalism from a radical left perspective,
in this later phase he did so as a traditionalist conservative. His change
in thinking included converting to Roman Catholicism in December 1996. His
wife Elizabeth Fox-Genovese had also shifted her thinking and had already
converted.
Continued in article
The author of the most influential body of Marxist
historiography in the United States from the past half-century turned into one
more curmudgeon denouncing “the race, class, gender swindle.”
"Left to Right & Wrong Both Ways," by Scott McLemee, Inside Higher
Ed, October 3, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/10/03/essay-death-eugene-genovese
An ancient and corny joke of the American
left tells of a comrade who was surprised to learn that the German
radical theorist Kautsky’s first name was Karl and not, in fact, “Renegade.”
He’d seen Lenin’s polemical booklet The Proletarian Revolution and the
Renegade Kautsky but only just gotten around to reading it.
Eavesdropping on some young Marxist academics via
Facebook in the week following the historian Eugene Genovese’s death on
September 26, I’ve come to suspect that there is a pamphlet out there
somewhere about the Renegade Genovese. Lots of people have made the trek
from the left to the right over the past couple of centuries, of course, but
no major American intellectual of as much substance has, in recent memory,
apart from Genovese. People may throw out a couple of names to challenge
this statement, but the operative term here is “substance.” Genovese
published landmark studies like Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves
Made (1974) and – with the late Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, his wife --
Fruits of Merchant Capital: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and
Expansion of Capitalism, not score-settling memoirs and suchlike.
As for the term “renegade,” well… The author of the
most influential body of Marxist historiography in the United States from
the past half-century turned into one more curmudgeon denouncing “the race,
class, gender swindle.” And at a
meeting
of the Conservative Political Action Committee, no
less. The scholar who did path-breaking work on the political culture of the
antebellum South -- developing a Gramscian analysis of how slaves and
masters understood one another, at a time when Gramsci himself was little
more than an intriguing rumor within the American left – ended up referring
to the events of 1861-65 as “the War of Southern Independence.”
Harsher words might apply, but “renegade” will do.
He is listed as “Genovese, Gene”
in the index to the great British historian’s Eric Hobsbawm’s autobiography
Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life (2002). Actually, now I
have to change that to “the late, great British historian” Hobsbawm, rather:
he died on October 1.
The two of them belonged to an extremely small and
now virtually extinct species: the cohort of left-wing intellectuals who
pledged their allegiance to the Soviet Union and other so-called “socialist”
countries, right up to that system’s very end. How they managed to exhibit
such critical intelligence in their scholarship and so little in their
politics is an enigma defying rational explanation. But they did: Hobsbawm
remained a dues-paying member of the Communist Party of Great Britain until
it closed up shop in 1991.
The case of Genovese is a little more complicated.
He was expelled from the American CP in 1950, at the age of 20, but remained
close to its politics long after that. In the mid-1960s, as a professor of
history at Rutgers University, he declared his enthusiasm for a Vietcong
victory. It angered Richard Nixon at the time, and I recall it being
mentioned with horror by conservatives well into the 1980s. What really took
the cake was that he’d become the president of the Organization of American
Historians in 1978-79. Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover had to be
spinning in their graves.
When such a sinner repents, the angels do a dance.
With Eric Hobsbawm, they didn’t have much occasion to celebrate. Though he
wrote off the Russian Revolution and all that followed in its wake as more
or less regrettable when not utterly disastrous, he didn’t treat the
movement he’d supported as a God that failed. He could accept the mixture of
noble spirits and outright thugs, of democratic impulses and dictatorial
consequences, that made up the history he'd played a small part in; he
exhibited no need to make either excuses or accusations.
Genovese followed a different course, as shown in
in the landmark statement of his change in political outlook, an article
called “The Question” that appeared in the social-democratic journal
Dissent in 1994. The title referred to the challenge of one
disillusioned communist to another: “What did you know and when did you know
it?" Genovese never got around to answering that question about himself,
oddly enough. But he was anything but reluctant He was much less reluctant
about accusing more or less everybody who’d ever identified as a leftist or
a progressive of systematically avoiding criticism of the Soviets. He kept
saying that “we” had condoned this or that atrocity, or were complicit with
one bloodbath or another, but in his hands “we” was a very strange pronoun,
for some reason meaning chiefly meaning “you.”
Continued in article
"Research Misconduct on the Rise, Study Finds," Inside Higher Ed,
October 3, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/10/03/research-misconduct-rise-study-finds
Jensen Comment
Whew! To date there is not one reported research misconduct incident in
accountics science. Or is it that lack of replication and commentary simply
leads to a fantasy that there's never any research misconduct in accountics
science?
Bob Jensen's threads on professors who plagiarized and/or cheated in other
ways ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize
574 Shields Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
How Accountics Scientists Should Change:
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting
Review I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
Gaming for Tenure as an Accounting Professor ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTenure.htm
(with a reply about tenure publication point systems from Linda Kidwell)
EdX ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdX
Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITx) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Innovation_%26_Technology_Exchange
MIT versus MITx ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
"5 Ways That edX Could Change Education," by Marc Parry, Chronicle of
Higher Education, October 1, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/5-Ways-That-edX-Could-Change/134672/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Since MIT and Harvard
started edX, their joint experiment with free online courses, the venture
has attracted enormous attention for opening the ivory tower to the world.
But in the process, the world will become part of
an expensive and ambitious experiment testing some of the most
interesting—and difficult—questions in digital education.
Can community-college students benefit from a new
form of hybrid learning, based on a mix of local instruction and edX
content? Can colleges tap alumni as teaching volunteers? Can labs be
reinvented in the style of online video games?
EdX and its collaborators are developing tools and
teaching models to answer those questions. And they view the project as a
means to study even deeper problems, like understanding how people
forget—and creating strategies to prevent it.
"It's a live laboratory for studying how people
learn, how the mind works, and how to improve education, both residential
and online," says Piotr Mitros, edX's chief scientist.
That laboratory remains a work in progress. When a
Chronicle reporter visited edX's offices here, in a low-slung brick
building on the edge of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus,
the front entrance lacked even a sign, and staffers had engineered a
conference table and bookcase from empty cardboard boxes. But with a
$60-million investment announced in May and seven courses going live this
fall, things are kicking into high gear. What follows, based on interviews
with more than a dozen people affiliated with edX, is a closer look at what
that could mean for students, scholars, and other colleges.
Engaging Alumni in New Ways
Robert C. Miller had a problem.
His students were writing so much code that the
teaching staff lacked time to read it all and give fast feedback. So Mr.
Miller, an MIT associate professor who teaches software engineering and
human-computer interaction, decided to try a new tactic: crowdsourcing. His
work may help solve a challenge facing massive online courses: how to
provide human feedback to thousands of students.
Under Mr. Miller's model, Web-based software called
Caesar breaks homework submissions into chunks. A mix of teaching staff,
fellow students, and alumni volunteers evaluates the code, which is also
automatically tested by a computer. Students then revise and resubmit their
work. The human review is essential, Mr. Miller explains, because people can
detect things that computers can't, like hidden bugs or poor design.
"The future of online grading is going to be a mix
of automated approaches ... and human eyeballs," says Mr. Miller. The class
that has deployed Caesar is expected to go on edX as it expands.
His project is one of several that highlight how
technology can tap the altruism—and self-interest—of graduates. MIT alumni
"are strongly motivated to find great programming talent," Mr. Miller says.
By helping to review code, they could both spot that talent and expose
students to their companies. Caesar, used on the campus for the past year,
has attracted MIT graduates working at companies like Facebook and Google.
Across the Charles River, at Harvard's School of
Public Health, E. Francis Cook Jr. and Marcello Pagano are working on a
similar idea. The veteran professors will teach a class on epidemiology and
biostatistics this fall, one of Harvard's first on edX. Details are still
being worked out, but they hope to entice alumni to participate, possibly by
moderating online forums or, for those based abroad, leading discussions for
local students. Mr. Cook sees those graduates as an "untapped resource."
"We draw people into this program who want to
improve the health of the world," he says. "I'm hoping we'll get a huge
buy-in from our alums."
Reinventing Hybrid Teaching
In March, Tony Hyun Kim moved to the Mongolian
capital of Ulan Bator, where he spent three months teaching high-school
students a spinoff of the first edX course. The adventure made the young MIT
graduate one of the first to blend edX's content with face-to-face teaching.
His hybrid model is one that many American students may experience as edX
presses one of its toughest goals: to reimagine campus learning.
On his own initiative, Mr. Kim brought over lab
gear and mentored about 20 teenagers through the circuits-and-electronics
class, which is based on a course normally taken by MIT sophomores. The edX
version features video snippets and interactive exercises, and Mr. Kim used
the free online content to teach in a style known as the "flipped
classroom." Students watched edX content at home. At school, Mr. Kim spent
hours each day reviewing material and apprenticing them through labs and
problems.
The results were remarkable. Roughly 12 students
earned certificates of completion. One 15-year-old, Battushig, aced the
course, one of 320 students worldwide to do so. EdX ended up hiring Mr. Kim,
who hopes to start a related project at the university level in Mongolia.
EdX is now preparing a bigger experiment that is
expected to test the flipped-classroom model at a community college,
combining MOOC content with campus instruction. Two-year colleges have
struggled with insufficient funds and large demand; they also have "trouble
attracting top talent and teachers," says Anant Agarwal, who taught the
circuits class and is president of edX. The question is how MOOC's might
help community colleges, and how the courses would have to change to work
for their students.
"MOOC's have yet to prove their value from an
educational perspective," says Josh Jarrett, of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, which backs the community-college project. "We currently know
very little about how much learning is happening within MOOC's, particularly
for novice learners."
Gamifying Labs
As edX tries fresh teaching models, it's also
engaging the math muscle of MIT to push the boundaries of simulations.
When MIT students take the circuits class, they sit
at a lab workbench and build with tools. Lab equipment can cost a fortune:
An oscilloscope may run $20,000.
Offering a comparable experience online is an
engineering challenge. It must be fast, sufficiently open-ended, and simple
enough to use without consulting "telephone-book-size manuals," as Mr.
Agarwal puts it. Mr. Agarwal, a former director of MIT's Computer Science
and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, has worked on this problem for
years. "To me, the big hurdle to online learning was, How do we mimic the
lab experience?"
Continued in article
Gamification ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
"Why Gamification is Really Powerful," by Karen Lee, Stanford Graduate
School of Business, September 2012
http://stanfordbusiness.tumblr.com/post/32317645424/why-gamification-is-really-powerful
Karen Lee is the Social Web Strategist at the Stanford GSB
Bob Jensen's threads on free courses, tutorials, videos, and course materials
from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Gamification ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
"Why Gamification is Really Powerful," by Karen Lee, Stanford Graduate
School of Business, September 2012
http://stanfordbusiness.tumblr.com/post/32317645424/why-gamification-is-really-powerful
Karen Lee is the Social Web Strategist at the Stanford GSB
Last week, Stanford GSB’s
Social Web Strategist Karen Lee attended a Week
0 course called
“How Neuroscience Influences Human Behavior,” co-taught by Marketing
Professor Baba Shiv and Lecturer Nir Eyal. Each post focuses on an
interesting insight from class.
In my
last post, I explained how desire is a fundament
driver of habits and how companies can leverage Nir Eyal’s “Desire
Engine” framework to build engaging,
habit-forming products.
After two days of learning the
fundamentals of how our brain functions and influences human behavior, our
co-instructors Nir Eyal and Baba Shiv invited
Managing Director of Mayfield Fund Tim Chang (Stanford
MBA ’01) and
Founder of Gamification Co. Gabe Zichermann to
provide our class a real-world perspective on the applications and
implications of habitual behavior for customers, businesses and future
generations. They both addressed gamification, which is defined as the
process of using game thinking and mechanics to engage users.
Gamification has become somewhat
a polarizing topic for people, as its grown from a niche technique used in
the gaming industry, popularized largely due to social games like Farmville,
to a popularized approach to engage customers across different industries.
Tim Chang explained that gamification is largely misunderstood because of
the implied meanings in the word “game” itself. People think of gamification
in two extremes, either a hardcore competition or something casual,
frivolous and shallow. The definition of game is actually much wider in
scope. A game is defined by these 3 core elements:
- Goal or objective: system or
user defined
- Score: usually in real-time,
explicit feedback after every action or decision
- Rules: to influence score,
boundaries for play
Through this lens, there are many
goals in life that are like a game. Dating. Landing a job. Hitting a sales
goal. Driving a car. Gabe Zichermann shared how the automobile industry has
embraced gamification to encourage fuel efficiency and engage drivers in a
more meaningful way.
Ford rolled out with a new
dashboard for their their 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrid models.
The “SmartGauge
with EcoGuide” dashboard displays 4 types
of data screens based on what you’re interested in, ranging from the basics
of fuel level and battery charge status to more complex information like
your driving performance and fuel efficiency.
The game objective Ford creates
for the driver is driving efficiency. The driver’s score is comprised of
several different data points (e.g., hills, air conditioning, braking style)
and is presented in the dashboard with multiple displays in real-time . . .
.
. . .
The system’s real-time feedback
acts as personal driving coach on how to maximize fuel efficiency, so the
driver learns overtime how to change the way they drive to improve their
score.
In a slightly different but
related game objective of achieving long-term fuel efficiency, Ford took
gamification a step further by displaying on the right hand side “Efficiency
Leaves,” which is a visual representation of the driver’s efficiency in the
form of growing or wilting leaves and vines. The more efficient a driver
is, the more lush and beautiful the leaves are. It works the other way as
well.
Continued in article
Video: How Indie Video Game Makers Are Changing the Game ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/how_indie_video_game_makers_are_changing_the_game.html
Bob Jensen's threads on edutainment are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Ethics Learning Games
Hi Mark,
I've not had first-hand experience with ethics games. But here are a few
ideas (not all are accounting games):.
Ethics Games and Puzzles (and other ethics learning resources) ---
http://www.ethics.org/resource/ethics-games-and-puzzles
Putting Yourself in Somebody Else's Shoes ---
http://thinkingethics.typepad.com/thinking_ethics/games/
Situation Ethics Games ---
http://www.rsrevision.com/games/alevel/situationethics.htm
Scruples Game ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scruples_%28game%29
Ethics Training Games ---
http://www.ehow.com/info_8028940_ethics-training-games-ideas.html
This has a "brainstorming category."
Concept Mapping is a type of brainstorming ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#ConceptMaps
There's a good brainstorming accountics science paper in
"Auditors’ Use of Brainstorming in the Consideration of Fraud: Reports from the
Field," The Accounting Review, 2010, Vol 85, No. 4
John A. Schatzel at Stonehill College does research on simulation games for
teaching auditing, some of which entail ethics ---
You must have access to the AAA Commons for the above link.
John posts to the AECM on occasion. Maybe he will read this and help us out.
You might consider easy-to-use software for making your own games
http://commons.aaahq.org/posts/41dab78f88
"Games in the Classroom (part 3)," by Anastasia Salter, Chronicle of
Higher Education, September 30, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/games-in-the-classroom-part-3/36217?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
The challenge of finding
a game for the classroom can be difficult,
particularly when the games you’ve imagined doesn’t exist. And if you wait
for a particular challenge or topic to make its way into game form, it might
be a while. Educational games and “serious” games haven’t always kept up
with the rest of video gaming, in part because there’s no high return.
Modern game development tends towards large teams and impressive budgets,
and these resources are rarely used on explicitly educational productions.
