This
Week I Feature Set 3 of Our Favorite Summertime Flowers
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/SummertimeFavorites/Set03/2013Set03.htm
Tidbits on August 29, 2013
Bob Jensen
at Trinity University
From the University of Pittsburgh
Birds of America (435 birds mounted online) ---
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/
The Darlington Digital Library (bird photographs) ---
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington
Audubon Magazine - Multimedia ---
http://archive.audubonmagazine.org/multimedia/index.html
America in Color from 1939-1943 ---
http://extras.denverpost.com/archive/captured.asp
Tree Tunnels ---
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/magnificent-tree-tunnels
Historic New England ---
http://www.historicnewengland.org/
Black Locust ---
http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/rops1.htm
Trees in New England ---
Click Here
http://www.google.ca/search?q="Trees+in+New+England"&lr=&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BS_HUYmzOtKs4AOGmICYBw&ved=0CEIQsAQ&biw=1152&bih=700
The New England Forest ---
http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/resource_bulletins/pdfs/scanned/OCR/ne_rb124.pdf
An Animated History of the Tulip ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/an_animated_history_of_the_tulip.html
USDA: The People's Garden ---
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?navid=PEOPLES_GARDEN
From the University of Pittsburgh
Birds of America (435 birds mounted online) ---
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/
The Darlington Digital Library (bird photographs) ---
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington
Audubon Magazine - Multimedia ---
http://archive.audubonmagazine.org/multimedia/index.html
America in Color from 1939-1943 ---
http://extras.denverpost.com/archive/captured.asp
Tree Tunnels ---
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/magnificent-tree-tunnels
Gudvangen, Norway ---
Click Here
http://www.google.ca/search?q="Gudvangen"&lr=&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=6izdUZndCZK54APA9IDoAw&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=497
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Tidbits on June 29, 2013
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/
Facebook is perhaps the
ultimate example of the old, wise saying: If you aren’t paying for a product,
then you ARE the product
Comparisons of Antivirus Software ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_antivirus_software#Microsoft_Windows
Based upon this analysis I chose F-Secure
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
Watch Family Planning, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Production,
Starring Donald Duck ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/family-planning-walt-disneys-1967-sex-ed-production.html
An Animated History of Physics Introduces the Discoveries of
Galileo, Newton, Maxwell & Einstein ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/an-animated-history-of-physics-introduces-the-discoveries-of-galileo-newton-maxwell-einstein.html
Birds of Paradise Project ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=REP4S0uqEOc
c.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgSpqOFj1Ta4xHFM4kKR4VTW8CJmPNNNA
Romancing the Wind (Kites) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=nr9KrqN_lIg
Explore: Exploratorium ---
http://www.exploratorium.edu/explore
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Eric Clapton’s Favorite Guitar Solo: Duane Allman
on Wilson Pickett’s 1968 Cover of the Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/eric-claptons-favorite-guitar-solo.html
Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock: Historic Concert Captured on
Film ---
Click Here
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/yFWeLrrx2Wc/jimi-hendrix-live-at-woodstock-historic-concert-captured-on-film.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
Anna Netrebko, 'Verdi' ---
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/11/209887638/first-listen-anna-netrebko-verdi
The Singing Nuns Of Ann Arbor ---
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/13/211639502/life-as-prayer-the-singing-nuns-of-ann-arbor
ALSACE Danse traditionnelle ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtzT7xDXPJY
British Library: Sound Maps ---
http://sounds.bl.uk/sound-maps/
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
Pandora (my favorite online music station) ---
www.pandora.com
TheRadio (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's threads on nearly all types of free
music selections online ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm
Photographs and Art
Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ Re-Created by
Astronomer with 100 Hubble Space Telescope Images ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/van-goghs-starry-night-re-created-by-astronomer-with-100-hubble-space-telescope-images.html
City of Chicago: Public Art Collection ---
http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/public_art_collection.html
The Art Institute of Chicago: Education: Online Resources [Quick Time]
---
http://www.artic.edu/aic/visitor_info/podcasts/video/education_videos/
Louise Nevelson Papers (art photography) ---
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/louise-nevelson-papers-9093
Very, very interesting maps of things I did not
know (or veryify) ---
http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/
The Top 50 ‘Pictures of the Day’ for 2013 ---
http://twistedsifter.com/2013/07/top-50-pictures-of-the-day-for-2013/
The Amazing Typewriter Art of Paul Smith ---
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/amazing-typewriter-art.shtml
A Democracy of Images ---
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/photographs/
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
Virginia Tech: Digitized Rare Books ---
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/digital_books/index.html
From the Smithsonian
Wonder Books: Rare Books on Early Museums
http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/wonderbound/
Vladimir Nabokov Creates a Hand-Drawn Map of James Joyce’s
Ulysses ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/vladimir-nabokov-creates-a-hand-drawn-map-of-james-joyces-ulysses.html
The Tale of the Fox: Watch Ladislas Starevich’s Animation of
Goethe’s Great German Folktale (1937) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/the-tale-of-the-fox.html
Virginia Woolf’s Handwritten Suicide Note: A Painful and
Poignant Farewell (1941) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/virginia-woolfs-handwritten-suicide-note.html
"Virginia
Woolf: Her Voice Recaptured ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2010/02/virginia_woolf_her_voice_recaptured.html
Where to Find Elmore Leonard Walk into any library and ask
for directions to the fiction section," by Bob Greene, The Wall Street
Journal, August 21, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323665504579026530814061404.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h
As soon as I heard that Elmore Leonard had
died this week, I went to visit him.