While efforts like the
STEM Video Game Challenge provide incentives for
new learning games, and commercial titles can often be
adapted for the classroom, there’s still more
potential than games have yet reached.
But if you have a new concept for playful learning,
you can still bring it to life for your classroom. There are two ways to
start thinking about making games in the classroom: the first is to build a
game yourself, and the second is to engage students in making games as a way
to express their own understanding.
You’re probably not
a game designer, although there’s a game for that:
Gamestar Mechanic
can help you “level up” from player to designer. But
it’s also important to remember building games rarely happens alone: as with
digital humanities projects, games lend themselves to collaboration. If you
have a game design program (or even a single course) at your university or a
neighboring school, there might be an opportunity to partner your students
with them towards creating valuable content-based educational games.
Similarly, there may be other faculty who are interested in collaborating on
grant-funded projects to build new educational experiences, or collective
and expanding projects like Reacting
to the Past (which many readers cited as a
classroom game system of choice). You might also find collaborators,
inspiration and games in progress through communities such as
Gameful,
a “secret HQ for making world-changing games”–and community manager Nathan
Maton has a few things to say about
building serious games for education.
There’s also a difference between making a game or
asking your students to make a game as an expression of content for
pedagogical purposes and making a game in the industry. Even a flawed game
can provide an opportunity for learning and discussion. And your students
will often bring a wealth of their own experiences with games to the
process, offering them a chance to make new connections with your course
material.
Ready to try making games? Here are a few tools for
getting started.
- Board and card games can be a
great first project, particularly for students. Digital games are
flashy, but board and card games offer the advantages of structured play
with a lower barrier to entry. They can also be good practice for
learning the mechanics and structure of games
without getting bogged down in programming and logic. We’ve all played
some version of classroom jeopardy before, and it remains an example of
taking game-like mechanics and applying them to any content–but when
content guides the way, board games can transcend these roots.
-
Inform 7
is a modern heir to text-based games, and it’s a
free development tool that’s perfect for interpreting and building
worlds without needing visual elements. Aaron Reed’s Creating
Interactive Fiction with Inform 7 is a
thorough guide to the system. The
Voices of
Spoon River IF offers one example of literary
instruction through the form, while Nick Montfort’s
Book
and Volume demonstrates the potential for
systematic logic. There’s even the
ECG Paper Chase
IF for a meta-experience on the origin of gaming
and educational technology. (Curveship,
a newer interactive narrative platform, is less friendly to
non-programmers than Inform 7 but offers some impressive possibilities.)
-
GameMaker
(with a free
lite version)
allows for building games on two levels: at the surface is an easy to
manipulate, graphical interface for building games. Beneath that, an
advanced scripting language allows for the possibility of delving
further. The
GameMaker’s Apprentice textbook goes
step-by-step through making a variety of basic games drawn from arcade
genre standbys, many of which could serve as the basis for more creative
projects while also offering the tools to build procedural literacy and
digital skills.
-
GameSalad
is a free tool for building simple
games. While GameSalad is only available for Macs, it offers a code-free
way to create graphical games for both mobile platforms and HTML5. It’s
relatively new, and most of the educational games created for it aim at
the younger crowd of kid-friendly mobile apps, but it definitely offers
the chance for experience with logic and rapid
prototyping.
September 30, 2012 reply from John A. Schatzel
Thanks Bob,
I do receive the posts from this group in archive
mode, saw your suggestion, and hope that I can add something helpful to
Mark, yourself, and others. My recent research has turned to introducing an
ethics audit simulation to accounting education. I recently created such a
game and am dedicating it to the advancement of international business
ethics research. It is my fifth auditing simulation and although the others
(as you noted in your post) address ethics to various degrees, the latest
one is focused primary on doing an ethics audit using either a Triple Bottom
Line or international ethics auditing standards approach.
The newest game involves doing an audit using
SA8000 by Social Accountability International, which includes ethics
management and several other ethics areas. The game was made using
interactive multimedia technologies and is played online. The initial
prototypes have been tested successfully in accounting systems and business
ethics courses and the student feedback has been, on balance, very positive.
From Mark's perspective, the game would allow
students to be assigned to groups and then play the game competitively using
the internal scoring system. The scoring system is based on the one I
originally created for the Real Audit(tm) financial auditing simulation and
then adapted to the Swanson Interactive Internal Control Simulation, which
involves a role-playing adventure doing a COSO internal control evaluation
(including ethical values). The scores from Swanson and the new Ethics Audit
Simulation are posted to a web-based performance reporting system that
faculty can access, but are not reported in the game to students. I kept the
scores private because I didn't feel the scoring system was refined enough
at present.
One possible research study would be to examine the
effect of introducing a game-based scoring system to students on the
learning process or on learning outcomes (if that were possible).
Regardless, I believe that there are many studies that could be performed
with the new ethics audit simulation while students are being encouraged to
think at the higher end of Bloom's intellectual scale. If Mark or anyone
else is interested in using the software for teaching/ research purposes,
they can contact me directly and I will get them a demo set up as well as
accounts for their students. I hope this helps!
John A. Schatzel, Ph.D., CPA
Professor of Accounting
Stonehill College
jschatzel@stonehill.edu
Book---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookselling
Center for History of the Book ---
http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/chb/
Find Books to Read
Bob Jensen's threads on free electronic
literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Best Selling Books ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_books
"Amazon Lights the Fire With Free BooksL Today, Amazon unveiled
something radical: the Kindle Lending Library," by David Pogue, The New
York Times, November 2, 2011 ---
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/amazon-lights-the-fire-with-free-books/
Especially for Children ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Children
Choices Reading Lists ---
http://www.reading.org/resources/booklists.aspx
Goodreads ---
http://www.goodreads.com/
The Book Cover Archive ---
http://bookcoverarchive.com/
Lesson Planet: Poetry Lesson Plans
---
http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=poetry&media=lesson
Reading Rockets: Literary Resources for
Teachers ---
http://www.readingrockets.org/audience/teachers/
Frequently Challenged Books ---
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged
The Harvard Classics: A Free,
Digital Collection ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/07/the_harvard_classics_a_free_digital_collection.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
The
University of Michigan Digital Humanities Series ---
http://www.digitalculture.org/books/book-series/digital-humanities-series/
Free eBooks
"How to Download Free Ebooks With just a little searching, you can
find and download free, legal ebooks for your e-reader, smartphone, or
tablet," by Michael King, PC World, Oct 15, 2011 ---
http://www.pcworld.com/article/241717/how_to_download_free_ebooks.html#tk.nl_wbx_t_crawl2
Digital Public Library of America ---
http://dp.la/
Google Book Search
---
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/08/books-of-world-stand-up-and-be-counted.html
"Google's Book Search: A Disaster for
Scholars," by Geoffrey Nunberg, Chronicle of Higher Education,
August 31, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Googles-Book-Search-A/48245/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Hundreds of Other links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Lost Titles, Forgotten Rhymes: How to Find a Novel, Short
Story, or Poem Without Knowing its Title or Author ---
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/lost/
"QuickWire: Top 10 Trends in Academic Libraries," by
Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 16, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/quickwire-top-10-trends-in-academic-libraries/31796?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
eBook Readers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Ebooks.htm
Frequently Challenged Books ---
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged
Note the "Statistics" link ---
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/stats
The ALA's
Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports from libraries,
schools, and the media on attempts to ban books in communities across the
country. We compile lists of challenged books in order to inform the public
about censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools. Explore the
30 Years of Liberating Literature timeline,
Banned/Challenged Classics,
Frequently Challenged Books of the 21st Century,
100 Most Frequently Challenged Books by Decade, and the
Most Frequently Challenged Authors pages of the 21st Century. The ALA
condemns censorship and works to ensure free access to information. For more
information on ALA's efforts to raise awareness of censorship and promote
the freedom to read, please explore
Banned Books Week.
We do not claim comprehensiveness in recording challenges as research
suggests that for each challenge reported there are as many as four or
five that go unreported. In addition, OIF has only been collecting data
about banned banned books since 1990, so we do not have any lists of
frequently challenged books or authors before that date.
How is the list of
most challenged books tabulated?
The Office for Intellectual Freedom collects information from two
sources: newspapers and reports submitted by individuals, some of whom use
the
Challenge Reporting Form. All challenges are compiled into a database.
Reports of challenges culled from newspapers across the country are compiled
in the bimonthly
Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom (published by the ALA, $50 per year
for a digital subscription); those reports are then compiled in the
Banned Books Week Resource Guide. Challenges reported to the ALA by
individuals are kept confidential. In these cases, ALA will release only the
title of the book being challenged, the state and the type of institution
(school, public library). The name of the institution and its town will not
be disclosed.
Where can you find
more information on why a particular book was banned?
- Visit your local public library and ask your librarian.
- Find or purchase the latest
Banned Books Week Resource Guide, updated every three years, which
may be available at or through your local public library.
- E-mail the ALA
Office for Intellectual Freedom to ask about a specific book. A staff
member will reply with any information the office has on file. Please
limit your inquiry to one book. If you would like information on more
than one book, please consider purchasing the Banned Books Week Resource
Guide.
- See
Banned and Challenged Classics.
- Check out the
Banned Books Week > Ideas & Resources > Free Downloads page
where you can find the yearly Books Challenged or Banned Lists that
contain more information on why a book was challenged.
If the information you need is not listed in the links to the left,
please feel free to contact the Office for Intellectual Freedom at (800)
545-2433, ext. 4220, or oif@ala.org.
Bob Jensen's threads on free electronic literature ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
New Effort to Sell (successful) MBA Application Essays ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/10/02/new-effort-sell-mba-application-essays
Bob Jensen's threads on the Market for Admissions Test Questions and Essay "Consulting"
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#AdmissionsEssays
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism and cheating ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Jensen Comment
I wonder how many buyers are faculty members?
"One Business School Is Itself a Case Study in the Economics of Online
Education," by Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education,
October 1, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Case-Study-the-Economics-of/134668/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en
Distance education has been very good for the
business school at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. More
precisely, the revenue-generating online M.B.A. program has been good for
the school.
The 11-year-old online program accounts for just
over a quarter of the enrollment at UMass's Isenberg School of Management,
yet revenues from the program cover about 40 percent of the school's
$25-million annual budget. And that's after UMass Online, the in-house
marketing agency, as well as a few other arms of the university have taken
their cuts.
The business school's experience helps to
illustrate the economics of distance education and the way one college with
a marketable offering is using online education to help its bottom line.
With a total of about 4,830 undergraduate and
graduate students and a faculty of 105, the Isenberg school spends an
average of about $5,175 per student. The online M.B.A. program, with 1,250
students, generates about $10-million in net revenue, or about $8,000 per
student. Looking at it one way, that's nearly double the per-student revenue
that the school generates from all other sources of income for the rest of
its enrollment, which comprises about 3,400 undergraduates, 100 full-time,
on-campus M.B.A. students, and 80 doctoral candidates.
Mark A. Fuller, the dean, says the profitability of
the online program has little to do with any inherent cost savings from
offering courses via technology, but quite a bit to do with the high student
demand for M.B.A.'s offered by a brand-name public institution in a format
and on a schedule made possible by the technology.
The key, he says, is that it's a new educational
product, for which the school commands a premium price. The online M.B.A.
costs $750 per credit hour (although the business school gets only 60
percent of that), and students take 39 credits; the price equivalent for the
55-credit face-to-face M.B.A. is $482 per credit hour.
Aside from not having the expense of providing the
classroom and keeping it heated or cooled, a college doesn't necessarily
save money providing a course online rather than in a classroom. In some
cases, other costs associated with an online course, for technology and
student support, can equal and even exceed those savings.
But institutions do have ways to make their online
classes more profitable. With no physical-space limitations, they can pack
more students into the distance-education courses, so each class generates
more revenue. Or they can hire part-time faculty members to teach a packaged
curriculum for lower pay. They can also go cheap on the learning-management
system or support services for distant students.
The Isenberg school has a single faculty for all
its courses; the online-class sizes aren't any larger than the other ones;
and, with few exceptions, all professors teach a mix of undergraduate and
graduate courses, including the online ones. "We try to create the same
experience" for all students, Mr. Fuller says. (Most students take the
M.B.A. online, but they have the option of taking some of their credits at
sites in Massachusetts.)
Mr. Fuller says the price is in line with or less
expensive than that charged by other public universities offering online
M.B.A.'s.
Under this approach, he says, the entire business
school participates in the online program, and the entire school benefits.
The online business model takes into account other
costs as well. Ten percent of the gross revenues goes to UMass Online, a
systemwide organization that helps market online courses and provides the
learning-management system that delivers them. The Amherst campus also takes
a few other bites, including a charge for overhead and a payment to the
provost's office for other universitywide projects.
In the end, the Isenberg school keeps 60 percent of
revenue generated by the program. Still, Mr. Fuller considers it a financial
boon for the school. "It opens up new markets, particularly for high-quality
students with work experience who are placebound," he says. About 20 percent
of the students are doctors or other health professionals, with a good
number of lawyers and engineers enrolled as well—"all the people you would
expect who can't quit their job" and move to Amherst, says Mr. Fuller.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
There are obvious cost savings of distance education delivery that avoids the
needs for land, buildings, classrooms, and dorms (although dorms generally are
self-funding). However, not all distance education programs avoid such costs.
For example, in the past it was common to pipe live classrooms into dorms and
homes. This still entailed having classrooms.
Faculty costs may be greater or lower for distance education relative to
onsite education. Very intense distance education programs with small classes
and top faculty don't necessarily save on faculty costs ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/Dunbar2002.htm
The fact of the matter is that distance education really offers a much wider
range of alternatives from low cost to very high cost per student. Also tuition
charged may vary with distance education. The University of Wisconsin at
Milwaukee often teaches the same course online and onsite but charges higher
tuition for the online version, thereby treating the online courses as cash
cows.
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education cost considerations ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/distcost.htm
Top 100 MBA Programs (beauty is in the eye of the beholder)
This is some good news for Chicago and New Hampshire
"2012 Full time MBA ranking," The Economist, 2012 ---
http://www.economist.com/whichmba/full-time-mba-ranking
Alternate link ---
http://www.economist.com/whichmba
1 |
Chicago, University of - Booth School of Business |
United States |
2 |
Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business |
United States |
3 |
Virginia, University of - Darden Graduate School of Business
Administration |
United States |
4 |
Harvard Business School |
United States |
5 |
Columbia Business School |
United States |
6 |
California at Berkeley, University of - Haas School of Business
|
United States |
7 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT Sloan School of Management
|
United States |
8 |
Stanford Graduate School of Business |
United States |
9 |
IESE Business School - University of Navarra |
Spain |
10 |
IMD - International Institute for Management Development
|
Switzerland |
11 |
New York University – Leonard N Stern School of Business
|
United States |
12 |
London Business School |
United Kingdom |
13 |
Pennsylvania, University of – Wharton School |
United States |
14 |
HEC School of Management, Paris |
France |
15 |
Cornell University – Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
|
United States |
16 |
York University – Schulich School of Business |
Canada |
17 |
Carnegie Mellon University – The Tepper School of Business
|
United States |
18 |
ESADE Business School |
Spain |
19 |
INSEAD
|
France |
20 |
Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management
|
United States |
21 |
Emory University – Goizueta Business School |
United States |
22 |
IE
Business School |
Spain |
23 |
UCLA Anderson School of Management |
United States |
24 |
Michigan, University of – Stephen M. Ross School of Business
|
United States |
25 |
Bath, University of – School of Management |
United Kingdom |
26 |
Yale School of Management |
United States |
27 |
Queensland, University of – Business School |
Australia |
28 |
Texas at Austin, University of – McCombs School of Business
|
United States |
29 |
Duke University – Fuqua School of Business |
United States |
30 |
City University – Cass Business School |
United Kingdom |
31 |
Hult International Business School |
United States |
32 |
Vanderbilt University – Owen Graduate School of Management
|
United States |
33 |
Ohio State University – Fisher College of Business |
United States |
34 |
Washington, University of – Foster School of Business |
United States |
35 |
Georgetown University – Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business
|
United States |
36 |
Mannheim Business School |
Germany |
37 |
Cranfield School of Management |
United Kingdom |
38 |
Melbourne Business School – University of Melbourne |
Australia |
39 |
Rice University – Jesse H Jones Graduate School of Business
|
United States |
40 |
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of – Kenan-Flagler Business
School |
United States |
41 |
Hong Kong, University of – Faculty of Business and Economics
|
Hong Kong |
42 |
Henley Business School |
United Kingdom |
43 |
Southern California, University of – Marshall School of Business
|
United States |
44 |
Indiana University – Kelley School of Business |
United States |
45 |
Cambridge, University of – Judge Business School |
United Kingdom |
46 |
Curtin Graduate School of Business |
Australia |
47 |
Washington University in St Louis – Olin Business School
|
United States |
48 |
Oxford, University of – Saïd Business School |
United Kingdom |
49 |
Notre Dame, University of – Mendoza College of Business
|
United States |
50 |
Wake Forest University Schools of Business |
United States |
51 |
Wisconsin School of Business |
United States |
52 |
EDHEC Business School |
France |
53 |
Maryland, University of – Robert H Smith School of Business
|
United States |
54 |
Strathclyde, University of – Business School |
United Kingdom |
55 |
Boston University School of Management |
United States |
56 |
Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad |
India |
57 |
EMLYON
|
France |
58 |
Minnesota, University of – Carlson School of Management
|
United States |
59 |
Arizona State University – W. P. Carey School of Business
|
United States |
60 |
Warwick Business School |
United Kingdom |
61 |
Macquarie Graduate School of Management |
Australia |
62 |
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology – School of Business and
Management |
Hong Kong |
63 |
University College Dublin – Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business
|
Ireland |
64 |
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University |
Netherlands |
65 |
Iowa, University of – Henry B Tippie School of Management
|
United States |
66 |
Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School |
Belgium |
67 |
California at Davis, University of-Graduate School of Management
|
United States |
68 |
Pennsylvania State University – Smeal College of Business
|
United States |
69 |
Grenoble Graduate School of Business |
France |
70 |
SDA Bocconi School of Management |
Italy |
71 |
Texas Christian University – Neeley School of Business
|
United States |
72 |
Nanyang Business School – Nanyang Technological University
|
Singapore |
73 |
George Washington University – School of Business |
United States |
74 |
Durham Business School |
United Kingdom |
75 |
McGill University – Desautels Faculty of Management |
Canada |
76 |
Audencia Nantes School of Management |
France |
77 |
Temple University – Fox School of Business |
United States |
78 |
Concordia University – John Molson School of Business |
Canada |
79 |
International University of Japan – Graduate School of International
Management |
|
80 |
Lancaster University Management School |
United Kingdom |
81 |
University of St. Gallen |
Switzerland |
82 |
Southern Methodist University – Cox School of Business
|
United States |
83 |
Yonsei University School of Business |
Republic of Korea
|
84 |
Birmingham, University of – Birmingham Business School
|
United Kingdom |
85 |
China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) |
China |
86 |
Nottingham University Business School |
United Kingdom |
87 |
WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management |
Germany |
88 |
Aston Business School |
United Kingdom |
89 |
Rochester, University of – William E Simon Graduate School of Business
|
United States |
90 |
Purdue University – Krannert Graduate School of Management
|
United States |
91 |
British Columbia, University of – Sauder School of Business
|
Canada |
92 |
National University of Singapore – The NUS Business School
|
Singapore |
93 |
HEC
Montréal |
Canada |
94 |
Chinese University of Hong Kong |
Hong Kong
|
95 |
Calgary, University of – Haskayne School of Business |
Canada |
96 |
Copenhagen Business School |
Denmark |
97 |
International University of Monaco |
|
98 |
University of Georgia – Terry College of Business |
United States |
99 |
Pittsburgh, University of – Katz Graduate School of Business
|
United States |
100 |
Case Western Reserve University – Weatherhead School of Management
|
United States |
You can read the comments to this article at
http://www.economist.com/whichmba/which-mba-top-25#comments
One comment reads that The Economist's rankings are more accurate
because The Economist magazine is more "trustworthy" that other media
sources that rank MBA programs. This comment seems to overlook the fact that
different media sources use different types of people to do the rankings. There
are different strokes for different folks even if the ranking outcomes were
trustworthy from other sources. Even if the ranking sources are trustworthy,
there are huge sources of possible (honest) error.
And the rankings can be quite misleading for prospects who do not do their
own in-depth homework relative to their needs and wants. For example, most MBA
programs are no longer good sources for preparing students for careers in CPA
firms. There are some exceptions, and students wanting accounting careers might
be badly mislead by any of the MBA ranking sources below.
Who are the people who do the rankings?
- Students (The Economist)
- Deans (U.S. News)
- Recruiters of Graduates (the WSJ)
- Alumni (Business Week) ---
The U.S. News rankings are influenced very heavy by research
reputations of business graduate schools. The WSJ rankings are influenced
heavily by "best buys" in the sense that the top ranked MBA program may be more
of a diamond in the rough where you don't have to pay quite as much to get an
outstanding graduate. The Business Week rankings are influenced heavily by the
varying quality and effort of alumni initiatives and organizations. It would
seem that current students might be the most variable group of evaluators and
the most difficult to predict year-to-year. The criterion that probably is very
important with students is placement in their most desired career tracks.
Bob Jensen's threads on rankings controversies and rankings by by other
media sources ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings
Disaster for Dodd Frank --- Lawyers are Litigating
"Courts taking up opposition to Dodd-Frank," Dina ElBoghdady, The
Washington Post, October 5, 2012 ---
Click Here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/courts-taking-up-opposition-to-dodd-frank/2012/10/05/ebeb1874-0e27-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html
After failing to scuttle the landmark legislation
in Congress, critics of the Dodd-Frank Act overhauling financial regulations
are trying to chisel away at it in the courts — with some initial success.
Twice, federal regulators have lost in court trying
to defend the rules, which were put in place after the 2008 financial
crisis. On Friday, they were back in court again, fighting for yet another
regulation they say is linked to Dodd-Frank.
Each time, the challenge came from a lawyer with a
prominent legal pedigree: Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia.
The legal battles raise an urgent question that’s
likely to surface again and again about how much deference the courts are
willing to grant the agencies that police corporate America.
“After all the lobbying in Congress to tear down
Dodd-Frank, there’s now a second stage in the war: the courts,” said Donald
Langevoort, a Georgetown Law securities professor. “The judges seem more
than willing to say that the rules adopted in the aftermath of the financial
crisis simply can’t be enforced because of procedural defects.”
In the case Friday, a federal judge heard a
challenge to a rule that requires mutual funds that invest in certain
financial instruments to register with the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission. Last week, the same court struck down a regulation designed to
rein in speculative commodities trading. And about a year ago, an appeals
court blocked a rule that would have made it easier for shareholders to oust
members of corporate boards.
In each case, Scalia’s team at Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher argued that the regulators failed to justify the rules they crafted
or fully consider their economic impact.
“The agencies gave reasons that didn’t add up,
contradicted themselves or failed to respond to significant criticisms
raised by the public,” Scalia said in an interview. “Any one of those things
is going to result in a rule getting thrown out by any court at any time.”
In the case argued Friday, the CFTC said that the
financial overhaul bill gave it authority to set the new rules for mutual
funds. But the plaintiffs said the rule is unrelated to the Dodd-Frank law,
and that the agency is using that law “to change the subject” because the
regulation is neither necessary nor justified by economic analysis.
Similar arguments prevailed in the two cases
decided by the courts so far.
In the commodities trading decision last week, U.S.
District Judge Robert L. Wilkins told the CFTC to justify the need for a
regulation that would limit how many contracts a trader can obtain for the
future delivery of 28 commodities, including natural gas and oil. The rule
also would have applied to certain financial instruments known as swaps, a
form of derivative.
The agency said it was acting under a Dodd-Frank
mandate designed to reduce excessive speculation in the commodities market
so that no one trader could control such a large percentage of the market
that it skews prices.
Continued in article
Rotten to the Core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
David M. Walker ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Walker_%28U.S._Comptroller_General%29
Career as
Comptroller General
Walker served as
Comptroller General of the United States and head of the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998
to 2008. Appointed by President
Bill Clinton, his tenure as the federal
government's chief auditor spanned both Democratic and Republican
administrations. While at the GAO, Walker embarked on a Fiscal Wake-up Tour,[1]
partnering with the
Brookings Institution, the
Concord Coalition, and the
Heritage Foundation to alert Americans to wasteful
government spending.[2]
Walker left the GAO to head the Peterson Foundation on March 12, 2008.[3]
Labor-management relations became fractious during Walker's nine-year tenure
as comptroller general. On September 19, 2007, GAO analysts voted by a
margin of two to one (897–445), in a 75% turnout, to establish the first
union in GAO's 86-year history.
Peter G.
Peterson Foundation
In 2008, Walker was personally recruited by
Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the
Blackstone Group, and former
Secretary of Commerce under
Richard Nixon, to lead his new foundation. The
Foundation distributed the documentary film,
I.O.U.S.A. which follows Walker and
Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition,
around the nation, as they engage Americans in town-hall style meetings,
along with luminaries such as
Warren Buffett,
Alan Greenspan,
Paul Volcker and
Robert Rubin.
Peterson was cited by the
New York Times as one of the foremost
"philanthropists whose foundations are spending increasing amounts and
raising their voices to influence public policy."[5]
In philanthropy, Walker has advocated a more action-based approach to the
traditional foundation: “I do believe, however, that foundations have been
very cautious and somewhat conservative about whether and to what extent
they want to get involved in advocacy.”[5]
David Walker stepped down as President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson
Foundation on October 15, 2010 to establish his own venture, the Comeback
America Initiative
Campaign
for fiscal responsibility
Walker has compared the present-day United States
to the Roman Empire in its decline, saying the U.S. government is on a
"burning platform" of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal
deficits, expensive overcommitments to government provided health care,
swelling Medicare and Social Security costs, the enormous expense of a
prospective universal health care system, and overseas military commitments
threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon]
Walker has also taken the position that there will
be no technological change that will mitigate health care and social
security problems into 2050 despite ongoing discoveries.
In the national press, Walker has been a vocal
critic of profligate spending at the federal level. In
Fortune
magazine, he recently warned that "from Washington, we'll need leadership
rather than
laggardship." in another op-ed in the
Financial Times, he argued that the credit
crunch could portend a far greater fiscal crisis;[11]
and on
CNN, he said that the
United States is "underwater to the tune of $50 trillion" in long-term
obligations.
He favorably compares the thrift of
Revolutionary-era Americans, who, if excessively in debt, would "merit time
in
debtors' prison",
with modern times, where "we now have something closer to debtors' pardons,
and that's not good."
Other responsibilities
Prior to his appointment to the GAO, Walker served
as a partner and global managing director of
Arthur Andersen LLP and in several government
leadership positions, including as a Public Trustee for Social Security and
Medicare from 1990 to 1995 and as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Pension
and Welfare Benefit Programs during the Reagan administration. Before his
time at Arthur Andersen, Walker worked for Source Finance, a personnel
agency, and before that was in Human Resources at accounting firm Coopers &
Lybrand.
Continued in article
In 2010 David Walker was admitted to the Accounting Hall of Fame ---
Click Here
http://fisher.osu.edu/departments/accounting-and-mis/the-accounting-hall-of-fame/membership-in-hall/david-michael-walker/
"Former comptroller general urges fiscally responsible reforms," by
Ken Tysiac, Journal of Accountancy, October 6, 2012 ---
http://journalofaccountancy.com/News/20126578.htm
The giant red digits on the “U.S. Burden
Barometer” outside the auditorium where David Walker spoke Friday provided
the numbers behind this prominent CPA’s message: The United States urgently
needs significant government financial reform.
Counting upward at a feverish pace, the
barometer represented an estimate of what Walker, a former U.S. comptroller
general, calls the “federal financial sinkhole,” combining explicit
liabilities, commitments and contingencies, and obligations to Social
Security and Medicare.
Shortly before Walker began his
presentation, the number stood at $70,821,389,917,073.
“It’s 70.8 trillion dollars, going up 10
million a minute, a hundred billion a week,” Walker told an audience
consisting primarily of CPAs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. “So the federal financial sinkhole is much bigger than the politicians
admit. It’s growing rapidly by them doing nothing, and they’ve become very
adept at doing nothing. And something has got to be done.”
Walker, a political independent,
headed the U.S. Government Accountability Office from 1998 to 2008. As CEO
of the not-for-profit
Comeback America Initiative, he is promoting
fiscal responsibility and seeking solutions to federal, state, and local
fiscal imbalances in the United States.
His tour, which is barnstorming 16 states
in 34 days, ends Tuesday and positions Walker as one of the leading
sentinels in a growing chorus of concern over the economic direction of the
United States at an important time. With a presidential election closing in
on its final days, one of the most persistent questions both candidates face
is how they will handle the economy, taxes, and the federal deficit.
Educating the public about the deficit and
the important, difficult, disciplined action that could bring it under
control is Walker’s passion. He warns of the impending “fiscal cliff” the
nation faces in January 2013 as the result of the scheduled expiration of
various tax provisions, and says a U.S. debt crisis is possible within two
years.
He comes armed on his tour with statistics
that demonstrate the financial peril that government spending and deficits
have brought for the United States. His PowerPoint slides show that:
- Federal spending as a percentage of
GDP has grown from 2% in 1912 to 24% in 2012.
- Total government debt in the U.S. is
estimated to be 137.8% of the economy, when intra-governmental holdings
are included, in 2012.
- Publicly held federal debt as a
percentage of GDP is projected to grow to 185% by 2035, according to one
scenario in the Congressional Budget Office’s long-term outlook.
“The federal government has grown too big, promised too much, lost control
of the budget, waited too long to restructure, and it needs fundamental
restructuring,” Walker said during an interview before the event. “Not nip
and tuck. Radical reconstructive surgery done in installments over a period
of time.”
Walker showed that defense spending in the
United States in 2010 exceeded the combined total spent by 15 other nations,
including China, Russia, France, the U.K., Japan, Saudi Arabia, India, and
Germany. And he showed that U.S. per capita health care costs ($7,960) were
more than double the OECD average ($3,361) and far outpaced those of Canada
($4,363) and Germany ($4,218).
He wants to reform budgeting, Social
Security, health care, Medicare and Medicaid, defense spending, and the tax
code.
He envisions measures that tie debt to GDP
targets as needed reforms of federal budget controls. He advocates
suspending the pay of members of Congress if they fail to pass a budget.
With regard to Social Security, he would raise the taxable wage base cap,
gradually raise the retirement eligibility ages, and revise the benefit
structure based on income.
Walker would guarantee a basic level of
health coverage for all citizens, revise payment practices to be evidence
based, and phase out the tax exclusion for employer-provided health
insurance, which he says estimates show will cost the federal government a
total of more than $650 billion from 2010 to 2014. He would impose an annual
budget for Medicare and Medicaid spending, and make Medicare premium
subsidies more needs based.