I knew right where to go.
I was in a small Midwestern town, and I
walked to the public library on Main Street.
I asked for directions to the fiction
stacks. There he was—a shelf-and-a-half of him. All the novels, some dust
jackets bright, most faded and worn from years of being checked out. Titles:
"The Big Bounce," "Bandits," "Freaky Deaky," "Escape from Five Shadows,"
"Get Shorty," "Touch," "Cuba Libre" and more. This is where he lives.
Leonard was 87 when he died Tuesday in
Michigan. The obituaries noted that he wrote 45 novels, that he started out
writing Westerns, and that the movies based on his work—including "Hombre,"
"Get Shorty," "Jackie Brown," "Be Cool" and "3:10 to Yuma"—had made him
financially secure.
But what mattered to him was the craft.
"I write in longhand. I work from 9:30 in
the morning until 6 o'clock at night," he told me the first time we talked,
more than 25 years ago. "What I'll do is write the stuff out in longhand,
and then cross out, and then write some more. I'll cross out more than I
keep. It gets pretty messy—I can barely read the pages when I'm done.
"I try to begin a chapter with something
going on. I very rarely start a chapter with description, or with what the
weather's doing, or something like that. I jump right in," he said.
In the quiet of the public library, I
pulled one of his books from the shelf. It was called "The Hot Kid." It
began:
"Carlos Webster was fifteen the day he
witnessed the robbery and killing at Deering's drugstore. This was in the
fall of 1921 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma."
Leonard had told me: "When I get into the
writing, I have a pretty good idea of who the main characters will be. But I
still don't know exactly how the story will work. And something happens to
me in almost every book: A character that, in my mind, may have been fairly
minor turns into a major character. I hear him talking, and I realize: This
guy is interesting."
Because he was 59 years old before he
became really famous—he had written more than 20 books before "Glitz," in
1985, became his first No. 1 best seller—he seemed to understand that the
words, the sound and precision of them, were all that was worth worrying
about.
He was protective of them. Once I was in
the Fisher Building in Detroit with him, and someone came up and asked him
what his next book was going to be called.
"Killshot one word," Leonard told the man,
just like that, no pause.
The book was not going to be called "Killshot
One Word," of course. It was going to be called "Killshot." But he wanted to
be absolutely clear. It was impossible for Leonard not to be meticulous,
even in casual conversation with a stranger.
In the library there was one book on the
shelf that was a little fatter than the others. It had a red jacket. I knew
what it was.
In 1986, Leonard's publisher planned to
put three novels he had written into a single edition to be titled "Double
Dutch Treat," a play on Leonard's nickname, Dutch. I received a call: Mr.
Leonard, the voice on the phone was saying, wondered if I would be willing
to write the introduction. It was like somehow hearing that Frank Sinatra
wondered if you would consider writing the liner notes for his next album.
Now, on the day Dutch Leonard died, I
pulled "Double Dutch Treat" from the shelf to see what I had said:
"Let me put it this way: given the chance
to see the most popular movie of the season, watch the most popular
television show of the season, or read an Elmore Leonard novel that I know
absolutely nothing about in advance, I'll go with the Leonard novel every
time. He's just that much fun."
Continued in article
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
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on August 29, 2013
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2013/TidbitsQuotations082913.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
It’s a bad time for psychology, a field rife with
fraud, bogus math, and murky concepts. Most work in the psychological and social
sciences suffers from a lack of conceptual rigor.