He would reform the military by requiring
cost consideration in defense planning, “right-sizing” bases and force
structure, and modernizing purchasing and compensation practices. He also
would reform individual and corporate federal income taxes, increasing the
effective tax paid by the wealthy and decreasing the number of citizens who
pay no income tax.
At an event whose sponsors included the
AICPA, the North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants, and
the N.C. Chamber of Commerce, Walker said CPAs have an important role to
play in bringing about these changes.
“I believe that CPAs have a
disproportionate opportunity and an obligation to be informed and involved
here,” Walker said. “They’re good with numbers. They’re respected by the
public. And I think that our profession, really, ought to be leaders in this
area.”
The AICPA has long been a leading
advocate for comprehensive reform that would
simplify tax laws without reducing the productive capacity of the economy.
In addition, the AICPA works as a proponent of personal financial literacy
and fiscal responsibility through efforts such as
360 Degrees of Financial Literacy and “What’s
at Stake.”
Anthony Pugliese, AICPA senior vice
president–Finance, Operations and Member Value, said Walker’s message was on
point with the Institute’s initiatives promoting financial literacy and
responsibility at the consumer, business, and government levels.
“We hope our members can make a
difference. We know they can make a difference with the clients they serve
and small business owners around the country and individual consumers,”
Pugliese said. “We hope this message is spread, and I think we have a vital
role to play in this.”
Walker said that political changes need to
be made in order to bring about all these other transformations that would
put the United States on a better fiscal path. He encourages development of
a strategic framework for the federal government and creation of a
government transformation task force. He calls for Congressional
redistricting reform, integrated and open primaries, campaign finance
reform, and term limits.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on the pending economic collapse of the United States
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
The Wandering Path From Knowledge Portals to MOOCs
You can read about the early knowledge portal experiment at Columbia
University that offered great hopes by failed early on.
Fathom was one of the early on initiatives to create an academic knowledge
portal somewhat similar to Wikipedia, although Columbia and its prestigious
university partners were taking on responsibility for content rather than users.
Fathom was not a Wiki.
Bob Jensen's threads on Fathom and Other Knowledge Portals ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/portals.htm
Note that this page was written before Columbia and its partners abandoned
the costly effort.
Fathom Partners
- Columbia University
- London School of Economics and Political Science
- Cambridge University Press
- The British Library
- Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
- The New York Public Library University of Chicago
- American Film Institute
- RAND
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
"A Pioneer in Online Education Tries a MOOC," by Ann Kirschner,
Chronicle of Higher Ed, October 1, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Pioneer-in-Online-Education/134662/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
MOOOOOOOOC! Surely "massive open online course" has
one of the ugliest acronyms of recent years, lacking the deliberate
playfulness of Yahoo (Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle) or the
droll shoulder shrug suggested by the word "snafu" (Situation Normal, All
Fouled Up).
I'm not a complete neophyte to online learning.
Back in 1999, I led the start-up team for Fathom, one of the earliest
knowledge networks, in partnership with Columbia University and other
institutions here and abroad, and I'm a board member of the Apollo Group. So
I was understandably curious about these MOOC's. With fond memories of a
thrilling virtual trip a dozen years ago to Ephesus, Turkey, via a
multimedia-rich, self-paced course created by a professor at the University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor, I decided to check out a MOOC for myself.
Coursera, a new company that offers free online
courses through some of the world's best-known universities, had the widest
and most impressive selection. I blocked my ears to the siren call of
science fiction, poetry, and history and opted for something sober: "Health
Policy and the Affordable Care Act." It's taught by the Emanuel brother who
isn't the Chicago mayor or the Hollywood superagent—Ezekiel Emanuel, an M.D.
and Ph.D. who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. For the next eight
weeks, I was part of a noisy, active, earnest, often contentious, and
usually interesting group of students. There didn't seem to be any way to
gauge the number enrolled, but I learned about the students from a
discussion group. There were quite a few lawyers, doctors, and other
health-care professionals. Some were struggling with personal health
disasters and wanted tools to predict how the health-care act would affect
their futures. Some were international researchers doing comparative
studies. Others were higher-education folks like me, testing the MOOC
waters.
The quality and format of the discussions were
immediate disappointments. A teaching assistant provided some adult
supervision, but too many of the postings were at the dismal level of most
anonymous Internet comments: nasty, brutish, and long. The reliance on
old-fashioned threaded message groups made it impossible to distinguish
online jerks from potential geniuses. I kept wishing for a way to break the
large group into small cohorts self-selected by background or
interests—health-care professionals, for instance, or those particularly
interested in the economics of health care. There was no way to build a
discussion, no equivalent to the hush that comes over the classroom when the
smart kid raises his or her hand.
If you believe the sage's advice that we learn much
from our teachers and colleagues but most of all from our students, MOOC's
will be far more effective when we are able to learn from one another.
Not surprisingly, enterprising MOOCsters are
already organizing themselves outside the online classroom, using
social-media tools like Google Hangouts and Facebook. In New York, students
schedule meetings in Starbucks; in Katmandu, a group relies on Meetup to get
together. Some course providers are facilitating external interaction:
Udacity has offered Global Meetup Day with Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford
University computer scientist (and Udacity co-founder) known for his course
on artificial intelligence. Coursera threw a giant barbecue in Menlo Park,
Calif., complete with volleyball and beanbag tossing.
Of course, peer learning takes you only so far: At
some point, somebody has to know something about the subject. Professor
Emanuel was a presence only in videos, but these were uniformly excellent.
The cameras caught him walking briskly around an actual lecture hall, and I
liked the presence of shadowy classmates sitting in Philadelphia, as if this
were happening in real time. The videos were pleasantly peppered with pop-up
quizzes. No embarrassment for the wrong answer, and I was ridiculously
pleased at correctly guessing that the proportion of health-care costs in
the United States that goes to prescription drugs is only 10 percent. For
those in a rush, watching at twice normal speed is sort of fun— don't you
secretly wish you could sit through some meetings at double speed?
I was a faithful student for a few weeks, until I
fell prey to my worst undergraduate habit, procrastination—only now my
excuses were far more sophisticated. I have to finish a manuscript! I have a
board meeting! I have to meet my mother's new cardiologist!
In a MOOC, nobody can hear you scream.
I might have abandoned the charming Professor
Emanuel altogether had the Supreme Court's decision to uphold President
Obama's health-care program not injected the spice of real-time action into
the discussion and refreshed my interest.
Somewhere between the videos and the readings and
the occasional dip into the discussion groups, I found myself actually
learning. I was particularly interested in how malpractice contributes to
health-care costs but was instructed by my professor that the potential
savings there amounted to mere "pencil dust." And who knew about the
proposed National Medical Error Disclosure and Compensation Act of 2005,
which would have reduced the number of malpractice cases, accelerated their
resolution, and lowered costs by two-thirds?
To earn a certificate, I would have had to submit
several essays for a grade, and I stopped short of that (see excuses above).
Essays are peer-graded, and it won't surprise anybody who has ever taught
undergraduates to hear that the student evaluations can be fierce. On the
discussion boards, there was considerable discussion of grade deflation,
plagiarism, and cheating. Alas, academic sins do follow us into the land of
MOOC's, despite a nicely written honor code. Bad behavior in any classroom,
real or virtual, should be no more surprising than gambling in
Casablanca. In fact, brace yourself for a breathtaking new form of
voluntary identity sharing: Your
fake student avatar, now available for a small
fee, will take your class for you.
Looking back, I suppose Fathom was a proto-MOOC,
and I confess to some surprise that the Coursera format has evolved little
beyond our pioneering effort of a decade ago. Yet when it came time to
assess the course, I found myself rating it pretty highly, and concluded
that aside from the format, the failings were mostly mine, for lack of
focus. Like many MOOC students, I didn't completely "finish" the course.
However, the final evaluations seemed mostly enthusiastic. From the
comments, most of the students seemed to find the course long on substance:
"comprehensive," "a good balance between the law, policy, and economics,"
"rich with multiple perspectives on health-policy issues."
Now, I could have read a book or done this on my
own. But you could say the same thing about most education. A course is not
a book but a journey, led by an expert, and taken in the company of fellow
travelers on a common quest for knowledge. My MOOC had those elements,
albeit in a pretty crude form.
You'd have to live under a rock not to know that
crushing student debt, declining state support, and disruptive technologies
have made it imperative to look at new models for teaching. The competitive
landscape for higher education is changing every day. China recently
declared the goal of bringing half a million foreign students to its shores
by 2020, and is investing in programs friendly to Americans and other
international students. American MOOC's may point the way to retaining the
best students and faculty in the world, while adding the lively and
collaborative components of technology-enhanced teaching and learning.
It is true that nobody yet has a reasonable
business plan for these courses, and there is concern over completion rates
and whether colleges are "giving away the farm," as a recent MIT
alumni-magazine article put it. It is not hard to anticipate the end of free
and the start of the next stage: fee-based certificate programs built around
MOOC's. But for now, the colleges leading those efforts are making
relatively modest—and rare—investments in research and development. Their
faculty members are excited about the opportunity to experiment. Let's give
this explosion of pent-up innovation in higher education a chance to mature
before we rush to the bottom line.
Continued in article
"What You Need to Know About MOOC's," Chronicle of Higher Education,
August 20, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/What-You-Need-to-Know-About/133475/
. . .
Who are the major players?
Several start-up companies are working with
universities and professors to offer MOOC's. Meanwhile, some colleges are
starting their own efforts, and some individual professors are offering
their courses to the world. Right now four names are the ones to know:
edX
A nonprofit effort run jointly by
MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley.
Leaders of the group say they intend to slowly add
other university partners over time. edX plans to freely give away the
software platform it is building to offer the free courses, so that anyone
can use it to run MOOC’s.
Coursera
A for-profit company founded by two computer-science
professors from Stanford.
The company’s model is to sign contracts with colleges that agree to use
the platform to offer free courses and to get a percentage of any revenue.
More than a dozen high-profile institutions, including Princeton and the U.
of Virginia, have joined.
Udacity
Another for-profit company founded
by a Stanford computer-science professor.
The company, which works with individual professors
rather than institutions, has attracted a range of well-known scholars.
Unlike other providers of MOOC’s, it has said it will focus all of its
courses on computer science and related fields.
Udemy
A for-profit platform that lets
anyone set up a course.
The company encourages its instructors to charge a
small fee, with the revenue split between instructor and company. Authors
themselves, more than a few of them with no academic affiliation, teach many
of the courses.
The Big List of 530 Free Online Courses from Top Universities (New
Additions) ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/new_additions_to_our_list_of_530_free_online_courses_from_top_universities_.html
"The Future Is Now?" by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, August 13,
2012 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-future-is-now.html
Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs, MITx, and Courses from Prestigious
Universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education and training alternatives in
general ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs and other free courses, videos, tutorials,
and course materials from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Update on the Roaring Online Nonprofit Western Governors University (WGU)
founded in 1997 by the governors of 19 states
A competency-based university where instructors don't assign the grades ---
grades are based upon competency testing
WGU does not admit foreign students
WGU now has over 30,000 students from sponsoring states for this nonprofit,
private university
Western Governors University (WGU) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGU
Competency-Based Learning ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge
The article below is about WGU-Texas which was "founded" in 2011 when Texas
joined the WGU system
"Reflections on the First Year of a New-Model University," by Mark David
Milliron, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 1, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Reflections-on-the-First-Year/134670/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Western Governors University Texas, where I am
chancellor, is not an easy institution to describe to your mother—or even
your hip sister. It just doesn't fit the profile of most traditional
universities, even the newer for-profit and online ones. It brings the work
of a national, online, nonprofit university into a state, and it embraces a
competency-based education model that is rarely found on an institutionwide
level.
Even for seasoned educators, WGU Texas feels
different. And in a year that has seen flat or declining enrollments at many
traditional colleges, reports critical of for-profit institutions, and
continuing debate over the perils and promise of online learning, our story,
and our growth, has been unique. As we hit our one-year anniversary, it's
worth taking a few moments to reflect on the ups, downs, challenges, and
champions of this newest state model. I'd offer three key reflections on
lessons we've learned:
Building a strong foundation.
Western Governors was founded as a private, multistate online university 15
years ago by governors of Western states. Texas is only the third state
model within the system, following WGU Indiana and WGU Washington. Before
our opening, leaders of Western Governors took time to make sure the idea of
this state university made sense for Texas. The intent was to add
high-quality, affordable capacity to the state's higher-education system,
particularly for adult learners, and to localize it for Texans and their
employers.
This outpost was poised to "go big" in one of the
biggest of states, offering more than 50 bachelor's and master's degrees in
high-demand fields in business, education, information technology, and
health professions. WGU's online-learning model allows students to progress
by demonstrating what they know and can do rather than by logging time in
class accumulating credit hours.
In meetings across the state, the idea of WGU Texas
gained the support of the state's political, legislative, and
higher-education leaders, as well as the Texas Workforce Commission and the
Texas Association of Community Colleges. Rushing to roll out was not the
goal; entering the education ecosystem with solid support of the model was.
I came on board as chancellor in December 2011.
Having served on WGU's Board of Trustees for six years, I knew the model,
and having graduated from and worked for the University of Texas at Austin,
I knew Texas.
In the past six months, we have hired key staff and
faculty, formed a state advisory board, opened a main office and training
center in downtown Austin, launched our first wave of student outreach,
begun working with employers in different metro regions, and started
connecting online and on the ground with students. After absorbing WGU's
1,600 existing Texas students, WGU Texas grew by more than 60 percent in
this first year, entering August 2012 with more than 3,000 students.
In about eight weeks, we'll hold our first
commencement in Austin, celebrating the graduation of more than 400
students. We're moving quickly now, but it's the firm foundation of
outreach, support, and systems that served us well as we took on the next
two challenges:
Confronting conflation. WGU Texas
is laser-focused on a student population that is typically underserved. We
see ourselves as a good fit for adult learners who need an affordable,
quality, and flexible learning model, particularly working students who want
to attend full time. We are especially focused on the more than three
million Texans who have some college and no credential—students like Jason
Franklin, a striving adult learner in a high-demand IT field who had gone as
far as he could in his career without a degree. He earned a bachelor's and a
master's degree through Western Governors, and is now working on a master's
degree from WGU Texas.
We'd like to help these students reach their goals
and get on a solid career and lifelong-learning path.
However, in offering a new model like ours, you
quickly find the conflation problem a challenge. Some assume that you're
trying to compete for the fresh-from-high-school graduates who want a campus
experience. Others assume that because you're online, you must be a
for-profit university. Still others put all online education programs in the
same bucket, not distinguishing at all between a traditional model online
and a deeply personalized, competency-based learning model.
Fighting conflation by clearly differentiating and
properly positioning our university has been essential. We've had to be
clear—and to repeat often—that our approach is designed for adult learners
who have some college and work experience. We're absolutely OK with telling
prospective students, partner colleges, and state-policy leaders that for
18- to 20-year-olds looking to embark on their first college experience, we
are probably not the right fit. In fact, first-time freshmen make up less
than 5 percent of our student population.
The for-profit conflation has been even more
interesting. Many people assume that any online university is for-profit. We
are not. And even when we assure them that our nonprofit status keeps us
deeply committed to low tuition—we have a flat-rate, six-month-term tuition
averaging less than $3,000 for full-time students, which our national parent
WGU has not raised for four years—they have a hard time getting their minds
around it.