"Barbara Fredrickson’s Bestselling ‘Positivity’ Is Trashed by a New Study," by
Will Wilkinson, The Daily Beast, August 16, 2013 ---
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/16/barbara-fredrickson-s-bestselling-positivity-is-trashed-by-a-new-study.html
Real Science versus Pseudo Science ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm#Pseudo-Science
And the biggest winner (errrr make that loser) is Delta Airlines
The 10 Least Respected Companies in
America ---
Click Here
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2013/08/23/the-ten-least-respected-companies-in-america/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AUG232013A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter
Jensen Comment
Accounting researchers are encouraged to invent clever research ploys for
investigating how such horrible public reputations are factored into intangibles
accounting in these "least respected" companies.
Oddly, the article does not mention it, but I suspect one of the most respected
companies in the USA is Southwest Airlines. What is Southwest doing so much
better than Delta? I almost always opt for Southwest Airlines except when I must
make a connection to another airline, in which case flying Southwest Airlines is
a real bummer due to the policy of Southwest Airlines of not transshipping
luggage.
The Almanac of Higher Education 2013-14 from the Chronicle of Higher
Education ---
https://www.chronicle-store.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ID=80261&WG=350
Digital Edition $6.95
How to Mislead With Statistics
The Fastest Growing Jobs in the USA ---
Click Here
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2013/08/27/the-10-fastest-growing-jobs-in-america/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AUG272013A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter
Jensen Comment
Students should not flock to some of those careers just because the made to Top
10 in growth rates. One has to simply look at the total employed in a given
career. For example, there are only 25,000 people employed as "Music Directors
and Composers" and the variance in income is quite high. This is not really a
very viable career choice in terms of opportunity except for students with
exceptional talent.. Similarly, there are only 32,000 employed as "Skin Care
Specialists" with median annual pay of $28,640. I don't think I would
recommend this as career.
On the other hand there are nearly a million Personal Care Aides. Now we're
talking about opportunity for a job but the median annual salary is only $19,910
plus food stamps. And I think the work is often vary difficult and frustrating
when dealing with people who need a lot of help and don't really much appreciate
their helpers.
Some of the fastest growing jobs are also dead end jobs with nowhere to advance
without starting over.
Bob Jensen's threads on careers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#careers
ACT Test ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_%28test%29
...
The ACT is generally regarded as being composed of somewhat easier questions
(versus the SAT), but the time allotted to complete each section increases
the overall difficulty (equalizing it to the SAT).
What is the best way to put this for ACT admissions testing outcomes?
26% of students who took the ACT are fully "college ready."
74% of students who took the ACT are not fully "college ready."
"A Quarter of High-School Grads Who Took ACT Are Found College-Ready,"
by Beckie Supiano, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 21, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/a-quarter-of-high-school-graduates-who-took-the-act-met-its-college-readiness-standards/36157
Admissions and Financial Aid Controversies: Grades are Even Worse Than Tests as
Predictors of Success
Bound to Fail
We need to get serious about creating universities that are actually designed to
educate undergraduates successfully
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#FinancialAid
"U.S. Department of Education Wants to Eliminate '2% Rule'," by Leila
Meyer, T.H.E. Journal, August 26, 2013 ---
http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/08/26/u.s.-department-of-education-wants-to-eliminate-2-rule.aspx?=THENU
The United
States Department of Education (ED) has proposed
new regulations that would eliminate the "2 percent rule," which allows some
students with disabilities to be assessed using alternate assessments
aligned to modified academic achievement standards (AA-MAAS).
The current regulations allows states to develop
alternate assessments for up to 2 percent of students in the grades assessed
using AA-MAAS. However, according to ED, students with disabilities can make
academic progress when they receive appropriate support and instruction, and
that by making general assessments accessible to those students, with
support, they can achieve a higher level of success.
"We have to expect the very best from our students
and tell the truth about student performance, to prepare them for college
and career," said Arne Duncan United States secretary of education, in a
prepared statement. "That means no longer allowing the achievement of
students with disabilities to be measured by these alternate assessments
aligned to modified achievement standards. This prevents these students from
reaching their full potential, and prevents our country from benefitting
from that potential."
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on innovations for teaching disabled students ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
"5 Ways Business School Can Ruin Your Life," by Exeter Jones,
Business Insider, July 1, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/5-ways-business-school-ruins-your-life-2013-7
Jensen Comment
I always remember one of Bob Anthony's Harvard Cases (in his famous managerial
accounting textbook) where a newly-minted MBA proposes a naive application of
CVP analysis to increase operating margins. He failed to comprehend the basic
assumptions of the linear model that he superficially learned in an accounting
course. His older and wiser boss clued him in on how so much of what in learned
in college courses more often than not do not fit realities of the world of
business.
Always challenge underlying assumptions.
"'Zombies in the Academy'," by Serena Golden, Inside Higher Ed,
August 12, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/12/new-book-examines-higher-education-through-lens-zombie-apocalypse
"Early Retirement Incentives and Student Achievement," published by the
National Bureau of Economic Research.
"An Exit Strategy for Bad Teachers," The Wall Street Journal,
August 21, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323608504579025122140081690.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h
Age and experience have much to recommend them over
youth and enthusiasm but the advantages don't always show up in teaching.
That's the finding of a new study, "Early Retirement Incentives and Student
Achievement," published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
According to Cornell University economists Maria
Fitzpatrick and Michael Lovenheim, when young, inexperienced teachers
replaced older, more experienced faculty in Illinois, the newcomers did as
well or better at getting students to learn.
The study doesn't discount the value of seasoned,
motivated teachers. It does indicate that teachers going through the motions
to qualify for a pension can be a drag on student achievement. The study is
more evidence that students do better when teachers are graded on
performance, not seniority.
Illinois uses a combination of age and years on the
job to calculate when a teacher may retire with full benefits. In the
1992-93 school year and again in 1993-94, the state offered teachers over
age 50 the option of "buying" additional years of age and service. By paying
a one-time fee, experienced teachers could boost their numbers and retire
early. The offer was generous, the authors report, and Illinois public
schools lost 10% of their teachers over two years "with experienced teachers
making up the vast majority of the exits."
Reducing the experienced-teacher roster generated
salary savings to local school districts, but pension costs rose so Illinois
taxpayers didn't save money. Yet the politicians seem to have accidentally
helped the students by clearing out the deadwood. The authors report that
"the median retiring teacher had 27 years of experience and was replaced by
a teacher with less than 3 years of experience."
That shift to less experienced teachers "did not
reduce test scores and instead led to increased student achievement in most
cases," the authors find. Even better, there is "suggestive evidence that
[the early retirement program] had larger positive effects in more
disadvantaged schools." In reading, for example, students in poor schools
had better gains in test scores after the program relative to their
wealthier counterparts.
The authors say that in poor schools it is possible
that fewer productive teachers retired and that replacements may have had
"more previous experience, rather than being novices." But the key finding
concerns those who leave: "Teachers who remain in poorer schools at the end
of their careers are lower-performing than the teachers who replace them."
The authors also estimate that to achieve similar improvements in test
scores by reducing class size would cost, on average, $96 more per student
than the net cost of $51 per student of the early retirement initiative.
Experienced teachers who kept teaching, as the
authors delicately put it, "are those with stronger labor force attachment."
In other words, they care more about educating the next generation than
about their pension.
"Early Retirement Incentives and Student Achievement"
by Maria D. Fitzpatrick, Michael F. Lovenheim
NBER Working Paper No. 19281 Issued in August 2013
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19281
Early retirement incentives (ERIs) are increasingly
prevalent in education as districts seek to close budget gaps by replacing
expensive experienced teachers with lower-cost newer teachers. Combined with
the aging of the teacher workforce, these ERIs are likely to change the
composition of teachers dramatically in the coming years. We use exogenous
variation from an ERI program in Illinois in the mid-1990s to provide the
first evidence in the literature of the effects of large-scale teacher
retirements on student achievement. We find the program did not reduce test
scores; likely, it increased them, with positive effects most pronounced in
lower-SES schools.
Posted by out-in-the-pasture former accounting professor Bob Jensen
Giving Research Findings Away for Free When
Submitting Journal Articles and then Having to Buy It Back from the Publishers
The university is forced to give away information for free and then to buy it
back at a huge markup," he said. "The whole thing is just completely screwed up.
The only alternative the university has is to strike back at what Nature
(the journal) really values.
Publish or perish? Not at these prices, UC says," by Matt Krupnick,
Contra Costa Times, June 10, 2010 ---
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_15270766?nclick_check=1
The Open Access to Research Articles Act of Illinois
"Open Access Could Come to Illinois Universities," Center for Digital
Education, August 15, 2013 ---
http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/Open-Access-Could-Come-to-Illinois-Universities.html
A new state law will give open access to the
research conducted at public universities in Illinois.
The Open Access to Research Articles Act requires
each public university to set up a task force by Jan. 1, 2014, that will
consider how to meet open access goals. Traditionally, faculty research is
not available publically, but is published in scholarly academic journals
that charge subscription fees.
But Illinois universities will now consider making
their research available at no charge online. They'll also look at how other
universities and the federal government are handling open access. The news
comes on the heels of the University of California's recent announcement
that its faculty adopted an open access policy.