Others are sure we are nothing more than an online
version of the traditional model, relying entirely on adjunct faculty. When
we explain our history, learning model, and reliance on full-time faculty
members who specialize in either mentoring or subject matter, it takes some
time. But once people embrace the idea of a personal faculty mentor who
takes a student from first contact to crossing the graduation stage, they
warm quickly to the model.
Synching with the state's needs.
While forming the foundation and fighting conflation are important, I'd say
the key to WGU's state-model successes is the commitment to synching with
the economic, educational, and student ecosystem of the state.
On the economic level, we've been able to work
directly with employers eager to support our university, advance our
competency-centered model, and hire our graduates. Educationally we have
been fortunate to have smart and strategic partners that have guided our
entry into the state. For example, our Finish to Go Further transfer
program, in partnership with the Texas community-college association,
motivates students to complete their associate degrees before transferring.
This strategy supports the goal of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating
Board of significantly improving postsecondary access and success in Texas.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment (including competency-based assessment)
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
Jensen Comment
WGU is neither a traditional university nor a MOOC. It started as an experiment
to deliver a quality education without having the 19 states have to build and/or
maintain physical campuses to deliver college education to more students.
Admittedly, one of the main incentives was to expand learning opportunities
without paying for the enormous costs of building and maintaining campuses. WGU
was mostly an outreach program for non-traditional students who for one reason
or another are unable to attend onsite campuses. But the primary goal of WGU was
not and still is not confined to adult education.
WGU is not intended to take over onsite campus education alternatives. The
founders of WGU are well aware that living and learning on an onsite campus
brings many important components to education and maturation and socialization
that WGU cannot offer online. For example, young students on campus enter a new
phase of life living outside the homes and daily oversight of their parents. But
the transition is less abrupt than living on the mean streets of real life.
Students meet face-to-face on campus and are highly likely to become married or
live with students they are attracted to on campus. Campus students can
participate in athletics, music performances, theatre performances, dorm life,
chapel life, etc.
But WGU is not a MOOC where 100,000 anonymous students may be taking an
online course. Instead, WGU courses are relatively small with intimate
communications 24/7 with instructors and other students in most of the courses.
In many ways the learning communications may be much closer online in WGU than
on campus at the University of Texas where classrooms often hold hundreds of
students taking a course.
There are some types of learning that can take place in live classrooms
that are almost impossible online.
For example, an onsite case analysis class (Harvard style) takes on a life of
its own that case instructors cannot anticipate before class. Students are
forced to speak out in front of other students. A student's unexpected idea may
change the direction of the entire case discussion for the remainder of the
class. I cannot imagine teaching many Harvard Business School cases online even
though there are ways to draw out innovative ideas and discussions online.
Physical presence is part and parcel to teaching many HBS cases.
Competency-based grading has advantages and disadvantages.
Competency-based grading removes incentives to brown nose instructors for better
grades. It's unforgiving for lazy and unmotivated students. But these advantages
can also be disadvantages. Some students become more motivated by hoping that
their instructors will reward effort as well as performance. At unexpected
points in life those rewards for effort may come at critical times just before a
student is apt to give up and look for a full time McJob.
Some students are apt to become extremely bored learning about Shakespeare or
Mozart. But in attempting to please instructors with added effort, the students
may actually discover at some unexpected point something wonderful about
Shakespeare or Mozart. Mathematics in particular is one of those subjects that
can be a complete turn off until suddenly a light clicks and student discovers
that math is not only interesting --- math can be easier once you hit a key
point in the mathematics learning process. This definitely happened with me, and
the light did not shine for me until I started a doctoral program. Quite
suddenly I loved mathematics and made it the central component of my five years
of full-time doctoral studies at Stanford University.
Thus WGU and the University of Texas should not be considered competitors.
They are different alternatives that have some of the same goals (such as
competency in learning content) and some different goals (such as living with
other students and participating in extracurricular activities).
I wish WGU well and hope it thrives alongside the traditional state-supported
campuses. WGU in some ways was a precursor to MOOC education, but WGU is not a
MOOC in the sense that classes are small and can be highly interactive with
other students and with instructor. In a MOOC, students have to be more
motivated to learn on their own and master the material without much outside
help from other students or instructors.
There are many ways to teach and many ways to learn. WGU found its niche.
There's no one-size-fits-all to living and learning.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Note that this is a book available for about $15 or less for used copies
FORTUNE The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time: How Apple, Ford, IBM,
Zappos, and others made radical choices that changed the course of business ---
Click Here
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fortune-the-greatest-business-decisions-of-all-time-fortune-magazine-editors/1113015377?cm_mmc=affiliates-_-linkshare-_-bhxbhyulyvm-_-10%3a1&ean=9781603200592&r=1
Jensen Comment
I also find it interesting out some of the same companies making the "greatest
decisions of all time" also make the worst decisions of all time. For example,
IBM invented the PC but let it slip away to Microsoft and Apple because IBM
considered the PC that it invented to be just a toy.
Apple gave Bill Gates and Paul Allen an opening by refusing to make the Mac
operating system an open source for other hardware manufacturers of portable
computers. If Apple has made the Mac an open source platform, Bill Gates may
have had no alternative other than becoming a used car salesman or a programmer
for Apple.
In its earliest years, Ford carried the assembly line mentality to a fault by
keeping the product lines too narrow and standardized for the common man,
thereby giving rise to General Motors and other manufacturers for innovative and
less standardized (sometimes luxury) alternatives like Packards.
"U. of South Carolina Crafts an Online Degree That Students Can Afford,"
by Alina Mogilyanskaya, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 23, 2012
---
http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-South-Carolina-Crafts-an/134566/
Mark E. Pittman is in many ways the quintessential
student for the University of South Carolina's new Palmetto College. At 47,
he is a former Navy man, a husband, a father of three, and the principal
breadwinner in his family. More than a decade after leaving behind his
studies at South Carolina, he has re-enrolled—and if all goes well, he will
soon become the first person in his family to earn a bachelor's degree.
Mr. Pittman recently began studying in the
university's new Back to Carolina program, an online degree-completion
option for adults who are 25 or older and previously earned at least 60
academic credits at the university. Back to Carolina is a pilot program for
Palmetto College, the first offering in a much broader distance-learning
effort set to begin in the fall of 2013.
With Palmetto, the first program of its kind in the
state, the university sees itself as filling a gap in the availability of
affordable bachelor's degrees for South Carolinians, as well as contributing
to the state's educational-attainment and work-force goals.
More than that, the university is positioning
itself to compete with for-profit institutions.
Palmetto College will offer online
bachelor's-completion programs in a variety of vocational fields, including
business, criminal justice, education, and nursing, which students can
pursue on their own time. It will enroll students who already hold at least
60 credits from one of the system's largely two-year "regional" colleges, a
South Carolina technical college, or an out-of-state institution, and who,
for whatever reason, are unable to relocate to a four-year, or "senior,"
campus to complete a baccalaureate degree.
The South Carolina system has four regional
colleges, and about 500 students per year transfer to one of the four senior
campuses to continue toward bachelor's degrees. "How many are not able to
relocate, that's a different story," says Michael D. Amiridis, the
university's provost. "That's what we will be testing with the Palmetto
College."
"We always think of the dropout as someone who
couldn't make it, but by far the predominant reason is that someone had
economic challenges or married or needed to take a job. And so we want these
people to come back to the university and to complete their bachelor's
degrees," says Harris Pastides, president of the university.
Mr. Pittman, for example, lives in Kershaw, S.C., a
town of about 1,800 people. The majority of Kershaw's workers commute out of
town to their jobs, and the only site of higher education there is an
off-campus center of York Technical College.
In the late 1990s, Mr. Pittman was majoring in
biology at the university, first taking courses at the Lancaster campus,
about a half-hour's drive from his home, and then at the main campus, in
Columbia, an hour away. After two and a half years, the pressures of
studying, along with those of providing for and being able to spend time
with his wife and young children, became too much, and Mr. Pittman left the
university for the work force.
For the past four years he has been working at
home, in order to cut out the time he spent commuting to his job at Bank of
America, in Charlotte, N.C.—63 miles each way—and to spend more time with
his family. Now he is also studying at home, evenings and weekends, to earn
a B.A. in liberal studies, the degree that Back to Carolina is piloting this
year.
"It's certainly added to my plateful," Mr. Pittman
says. "But I'm not complaining. It's a great opportunity, and I'm going to
leverage it and take advantage of it as much as I can."
Competitive
Pricing
One of the "guiding principles" of Palmetto College
is that its programs are "positioned to compete with for-profit
institutions," says a February progress report compiled by Huron Consulting
Group, which worked with the university to develop the Palmetto College
concept. By offering competitively priced online degrees backed by the
resources of a large public institution and the university's brand,
officials hope to attract the demographic that for-profits often claim as
their main market.
While for-profit colleges have been criticized for
their low online-degree-completion rates, Mr. Amiridis anticipates that
there won't be a "huge discrepancy" between the graduation rates of South
Carolina's traditional campuses and those of Palmetto College. Attributing
his expectation of student success to the hybrid nature of the program—the
first 60 credits of study will be completed at a traditional campus and the
last 60 online—he emphasizes that students will already have an academic
history before enrolling in online courses.
That history will not only prepare them to perform
academically but also aid in the admissions process. "We are selective, and
we're careful in the way that we select people to make sure that they have a
reasonable chance of success," Mr. Amiridis says. "I view this as an ethical
responsibility, quite frankly."
Apart from distinguishing itself through this
admissions standard, Palmetto College will focus on a more specific
population than that of the for-profits, he says.
"The populations that we're trying to serve, they
know us. They know the University of South Carolina. In many cases they
aspire to receive a degree from the University of South Carolina," Mr.
Amiridis says. "We're not competing with for-profit institutions. We're not
trying to take this and go nationally."
The provost's comments parallel the marketing
principle put forward by the Huron report, which states that "techniques
should be used to differentiate USC from the for-profit institutions that
are heavily marketed."
The consultants' report is also explicit about
Palmetto College's role, concluding that at a price of $367 per credit hour,
the college will become "a significant competitor to the for-profit
institutions that have recently become major players in the South Carolina
higher-education marketplace."
A study done in conjunction with Huron two years
ago showed that at that sample price, Palmetto College courses for students
with 60 credits would cost less than 40 percent of a comparable course
offered by a for-profit in the state, Mr. Amiridis says. Ultimately,
administrators decided that Palmetto tuition would be comparable to that for
the system's two- and four-year campuses.
Despite its focus on former University of South
Carolina students, the new college may end up competing with for-profits
more directly.
"One of the things that's going to happen is that
at some point in time, Palmetto will exhaust that population," says Bruce N.
Chaloux, chief executive of the Sloan Consortium, which promotes online
learning in higher education.
While the consortium recommends that institutions
engage in adult degree-completion programs those previously enrolled
students who had left without degrees, Mr. Chaloux says that transplants to
the state or holders of credits from other universities would also be
interested.
'Catching Fire'
The creation of Palmetto College is also a move to
leverage South Carolina's regional campuses while streamlining the
university system. The four regional colleges will be consolidated under the
administrative umbrella of Palmetto College, which will be led by a new
chancellor. Some of the colleges' operations, like financial aid, human
resources, and budget and finance will be centralized, and additional
advisers will be hired to serve Palmetto students.
No staffing cuts have been announced, although Mr.
Amiridis says the move may lead to "an optimization of the staffing needs."
Ann C. Carmichael, dean of the regional campus at
Salkehatchie, says the centralization of resources and personnel will
empower the university's regional colleges by allowing for "collective
decision making" and leading to "more efficient use of scarce dollars."
Palmetto College is an expansion of Palmetto
Programs, an option that has allowed students at regional colleges to
complete baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts or organizational leadership
"synchronously," or by attending live broadcasts of lectures held on other
campuses.
"It's almost like a natural evolution of what's
been happening," says Sandra J. Kelly, chair of the university's Faculty
Senate. Faculty in both the senior and regional colleges have been
converting courses into a synchronous online format for Palmetto Programs;
those who are interested are now crafting "asynchronous classes," or ones
that students can take on their own time, for Palmetto College.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education education and training
alternatives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
A Billion Here, A Billion There: Sometimes it's not real money
"Harvard Endowment Lost Money in Last Fiscal Year," Inside Higher Ed,
September 27, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/09/27/harvard-endowment-lost-money-last-fiscal-year
Harvard University's endowment lost about $1
billion in the 12 months through June, Bloomberg reported. The fund, still
the largest university endowment in the world, ended up at $30.7 billion,
down about 0.05 percent. Harvard, like many other universities, saw major
losses the year that the recession started, but many other universities have
been posting gains more recently. Harvard officials said that their losses
were due to investments in publicly traded non-U.S. companies and in
"emerging market" shares.
Things are worse for most other universities
"One-Third of Colleges Are on Financially
'Unsustainable' Path, Bain Study Finds," by Goldie Blumenstyk, The
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 23, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/One-Third-of-Colleges-Are-on/133095/
Book Review
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
Knopf Doubleday Publishing
Group
ISBN-13: 9780394703176
1964 Pultzer Prize Winner for Non-fiction
by Richard Hofstadter
The paperback price new is $15 and used copies are available for less than a
third of the new price
Reviewed by Michael Dirda
September 24, 2012
http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Library-Without-Walls/Anti-Intellectualism-in-American-Life/ba-p/8967
October 1, 2012 reply from Richard Sansing
For a more recent book on the same theme, I
recommend Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400096383/ref=cm_li_v_cs_d?tag=linkedin-20
Richard Sansing
I’ve just uploaded the first 8 lectures in my Behavioral Finance class
for 2012. The first few lectures are very similar to last year’s, but the
content changes substantially by about lecture 5 when I start to focus more
on Schumpeter’s approach to endogenous money ---
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/09/23/behavioral-finance-lectures/
Related book: Debunking
Economics
Jensen Comment
These are quite good slide show lectures.
Bob Jensen's Threads on Behavioral and Cultural Economics and Finance ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#Behavioral
Bob Jensen's threads on tutorials, lectures, videos and course materials
from prestigious universities ---
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/09/23/behavioral-finance-lectures/
Bob Jensen's threads on tutorials, lectures, videos and course materials
from prestigious universities ---
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/09/23/behavioral-finance-lectures/
From the TaxProf Blog by Paul Caron on October 2, 2012
Raj Chetty Named 2012 MacArthur Fellow
Raj Chetty (Harvard University, Department of
Economics) has been named a
2012
MacArthur Fellow:
Raj Chetty is an
economist whose rigorous theoretical and empirical studies are
informing the design of effective government policy. His initial
work focused on resolving inconsistencies in earlier theories of
specific questions in public finance, such as how dividend tax cuts
affect corporate behavior and how unemployment insurance affects
job-seeking behavior. More recently, he and colleagues designed
novel empirical tests to gauge the impact of sales taxes on demand.
In a study at a large supermarket chain, they demonstrated that,
although most customers were well-informed about the retail sales
tax rates, consumers purchased less of a product when posted prices
indicated the associated sales tax than when the tax was simply
added to the product’s base price at checkout. This observation,
suggesting that the way in which a tax is perceived can have as much
or more impact on consumer decision making as the tax itself, is an
important contribution to the emerging field of behavioral public
finance. Using large administrative databases drawn from tax and
social security records in the United States and Europe, Chetty
currently is exploring a range of other questions, such as the
effect of tax policy on how much people work, the extent to which
tax deductions for retirement savings stimulate individual savings,
and key aspects of early childhood education. In a study on teacher
quality using these data sets and information gleaned from school
district databases, Chetty and colleagues found that, adjusting for
other factors, students who by chance were assigned to talented
teachers in elementary school had significantly higher incomes as
adults and better future life outcomes more generally. By asking
simple, penetrating questions and developing rigorous theoretical
and empirical tests, Chetty’s timely, often surprising, findings in
applied economics are illuminating key policy issues of our time.
Ask your grocer when he will have a special on black swans: Tax
consequences of the widespread drought
How Do Market Failures Justify Interventions in Rural Credit Markets?
Author: Timothy Besley
Source: The World Bank Research Observer, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 27-47
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/39865
Jensen Comment
This article discusses how failures of credit markets in the 1990s led to branch
banking in small farm towns in order to make farm lending more effective and
efficient, where bankers could become closer with both the needs of their farm
customers and the risks of lending to farmers for their crops and livestock
feeding operations.
One of the problems is the inefficiency of national and world credit markets
for local lending to farmers. Whereas there are vast markets for collateralized
loans in such things as home mortgages, there is almost no market for the loans
made to farmers for crops, livestock, and farm equipment. Banks that lend to
these farmers carry the loans on their own books unless the banks themselves go
under, in which case the FDIC has to move in, manage the bank through a crisis,
and in some cases pick up the bank receivables that cannot be sold in credit
markets ---
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/388783-christopher-menkin/857961-oldest-bank-fails-in-missouri
In the U.S. many of these "branch banks" were former locally-owned banks that
were gobbled up by banking chains that now operate them as branch banks. In
other parts of the world, the larger banks had to establish new branch banks to
make farm lending more effective and efficient.
Implications of the S&L banking crisis in the 1980s on rural banks
"Deteriorating Farm Finances Affect Rural Banks and Communities," by
Daniel L. Milkove, Patrick J. Sullivan, and James J. Mikeseil,
http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND87013364/PDF
Financial problems in the agricultural sector are
eventually transmitted to farm lenders. As cash flow problems cause farmers
and farm-related businesses to fall behind on loan payments, the quality of
lenders' loan portfolios deteriorates. Lenders must set aside reserves to
cover actual and anticipated loan losses. These and other adjustments by
agricultural lenders to cope with their problem loans can affect credit
availability for the community at large.
Bank financial problems caused 69 agricultural
banks to fail last year, and some predict even more agricultural bank
failures this year. While bank failures dramatically portray the problems of
farm lenders, the failures generally are not as devastating to local banking
services as many fear. In the past, most failed rural banks reopened almost
immediately under new ownership.
A more widespread problem for rural areas may be
the growing number of agricultural banks with serious financial problems. As
banks adjust their lending decisions to deal with weaknesses identified by
bank regulators, "marginally qualified" borrowers are likely to be denied
credit. This may force some farmers into bankruptcy, but it will also reduce
credit to nonfarm businesses, putting rural communities in agricultural
areas of the country at a disadvantage in attracting new businesses and
holding existing firms. Depending on the size and structure of the local
banking system, less credit availability could dampen the growth potential
of the local nonfarm economy, just when off-farm employment is needed by
members of foundering family farms and by people displaced from agriculture.
Agricultural communities in unit-banking and
limited-branching States have local banking systems heavily involved in
agricultural loans. Furthermore, since small agricultural banks depend on
local borrowers, these banks will likely make every effort to service the
credit needs of farmers despite their cash flow problems. This may help some
farmers who would otherwise be denied credit, but could depress the
community's economy if local banks support agriculture at the expense of the
nonfarm sector.
Continued in article
But most rural banks weathered the S&L crisis because there were no
weather-related black swans.
A leading cause of the Great Depression of the 1930s was weather related, but
the combination of causes was far more complicated.
Black Swan ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
The widespread 2012 drought in the Midwest could well become the Black Swan
of rural banks that are mostly dependent upon farm lending.
"Drought brings local farmers on the brink," by Jacob Barker, The
Columbia Daily Tribune, July 14, 2012 ---
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jul/14/drought-brings-local-farmers-brink/?business
Also see
http://droughtresources.unl.edu/
Tax Consequences of Drought ---
http://droughtresources.unl.edu/web/cattleproduction/taxconsequences-drought
It’s been a few years since we’ve had to deal with
the drought related tax laws, but with the recent drought conditions across
the Midwest, it’s a good time to review them.
Jensen Comment
It's too soon to know whether climate changes will be black swan events in the
banking industry. There will be some rural bank failures due to the 2012 drought
in the Midwest, South, and West. However, the real danger of a black swan event
lurks if there is a 2013 drought as large or larger than the 2012 drought.
In 2012 farmers will dig deep into savings to keep going and be forced to
borrow more for their 2013 crop hopes.
But for livestock farmers (ranch, feeder lots, and containment feeding
operations) the widespread drought of 2012 is leading to the slaughtering of
herds and shutting down of feeding businesses. The reason is that demand for
meat is highly price elastic. Livestock farmers cannot simply save themselves by
passing along feed price increases to their customers. Compounding this is the
rising price of fuel that affects distribution costs to supermarkets and
restaurants.
Ask your grocer when he will have a special on black swans.
Review of a Movie
"Harvard EdCast: Won’t Back Down," by Matt Weber, Harvard Graduate School
of Education, September 28, 2012 ---
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact/2012/09/harvard-edcast-wont-back-down/
On September 20, the Ed School cosponsored a
screening of the new
film about education reform, Won’t Back Down.
The movie, which opens nationally today, stars Viola Davis and Maggie
Gyllenhaal as two mothers determined to transform their children’s failing
inner city school.
Daniel Barnz, director of the film, reflects on
why writing and directing a movie about education was just a perfect fit.
"Education Reform Gets a Hollywood Boost In
'Won't Back Down,' Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis play a mother and teacher
trying to save a failing school," by Bruno V. Manno, The Wall Street Journal,
September 28, 2012 ---
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444712904578024231221060770.html?mg=reno-wsj#mod=djemEditorialPage_t
With Friday's release of "Won't Back Down,"
Hollywood has brought to theaters the real-life struggle of millions of
parents. The movie features Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as a
parent-and-teacher duo who team up to turn around a chronically failing
public school. Rather than acquiesce to the certainty of a subpar education
for the children, they fight back—rallying other parents and teachers to the
cause of wrestling control of their school from the local school board and
putting it in the hands of devoted educators.
It isn't fantasy. The movie is based on new
"parent-trigger" laws, a very real policy solution that—depending on the
state—gives parents and others the power to reform failing schools; close
them; or, in some states, transform them into charter schools. The first
parent-trigger law was passed by California in 2010, with bipartisan support
in a Democratic legislature.
Today, across six states, parents of more than 14
million students can trigger the turnaround of their local school if it is
failing. The laws vary, but in general once a school has been on a state's
list of underperforming schools for a specified period, a majority vote by
parents and others specified by law can trigger the reform process.
Whether they have a trigger law in their state or
not, parents and educators everywhere can identify with the sense of
powerlessness felt by the mother and the teacher in "Won't Back Down." More
than 12% of the nation's high schools are dropout factories, with fewer than
six of every 10 freshmen completing their senior year. The majority of
students enrolled in these schools are minority and low-income, with little-
or no-better educational options.
It has been this way for too many years. Parents,
particularly those without the means to send their child to private school
or to exercise "real-estate choice" by moving to a neighborhood with better
public schools, are often left with only one designated public school for
their child. If it is bad, they and their child are out of luck.
Continued in article
"SAT Scores Drop Again," by Scott Jaschik,
Inside Higher Ed, September 25, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/25/sat-scores-are-down-and-racial-gaps-remain
The average scores
on the SAT fell two points this year,
losing one point each in critical
reading and in writing, while staying
level in mathematics. The drops are
smaller than the six-point decrease last
year. For several years prior to that,
scores had been relatively flat.
The College Board's annual report on the
data stressed
the continuation of patterns in which
most American students aren't taking the
high school courses that would prepare
them to do well in college. The data
released by the board show the
continuation of substantial gaps in the
average scores (and levels of
preparation for college) by members of
different racial and ethnic groups, and
those from different socioeconomic
backgrounds.
Average scores on the ACT were flat this
year, and both
the SAT and ACT saw growth in the number
of test-takers. But the ACT grew at a
faster pace and overtook the SAT this
year in the number of test-takers
(although the margin was quite small,
about 2,000 students, with both exams
attracting more than 1.66 million
test-takers). The ACT was once seen
primarily as a test for those seeking to
attend Midwestern and Southern colleges,
but has over the years attracted more
students in other parts of the country,
even as the SAT is still dominant in
regions such as the Northeast.
Here are the scores on the three parts
of the SAT since 2006, when the writing
test was added as part of a major
overhaul of the test
Average SAT Scores, 2006-2012
Year |
Reading |
Mathematics |
Writing |
2006 |
503 |
518 |
497 |
2007 |
501 |
514 |
493 |
2008 |
500 |
514 |
493 |
2009 |
499 |
514 |
492 |
2010 |
500 |
515 |
491 |
2011 |
497 |
514 |
489 |
2012 |
496 |
514 |
488 |
College Board officials have long
cautioned against reading too much into
a one-point gain or one-point drop in a
given year, but over the years since the
new SAT was introduced, the average
total score has fallen by 20 points, and
scores have fallen in all three
categories.
Of particular interest to many college
officials are the continued gaps in the
average scores of members of different
racial and ethnic groups. An analysis
prepared by FairTest: National Center
for Fair & Open Testing (a longstanding
critic of the SAT and other standardized
tests) showed that during the years
since the new SAT was unveiled, the
average score (adding all three
sections) of Asian-American applicants
has gone up by 41 points, while the
averages of all other groups have
fallen, with white students falling only
4 points, and all other groups falling
between 15 and 22 points.
Bob Schaeffer, public education director
of the organization, said that these
growing gaps showed that the
testing-based education reforms that
have been popular in recent years are
not narrowing the divides among various
ethnic and racial groups, as testing
advocates have argued that they would.
Average SAT Scores, by Race and
Ethnicity, 2012
Group |
Reading |
Mathematics |
Writing |
American Indian |
482 |
489 |
462 |
Asian American |
518 |
595 |
528 |
Black |
428 |
428 |
417 |
Mexican American |
448 |
465 |
443 |
Puerto Rican |
452 |
452 |
442 |
Other Latino |
447 |
461 |
442 |
White |
527 |
536 |
515 |
The report issued by the College Board
drew attention to the characteristics of
students who tend to do well on the SAT,
namely those who complete recommended
college preparatory courses. There are
distinct patterns, as noted in the above
table, on average scores by race and
ethnic group, and by family income (with
wealthier students, on average,
performing better). But as the College
Board materials noted, there are also
distinct patterns in which groups are
most likely to have completed the
recommended high school curriculum or
other measures of advanced academic
preparation:
-
80 percent of white students who
took the SAT completed the core
curriculum, as did 73 percent of
Asian students, but only 69 percent
of Latino and 65 percent of black
students did.
-
84 percent of those who took the SAT
from families with at least $200,000
in family income completed the core
curriculum, but only 65 percent of
those with family income under
$20,000 did so.
-
In mathematics, where there is the
largest gap between Asian Americans
and other groups in SAT scores, 47
percent of Asian Americans who took
the SAT reported taking Advanced
Placement and/or honors mathematics,
compared to 40 percent of white
students, 31 percent of Latino
students and 25 percent of black
students.
"California Dumbs Down
Tests," by Linda Chavez, Townhall, April 23, 2010 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/LindaChavez/2010/04/23/california_dumbs_down_tests
Jensen Comment
Last night, CBS News asserted that over half of the students entering college
first need remedial reading to have much hope for eventual graduation.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
How the NCAA Misleads With Statistics
"Gaps in Grad Rates for Atletes," by Allie Grasgreen, Inside Higher
Ed, September 25, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/25/report-finds-football-players-graduate-rates-lower-full-time-student-peers
The National Collegiate Athletic Association
likes to boast that athletes graduate at rates
higher than non-athletes – in some cases, significantly higher. But the tool
the NCAA uses to make that assertion -- the Graduation Success Rate, or GSR
-- follows a unique formula that factors out athletes who transfer in good
academic standing, instead counting them as graduates.
That is not the case with the Federal Graduation
Rate, an older measurement required by the government (which is why the NCAA
developed the GSR in the first place). But the federal rate counts only
full-time, first-time students who graduate from the institution where they
began. That means that students who go part-time or take breaks bring down
an institution's graduation rate, again making it a less-than-ideal
benchmark for comparison, given that all athletes (unlike other students)
are required to maintain full course loads.
Enter the
Adjusted Graduation Gap, a model that compares
athletes’ graduation rates by conference and sport directly to the rates of
their non-athlete peers by factoring out part-time students. The annual
installment looking at the adjusted gaps for football players was released
today by the Collegiate Sport Research Institute at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“We know that part-time students graduate at a much
lower rate, and one of the reasons that we know affects that is that they’re
working,” said Richard Southall, an associate professor of sport
administration and coordinator of UNC’s Graduate Sport Administration
Program. “Instead of saying, ‘Well, athletes graduate at a rate that’s
better,’ instead of making just short sound bites, let’s look at the
situation and say, ‘Athletes from different sports are different.’ It’s like
students at different colleges are different.”
And using the AGG model does paint a different
picture. In most athletic conferences, athletes graduate at rates lower than
non-athletes; the gap is widest (for the third year in a row) in the Pacific
12 Conference, where football players graduated at rates 27 percentage
points lower (in other words, an AGG of -27) compared to full-time male
students at those institutions in the 2004-10 cohort, the latest data
available.
For the most part, the gaps are largest in the
conferences that are most successful athletically. Rounding out the “bottom
five” with the starkest rate differences are the Atlantic Coast Conference
(-22), the Big Ten Conference (-20), the Western Athletic Conference (-19),
and the Southeastern Conference (-18).
The smallest differences were found in the Mountain
West Conference and Conference USA, both of which had gaps of -13.
And with this, the third installment of the AGG
football report, Southall included averages since the report’s inception.
“We see that things aren’t changing significantly one way or another,” he
said. While some conference figures have shifted somewhat, he said, that
could be the result of realignment.
Adjusted Graduation Gap by
Athletic Conference
Football Bowl Series |
2012 Adjusted
Graduation Gap |
Three-year
Average AGG |
Conference USA |
-13 |
-14 |
Mountain West Conference |
-13 |
-18 |
Big 12 Conference |
-14 |
-16 |
Mid-Atlantic Conference |
-14 |
-13 |
Sun Belt Conference |
-15 |
-15 |
Big East Conference |
-15 |
-14 |
Southeastern Conference |
-18 |
-18 |
Western Athletic Conference |
-19 |
-19 |
Big Ten Conference |
-20 |
-21 |
Atlantic Coast Conference |
-22 |
-21 |
Pacific-12 Conference |
-27 |
-28 |
Mean |
-17 |
-19 |
Football Championship Series |
|
|
Southwestern Athletic Conference |
+10 |
+7 |
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference |
+1 |
+1 |
Big South Conference |
-4 |
-3 |
Southern Conference |
-5 |
-5 |
Missouri Valley Conference |
-9 |
-11 |
Patriot League |
-10 |
-11 |
Northeast Conference |
-10 |
-10 |
Colonial Athletic Association |
-11 |
-11 |
Ohio Valley Conference |
-14 |
-17 |
Southland Conference |
-16 |
-13 |
Big Sky Conference |
-17 |
-19 |
Mean |
-8 |
-9 |
The only conferences with positive AGGs were the
Southwestern Athletic Conference (+10) and the Mid-Eastern Athletic
Conference, both of which are made up of historically black colleges in
their respective regions.
For the first time, the report also compared AGGs
of black and white football players at Division I institutions. The gaps
range from +10 and +7 for black and white players, respectively, in the SWAC,
to -34 and -17 in the Pac-12.
“It’s three times more likely that black football
players [in the Football Bowl Series conferences] don’t graduate at that
same rate” as black non-athletes, Southall said. “We haven’t done enough
long-term research to be able to say why this is occurring. All we know is
you can see the gaps are much larger at high-performing conferences.”
The NCAA said in a statement that "there is no
evidence that any part-time bias exists in graduation rates, and this
approach does not account for the wide variety of campuses and types of
students at those campuses."
"This so-called study is simply a hypothetical
exercise. The only fair comparison is with actual full-time students," the
statement said. "Both the NCAA Graduation Success Rate and the federal
graduation rate count actual students and already allow for part-time
behavior with their six-year graduation windows. Adjustment for student
demographics and incoming academic characteristics would be more realistic
and useful. An even better approach would be for the federal graduation rate
to track transfer students, like the NCAA GSR, because the GSR includes 35
percent more students in its calculation and is more accurate."
Southall doesn’t believe one graduate rate
measurement tool is superior to any other – they measure different things,
he says. But he argues that this more direct comparison to the general
student population’s graduation rates raises a number of questions regarding
NCAA and institutional policies.
Continued in article
"The Education of Dasmine Cathey," by Brad Wolverton,
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Education-of-Dasmine/132065/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
"Dasmine Cathey Reflects on His Moment in the Spotlight," by
Brad Wolverton, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/dasmine-reaction/30411
Athletics Controversies in Colleges ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Athletics
A Dumb Idea: How to make local news an international media item
"College Asks Student Paper Not to Report Professor's Arrest," Inside
Higher Ed, September 27, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/09/27/college-asks-student-paper-not-report-professors-arrest
Gee: Living High on the Buckeye at Ohio State University
"Gordon Gee, the Teflon President, Weathers Another Storm Over Expenses,"
by Jack Stripling, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 26, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Gordon-Gee-the-Teflon/134694/
It has been said that the only survivors of a
nuclear holocaust will be cockroaches and Cher. At this point, it might seem
reasonable to add E. Gordon Gee to that list.
At a time when college leaders are being tossed out
at the very first whiff of a scandal, the Ohio State University president
appears impervious to controversy.
Over the course of his decades-long career in
higher education, Mr. Gee has weathered athletics scandal, spending probes,
and even jokes about his ex-wife's smoking pot in the president's residence
at Vanderbilt University.
Through it all, the unflappable Mr. Gee, 68, has
never seemed to stop smiling.
Continued in article
Why do they hate us?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Hate
"Are Middle Eastern Businessmen Less Sexist than Europeans?" by Avivah
Wittenberg-Cox, Harvard Business Review Blog, October 4, 2012 ---
Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/are_middle_eastern_businessmen_less_sexist.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
It's interesting how women in the some Middle Eastern nations can graduate from
college and hold full-time jobs but not drive a car, shop alone in public, and
face spectacle of being stoned to death in public (rare). Maybe times are
changing faster where it's least expected and publicized for women. It will be
interesting to see what happens for women in Afghanistan when the U.S. hands it
back to the Taliban.
The gender war at Harvard ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Harvard
Carnage in 2012 Law School Enrollments ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2012/09/carnage-.html
Bob Jensen's threads on Turkey Times for
Overstuffed Law Schools ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools
Fair Use ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
Note that Fair Use safe harbors that apply to the U.S. generally do not apply to
other countries. However, other countries may also be more lax in enforcement of
copyright laws.
"Let's Spread the Word About Fair Use," by Zick Rubin, Chronicle of
Higher Education, September 23, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Lets-Spread-the-Word-About/134544/
Last month, as college students across the country
prepared to head back to campuses, my fax machine coughed out my annual
"Request for Permission" from the Copyright Clearance Center, the
corporation that is one of the world's largest brokers of licenses to copy
other people's work.
As in past years, the center asked me how much I
wanted to charge to permit Middle Earth College to include a copy of Chapter
5 of my book, Liking and Loving: An Invitation to Social Psychology,
in a course pack for the 18 students enrolled in Professor McClain's
Management 710 this fall. (I've changed the names of the college, the
professor, and the course.)
If past experience were a guide, I could name my
price, out of which the Copyright Clearance Center would take its 15-percent
commission. Given how oppressively high college tuitions have become these
days, I doubted that the students would notice the extra three or four
dollars that I could ask each of them to pony up for the right to have his
or her own copy of Chapter 5. The form had blanks to check for "fee for
page," "fee per copy," and "flat fee," but not for "no fee."
I was delighted that Professor McClain wanted to
use my chapter again, especially given the hefty permission fees I have
charged in past years. It's true that Liking and Loving was
published 39 years ago and has long been out of print. Some of the timely
examples in Chapter 5—such as the public events of Vida Blue's rookie
season for the Oakland Athletics, in 1971—are not quite so timely anymore.
But I think it still holds up pretty well.
Yes, I knew that licensing fees had driven up the
price of some course packs to $100 or more, to the dismay of colleges and
students. Once a great innovation, allowing professors to create their own
reasonably priced books of readings for their courses, the course pack was
in danger of foundering. High licensing costs were also stretching
college-library budgets for the course pack's digital offspring, the
electronic version placed on reserve for students enrolled in a course.
On the other hand, we want American students to
have the best possible educational resources, don't we? And since Liking
and Loving was going to enter the public domain awfully soon—in
2068—I figured I had better make the most of my copyright while I still
could. There was just one problem, and, as a copyright lawyer, I couldn't
ignore it. Under current copyright law, Middle Earth College probably
doesn't need my permission—or anyone else's—to include my chapter in the
course pack. The university and its bookstore have a right to make copies of
the chapter for enrolled students without even asking, under the copyright
doctrine of fair use.
If this was fuzzy before, it's clearer now, from
the careful opinion issued in May by the federal judge Orinda Evans in the
test case brought by publishers—and paid for in part by the Copyright
Clearance Center itself—against Georgia State University. After a two-week
trial in Atlanta, Judge Evans ruled that Georgia State had the right to make
available to enrolled students up to one chapter of a 10-chapter book
without permission or payment, as a matter of fair use. That's because the
constitutionally prescribed purpose of copyright is not to enrich authors or
publishers but rather to encourage the progress of knowledge.
Under Judge Evans's opinion, in an instance like
the Middle Earth request, three of the four determining factors for fair use
come out in the "fair" direction: First, Professor McClain is assigning my
chapter for nonprofit educational purposes, not for commercial gain; second,
although some have said that Liking and Loving reads like a novel,
it is a factual and—ahem!—scientific work; third, the portion that is being
copied is only one chapter out of 10 and makes up only a small proportion of
the book's pages.
The only factor that tilts in the "unfair"
direction is the fact that, thanks mainly to the work of the copyright
center, there is a readily available licensing market for photocopying
excerpts of my book. In 3-to-1 cases like this one, Judge Evans determined
that Georgia State's copying was fair use and required no permission at all.
Out of some 75 instances that the court considered, the judge found only
five to be infringements—and each of them involved the use of two or more
chapters of a book. Although the Georgia State case involved electronic
course reserves, not photocopies, the same fair-use calculus applies.
Copyright law is admittedly amorphous—in the first
fair-use case, back in 1841, Justice Joseph Story called it "the metaphysics
of the law"—and the publishers have filed an appeal. So it's possible that
the law will change.
But, in the meantime, Judge Evans's decision is the
leading case on this issue, and the Copyright Clearance Center, having
supported the test case against Georgia State, should respect the court's
decision. At the least, it should inform copyright owners of the decision
and give them another choice: a blank for "this looks like fair use to me."
That's what I faxed back to the center this year, even though I had to write
it in.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on fair use and the dreaded DMCA ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright
A Slide Show from the Tax Foundation (Click the arrows on the right side of
the screen)
"Putting a Face on America's Tax Returns: A Chartbook September 24, 2012,"
by Scott A. Hodge William McBride, Tax Foundation, September 24, 2012
http://taxfoundation.org/slideshow/putting-face-americas-tax-returns
Thank you Caleb Newquist for the heads up.
You can get the above content in PDF format at
http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/putting_a_face_on_americas_tax_returns_a_chartbook.pdf
Jensen Comment
This slide show focuses heavily on inequality.
Case Studies in Gaming the Income Tax Laws ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/TaxNoTax.htm
Question
Is this PhD Guide explicitly sexist?
Just kidding of course.
"The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.," Open Culture, September
26th, 2012 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/the_illustrated_guide_to_a_phd-redux.html
More serious question
How does this guide apply or not apply to alternatives for an
accounting Ph.D.?
Hint
Note that the question focuses on alternatives rather than the bounds of
accountics science?
My answer is that most academic disciplines have doctoral programs covering
nearly all areas of that discipline. For example, in psychology a student can
get an experimental science Ph.D. in psychology. But another student can get a
Ph.D. in the various branches of clinical psychology.
There are no branches of clinical accountancy (professional practice issues)
where a student can get a Ph.D. in a North American university ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
When government internal controls are a sick joke
"Wisconsin: 3 relatives suspected of cashing dead mother's Social Security
checks for 30 years," by Dinesh Ramde, TwinCities.com, September 25, 2012
---
http://www.twincities.com/wisconsin/ci_21627111/wisconsin-checks-still-cashed-dead-mom
Three Portage County residents are accused of
cashing Social Security checks of a relative who has been missing for 30
years and is presumed dead, and authorities are investigating to see whether
her remains are buried on her wooded property.
If Marie Jost is still alive she'd be 100 years
old. But authorities now suspect she died in about 1982, and they're
accusing her son, daughter and son-in-law of continuing to cash her
government checks in her absence.
Investigators believe Jost might be buried on her
Amherst property. Sheriff's Capt. Dale O'Kray said Tuesday that cadaver dogs
have hit upon the scent of human remains, and authorities are using heavy
machinery to explore the property and dig for evidence.
"There's no indication she's been seen in the last
25 years and we have to have a starting point for where she might be,"
O'Kray said.
Charles T. Jost, 66; Delores M. Disher, 69; and
Ronald Disher, 71, each face four felony charges including being party to
the crimes of theft and mail fraud. The charges carry a maximum combined
penalty of 68 years in prison and a $310,000 fine.
The Social Security Administration had sent three
letters to Jost's home to verify she was still alive. After the third letter
was sent, a man who identified himself as her son called to say Jost wasn't
available.
The agency then contacted Portage County
authorities last month asking that deputies check on her. Deputies went to
her property where Charles Jost allegedly told them Marie Jost and his
74-year-old brother Theodore "were riding in a vehicle someplace," according
to the criminal complaint.
When a deputy asked for permission to search the
property, Charles Jost allegedly grew agitated and asked them to leave. The
deputy then asked whether Marie Jost was still alive, and Charles Jost said
he would talk to his lawyer and ended the conversation, the complaint said.
Authorities obtained a search warrant and gathered
evidence, but they haven't found anything to indicate whether Marie Jost is
alive or dead, O'Kray said.
There's not a real house on the 3-acre property.
Charles Jost lives in a tarp-covered shack there, and four to five sheds are
filled with years' worth of garbage, O'Kray said.
"It's basically a 'Hoarders' episode gone bad," he
said. "We have about 400 garbage bags of junk we had to remove to search the
living areas."
During an initial court appearance Monday a judge
ordered that Charles Jost undergo a competency evaluation. A message left
for Jost's defense attorney Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Neighbors told authorities they had never seen an
elderly woman at Charles Jost's home.
A Social Security agent said Marie Jost had not
used her Medicare benefits since 1980 when she had a stroke. The agent said
Jost had been sent Social Security payments of more than $175,000 since she
had made a Medicaid claim.
Prosecutors say the Social Security checks were
endorsed with an X, along with the printed names of Charles and Theodore
Jost.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
I wonder if she also voted over the past 30 years?
The Sad State of Governmental Accounting and Accountability ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory02.htm#GovernmentalAccounting
September 25, 2012 message from Roger Collins
"Although Apple swept the North American and
European markets as the leading smartphone brand, the company ranked seventh
by market share in China during the first six months of this year, behind
Samsung Electronics Co and many domestic mobile phone manufacturers.
Apple had shipped 5.2 million smartphones to China
as of June, according to a report issued by information and analysis
provider IHS. This accounted for a 7.5 percent share of the total smartphone
market in China, and was only about one-third of the share held by market
leader Samsung.
However, the figure does not mean many Chinese
people dislike Apple devices. On Aug 10, nine people were put on trial in
Central China's Hunan province on charges of illegal organ trade. A
17-year-old high school student voluntarily sold one of his kidneys for
22,000 yuan ($3,480) so he could buy an iPhone and an iPad."
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-09/24/content_15777127.htm
Regards,
Roger
Roger Collins
Associate Professor
OM1275 TRU School of Business & Economics
From the Scout Report on September 21, 2012
Croak.It ---
http://croak.it/
The namesake of this application is Marty the Frog,
who comments thusly on the homepage: "Imagine a world where you can share
your thoughts without boundaries, halfway across the world." With Croak.It
this is possible, and visitors just need to "Push.Speak.Share." When
visitors "Push to croak" on the homepage, they can send out audio clips via
any number of social media networks. Also, visitors can use the Watch area
to view a video on how to get started as well. This version is compatible
with all operating systems.
Dropboxifier ---
http://dropboxifier.codeplex.com/
Dropboxifier makes it it easy to share application
data and other files between computers, which can be quite helpful. This
application creates symbolic links so that visitors can just click on a link
to access different files. The best part is that Dropboxifier allows users
to do this on more than one computer. This mean that all of these devices
will read and write to the same data source, which is useful. This version
is compatible with computers running Windows Vista and newer.
From the Scout Report on September 28, 2012
Writer ---
https://writer.bighugelabs.com/
Sometimes you just want the world to go away so you
can concentrate on the things that matter. For writers, finding a quiet
place of one's own can be a tremendous challenge. Writer cuts away all the
details and distractions and allows writers to write. The basic black and
green screen allows visitors the option to save their work, check on the
word count, create a PDF, or print it out. It's simple in its design, and
that's the point. This version is compatible with all operating systems.
Picisto ---
http://www.picisto.com/
Picisto is a great way to modify, edit and create
wonderful photo collages. Visitors can choose a layout, add text and shapes,
and even buy prints of their creations if they so desire. First-time users
may wish to check out the Create Collage link to get a feel for how the
application works. This version is compatible with all operating systems.
Rising olive oil prices present opportunities for growers and certain
concerns for consumers
Olive-oil prices: Drizzle and drought
http://www.economist.com/node/21563304
Olive oil prices to soar after Spanish drought devastates crop http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/23/olive-oil-prices-soar-spain?newsfeed=true
Council Establishes Olive Oil Price "Observatory"
http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-business/europe/council-establishes-olive-oil-price-observatory/28529
Letter from Italy: Slippery Business
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mueller
Olive Oil's Dark Side
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/02/the-exchange-tom-mueller.html
Preserving Olive Oil Culture in Adatepe
http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/features/olive-oil-museum-adatepe-turkey/4748
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
LibriVox (audio books) ---
http://librivox.org/
LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the public
domain. There are several options for listening. The first step is to get
the mp3 or ogg files into your own computer:
Would you like to record chapters of books in the
public domain?
It's easy to volunteer. All you need is a
computer, some free recording software, and your own voice.
Bob Jensen's links to audio versions of books and poems ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Audio
Choices Reading Lists ---
http://www.reading.org/resources/booklists.aspx
Frequently Challenged Books ---
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged
The 25 Best Pinterest Boards in EdTech ---
http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/09/the-25-best-pinterest-boards-edtech/
Thank you Richard Campbell for the heads up.
September 25, 2012 reply from Scott Bonacker
Found this through Pinterest –--
http://www.visualnews.com/category/visualization-2/
Hadn’t really looked at it before –--
http://www.visualnews.com/2012/06/19/how-much-data-created-every-minute/
http://www.visualnews.com/2012/08/13/deceitful-aisles/..
Thanks Richard.
Scott Bonacker CPA - McCullough and Associates LLC - Springfield, MO
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Smithsonian Science ---
http://smithsonianscience.org/
University of Oklahoma: History of Science Collections ---
http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/homescience.php
National Science Foundation: Nanoscience ---
http://www.nsf.gov/news/overviews/nano/index.jsp
Nanotechnology Center for Teaching and Learning ---
http://community.nsee.us/
Environmental Health Risk Assessment ---
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/healthrisk/index.html
Buffalo Architecture Foundation Building Stories Collection ---
http://ubdigit.buffalo.edu/cdm/search/collection/LIB-APL001
Dwell (interior building designs) ---
http://www.dwell.com/
Center for Ocean Solutions ---
http://centerforoceansolutions.org/
Teaching the Ocean
System: Resources for Educators ---
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/ocean/
How to Make Better Decisions, a Thought-Provoking Documentary by the BBC ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/ihow_to_make_better_decisionsi_a_thought-provoking_documentary_by_the_bbc.html
Thank you Jagdish Gangolly for the heads
up.
Herpetological Conservation & Biology ---
http://www.herpconbio.org/
Minnesota Geological Survey ---
http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/708
Steamtown National Historic Site (steam locomotives) ---
http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm
Tech News Collection (history of the Illinois Institute of Technology) ---
http://archives.iit.edu/technews/
Blast From the Past April Fools Issue ---
http://archives.iit.edu/technews/volume128/tnvol128no8.pdf#page=2
Search on the word "Fools" for other interesting links
Dementia: The Self-Portraits of William Utermohlen: When he learned in
1995 that he had Alzheimer’s disease, William Utermohlen, an American artist
living in London, immediately began work on an ambitious series of
self-portraits ---
Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/photogallery/429486/dementia-the-self-portraits-of-william-utermohlen/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121005
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
Foreign Policy: The Cuban Missile Crises ---
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/cubanmissilecrisis
The Wisconsin Oneida Language Preservation Project ---
http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/Oneida
Environmental Health Risk Assessment ---
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/healthrisk/index.html
Center for Financial Services Innovation ---
http://cfsinnovation.com/
Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering ---
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/
I’ve just uploaded the first 8 lectures in my
Behavioral Finance class for 2012. The first few lectures are very similar
to last year’s, but the content changes substantially by about lecture 5
when I start to focus more on Schumpeter’s approach to endogenous money
---
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/09/23/behavioral-finance-lectures/
Related book: Debunking
Economics
Jensen Comment
These are quite good slide show lectures.
Bob Jensen's threads on tutorials, lectures, videos and course materials
from prestigious universities ---
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/09/23/behavioral-finance-lectures/
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
The History of Disabilities in the United States ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/09/26/review-kim-e-nielsen-disability-history-united-states
Seattle University Law Review ---
http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sulr/
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Math Tutorials
How to Make Better Decisions, a Thought-Provoking Documentary by the BBC ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/ihow_to_make_better_decisionsi_a_thought-provoking_documentary_by_the_bbc.html
Thank you Jagdish Gangolly for the heads
up
Geometry ---
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/topics/Geometry.html
Episodes in the
History of Geometry through Models in Dynamic Geometry---
http://mathdl.maa.org/convergence/1/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1679
Learning Geometry in Georgian England ---
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/46/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=3930
Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form 1940s to 1970s ---
http://www.lacma.org/beyondgeometry/index.html
Exploratorium: Geometry Playground ---
http://www.exploratorium.edu/geometryplayground/
N Is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős, the Most Prolific Mathematician of the
20th Century ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/n_is_a_number_a_portrait_of_paul_erdos_.html
Breaking the Code, Featuring Derek Jacobi as Alan Turing ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/alan_turing_ibreaking_the_codei.html
Mathematics in Movies: Harvard Prof Curates 150+ Scenes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2011/11/mathematics_in_movies.html
Hollywood Videos Featuring Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#HollywoodVideos
The Cult of Statistical Significance:
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
History Tutorials
Frequently Challenged Books ---
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged
3D Panorama Videos Cities all over the World ---
http://www.360cities.net/map#lat=45&lng=19&zoom=2
Queen Elisabeth Morphing ---
http://www.flixxy.com/queen-elisabeth-morphing.htm#.UGh7HWcsGN8
The CD Player Turns 30 ---
http://www.techhive.com/article/2010810/the-cd-player-turns-30.html#tk.nl_play
The History of Disabilities in the United States ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/09/26/review-kim-e-nielsen-disability-history-united-states
Foreign Policy: The Cuban Missile Crises ---
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/cubanmissilecrisis
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
--- http://www.jfklibrary.org/
Calisphere: Themed Collections (California History) ---
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/themed_collections/
Steamtown National Historic Site (steam locomotives) ---
http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm
City of Chicago Landmarks ---
http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/landmarksweb/web/home.htm
Picture Chicago ---
http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/chicago/index.asp
Historical Society of Michigan ---
http://www.hsmichigan.org/
Joel Halpern in Macedonia Photographs (anthropology) ---
http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/galleries/halpern.htm
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology: Delphi Collections Browser
---
http://pahma.berkeley.edu/delphi/
Ward Morgan Photography, Southwest Michigan 1939-1980 ---
http://cdm16259.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p124301coll2
Episodes in the
History of Geometry through Models in Dynamic Geometry---
http://mathdl.maa.org/convergence/1/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1679
Learning Geometry in Georgian England ---
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/46/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=3930
Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form 1940s to 1970s ---
http://www.lacma.org/beyondgeometry/index.html
Exploratorium: Geometry Playground ---
http://www.exploratorium.edu/geometryplayground/
National Gallery of Victoria ---
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/
Vermont Historical Society ---
http://www.vermonthistory.org/
Long Trail Photographs (the Green Mountains of Vermont)
http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?title=Long%20Trail%20Photographs
Oldest Long Distance Hiking Trail in the United States
Photographs of Vergennes (Vermont)
http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?pid=bixby
The Wisconsin Oneida Language Preservation Project ---
http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/Oneida
Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic ---
http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/fireandice/index.html
University of Oklahoma: History of Science Collections ---
http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/homescience.php
Andrew McCormick Maps and Prints (Canada) ---
http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/landingpage/collection/mccormick
Tech News Collection (history of the Illinois Institute of Technology) ---
http://archives.iit.edu/technews/
Blast From the Past April Fools Issue ---
http://archives.iit.edu/technews/volume128/tnvol128no8.pdf#page=2
Search on the word "Fools" for other interesting links
Art Lovers Rejoice! New Goya and Rembrandt Databases Now Online ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/art_lovers_rejoice_new_goya_and_rembrandt_databases_now_online.html
Read Joyce’s Ulysses Line by Line, for the Next 22 Years, with Frank
Delaney’s Podcast ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/the_irejoycei_podcast_takes_you_through_james_joyces_iulyssesi_line_by_line_for_the_next_22_years.html
William Faulkner Tells His Post Office Boss to Stick It (1924)
Drinking with William Faulkner
William Faulkner Audio Archive Goes Online
William Faulkner Reads from As I Lay Dying
NPR Video on Pacioli: The Accountant Who Changed The World ---
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/10/04/162296423/the-accountant-who-changed-the-world
Jensen Comment
It's never been clear how much the mathematician Pacioli changed the accounting
world since his brand of double entry accounting was here long before he was
born and long after he died. He did reduce it to s set of equations, but did
this change the world?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
"A Brief History of Double Entry Book-keeping (10 Episodes) ," BBC
Radio ---
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r401p
Thanks to Len Steenkamp for the heads up
Jolyon Jenkins investigates how accountants
shaped the modern world. They sit in boardrooms, audit schools, make
government policy and pull the plug on failing companies. And most of us
have our performance measured. The history of accounting and
book-keeping is largely the history of civilisation.
Jolyon asks how this came about and traces the
religious roots of some accounting practices.
Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Language Tutorials
The Wisconsin Oneida Language Preservation Project ---
http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/Oneida
Peter Sellers Gives a Quick Demonstration of British Accents ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/peter_sellers_gives_a_quick_demonstration_of_british_accents.html
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/
September 26, 2012
September 27, 2012
September 29, 2012
October 1, 2012
October 2, 2012
October 3, 2012
October 4, 2012
October 5, 2012
October 8, 2012
October 10, 2012
Adding Pain to Misery in Medicare Funding of the Future
"The Dementia Plague: As the world's population of older people rapidly
grows in the coming years, Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia will become a
health-care disaster," by Stephen S. Hall, MIT's Technology Review, October
5, 2012 ---
Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/featured-story/429494/the-dementia-plague/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121005
Dementia: The Self-Portraits of William Utermohlen: When he learned in
1995 that he had Alzheimer’s disease, William Utermohlen, an American artist
living in London, immediately began work on an ambitious series of
self-portraits ---
Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/photogallery/429486/dementia-the-self-portraits-of-william-utermohlen/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121005
Bob Jensen's threads on health care funding ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Environmental Health Risk Assessment ---
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/healthrisk/index.html
Let's Move ---
http://www.letsmove.gov/
Let's Move! is the U.S government website that supports First Lady Michelle
Obama's goal to "solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation.
From the Scout Report on January 27,
2012
In an effort to provide healthier dining options for schoolchildren,
the United States Department of Agriculture unveils new lunchroom
dietary standards Students to see healthier school lunches under new
USDA rules
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10234671-students-to-see-healthier-school-lunches-under-new-usda-rules
USDA To Require Healthier Meals In Schools With Updated Nutrition
Standards
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/01/25/145836942/usda-to-require-healthier-meals-in-schools-with-updated-nutrition-standards
Nation's schools could learn something from Chicago's early lunch
trials
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/stew/chi-school-lunch-standards-overhaul-presents-a-challenge-for-districts-20120125,0,3988807.story
USDA Unveils Historic Improvements to Meals Served in America's
Schools
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2012/01/0023.xml&contentidonly=true
The Food Timeline: School Lunch History
http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodschools.html
Household arts and School Lunches
http://books.google.com/books?id=RNpEAAAAIAAJ&dq=school%20lunch%20menu&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=school%20lunch%20menu&f=false
From the Scout Report on September 21, 2012
Rural living could be an obesity risk factor
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-rural-living-could-be-an-obesity-risk-factor-20120914,0,478740.story
Obesity higher in rural America than in urban parts of the country, UF
researchers, colleagues find. ---
http://news.ufl.edu/2012/09/14/rural-obesity/
CDC: Obesity and Overweight
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/index.html
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Childhood Obesity ---
http://www.rwjf.org/childhoodobesity/index.jsp
Obesity Society ---
http://www.obesity.org/
Boston Nutrition Obesity Research Center ---
http://bnorc.org/
DisabilityInfo.gov http://www.disabilityinfo.gov/
Ouch: It's a Disabilities Thing ---
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/
The History of Disabilities in the United States ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/09/26/review-kim-e-nielsen-disability-history-united-states
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Bob Jensen's threads on Technology Aids for the Handicapped and Learning
Challenged ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
Humor
Peter Sellers Gives a Quick Demonstration of British Accents ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/peter_sellers_gives_a_quick_demonstration_of_british_accents.html
The Cut My Britches Off ---
http://www.coolestone.com/media/4288/They-Cut-My-Britches-Off/
CFO = Chief Finalizing Officer
"CFO Accused of Murder-for-Hire on His Employer's Dime," by Teresa
Ambord, AccountingWeb, September 18, 2012 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/article/cfo-accused-murder-hire-his-employers-dime/219868?source=education
German Waterbed ---
http://www.youtube.com/embed/9wm-Ge8LL7o?rel=0
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/
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
The Cult of Statistical Significance:
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
How Accountics Scientists Should Change:
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review
I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral
Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH
CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and
Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the
vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
World Clock ---
http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/
Interesting Online Clock
and Calendar
---
http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones ---
http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) ---
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
Also see
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
Facts about population growth (video) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth ---
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq ---
http://www.costofwar.com/
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons ---
http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.
Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
CPA Examination ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle ---
http://cpareviewforfree.com/
Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at
http://iaed.wordpress.com/
Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social
Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Online Books, Poems, References,
and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials
Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at
http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting
educators.
Any college may post a news item.
Accounting and Taxation News Sites ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
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://listserv.aaahq.org/cgi-bin/wa.exe?HOME
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.
Over the years the AECM has become the worldwide forum for
accounting educators on all issues of accountancy and accounting
education, including debates on accounting standards, managerial
accounting, careers, fraud, forensic accounting, auditing,
doctoral programs, and critical debates on academic (accountics)
research, publication, replication, and validity testing.
|
CPAS-L
(Practitioners)
http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/ (Closed
Down)
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] |
FEI's Financial Reporting Blog
Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2008 ---
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2008/smart_stops.htm
FINANCIAL REPORTING PORTAL
www.financialexecutives.org/blog
Find news highlights from the SEC, FASB
and the International Accounting
Standards Board on this financial
reporting blog from Financial Executives
International. The site, updated daily,
compiles regulatory news, rulings and
statements, comment letters on
standards, and hot topics from the Web’s
largest business and accounting
publications and organizations. Look for
continuing coverage of SOX requirements,
fair value reporting and the Alternative
Minimum Tax, plus emerging issues such
as the subprime mortgage crisis,
international convergence, and rules for
tax return preparers. |
|
|
The CAlCPA Tax Listserv September 4, 2008 message from Scott Bonacker
[lister@bonackers.com]
Scott has been a long-time contributor to the AECM listserv (he's a techie as
well as a practicing CPA)
I found another listserve
that is exceptional -
CalCPA maintains
http://groups.yahoo.com/taxtalk/
and they let almost anyone join it.
Jim Counts, CPA is moderator.
There are several highly
capable people that make frequent answers to tax questions posted there, and
the answers are often in depth.
Scott
Scott forwarded the following message from Jim
Counts
Yes you may mention info on
your listserve about TaxTalk. As part of what you say please say [... any
CPA or attorney or a member of the Calif Society of CPAs may join. It is
possible to join without having a free Yahoo account but then they will not
have access to the files and other items posted.
Once signed in on their Yahoo account go to
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxTalk/ and I believe in
top right corner is Join Group. Click on it and answer the few questions and
in the comment box say you are a CPA or attorney, whichever you are and I
will get the request to join.
Be aware that we run on the average 30 or move emails per day. I encourage
people to set up a folder for just the emails from this listserve and then
via a rule or filter send them to that folder instead of having them be in
your inbox. Thus you can read them when you want and it will not fill up the
inbox when you are looking for client emails etc.
We currently have about 830 CPAs and attorneys nationwide but mainly in
California.... ]
Please encourage your members
to join our listserve.
If any questions let me know.
Jim Counts CPA.CITP CTFA
Hemet, CA
Moderator TaxTalk
|
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
Bob Jensen's
Threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.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