The Illinois legislation went through significant
changes since it was introduced in February. Initially, the language
required universities to develop an open access policy within 12 months. But
it later scratched the mandatory policy and left it up to university task
forces to come up with their own ideas.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
This law could adversely affect such accounting research journals as JAR, JAE,
AOS, and many others. I say "adversely" in the sense that if those journals
refuse open access, accounting researchers in Illinois may no longer submit
articles to those journals. Of course those journals are incresingly providing
some open access on a limited basis. Perhaps open access will also be extended
to articles having one or more authors from Illinois.
This law could eventually restrain campus libraries from subscribing to
closed-access research journals.
Bob Jensen's threads on how Commercial Scholarly Journals and Oligopoly
Publishers Are Ripping Off Libraries, and Scholars, Authors, and Students ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals
"Law School Applicants From Top Colleges Plunge 26%," by Paul Caron,
TaxProf Blog, August 20, 2013 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/08/law-school-applicants.html
The Law School Bubble Bursts
"Pop Goes the Law," by Steven J. Harper, Chronicle of Higher Education's
Chronicle Review, March 11, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Pop-Goes-the-Law/137717/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en
Bob Jensen's threads on the woes of law schools and law employment ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools
I recall that Tony Catanach was at a loss when he was considering a new
blogging platform for The Grumpy Old Accountants blog. Our AECM advice
was sort of ad hoc. The following article may have been of more help.
The 15 best blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet today. Which
one is for you?
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/08/16/best-blogging-services/
Bob Jensen's threads on listservs, blogs, and the social media ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm
LinkedIn Rolls Out Pages for Universities ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/linkedin-rolls-out-pages-for-universities.html
Bob Jensen's threads on listservs, blogs, and social media ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm
Welcome to the Beloit College Mindset List for the entering class of 2017
---
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/
Darwin Awards and Fem Fatales ---
http://www.darwinawards.com/
"The Second Digital Generation," Shannon Bohle, Scilogs, August 15,
2013 ---
http://www.scilogs.com/scientific_and_medical_libraries/the-second-digital-generation/
Jensen Comment
The second digital generation may also change the world of accounting and
finance. Instead of just becoming experts on the use of software available in
the market they may be more active in in writing their own apps and invented
ways of dealing with financial data. The "Second Digital Generation" will be
writing software as well as using software.
Tech News and Updates ---
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/tech/tech-news/tech-news-and-updates
An Anecdote: Once Upon a Time When Live Lectures Were Wasted Time on
the Stanford University Campus
Live synchronous lectures are often wastes of time for students, especially
when the subject matter is very technical with precise right and wrong answers.
Fast-learning students who prepared before class daydream because they already
know the lecture material. Slow-learners who are not prepared for class daydream
because the lecture is over their heads. They learn asynchronously after class
by memorizing the textbook and course handouts. Bob Jensen's threads on
asynchronous learning are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Sometimes, however, synchronous live classes are not wastes of time for
students, especially Socratic-method classes on rhetorical issues having no
precise right and wrong answers such as Socratic questions concerning President
Obama's plan for the future of higher education in the USA. Of course some might
argue that Socratic-method classes are not really lectures, but I will ignore
this issue for the moment because even synchronous Socratic-method courses
captured on video can be studied asynchronously over and over after class.
The Purpose of This Tidbit
The purpose of this tidbit is to review an anecdote embedded in a plenary
session by Jeffry Selingo at the August 2013 Annual Meetings of the American
Accounting Association (AAA) in Anaheim. I did not attend those meetings,
but I was able to view Selingo's presentation on the wonderful and very
professional video at
http://commons.aaahq.org/posts/36ef3fc3f3
Only AAA members may view this video. However, I suspect the anecdote in
question is probably reported in Mr. Selingo's new book:
College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for
Students
Jeffrey Salingo is a full-time Editor with the Chronicle of Higher Education
An Anecdote Embedded in the Presentation of Jeffrey Selingo
- Once upon a time two gifted professors in the Computer Science
Department at Stanford University dreamed up the idea that they would video
each lecture in the course they normally deliver live to about 300 students
each year on campus. The idea was then to provide these videos freely to the
world as a Web course. The subject matter in the course was Artificial
Intelligence.
- When Stanford administrators got wind of this idea they had some serious
discussions with these two professors concerning presenting an entire course
free to the world, a course that Stanford students pay a high price for to
attend live on campus. The two professors were eventually given the green
light to offer this Web course provided there were no certificates of
completion, no examinations or grading, and no transcript credit given to
students who completed the Web course. The most that students who completed
the course could get was a letter of congratulations for completing the Web
course.
- The Birth of the MOOC
Given some publicity about the course, especially in the Chronicle of
Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, the two professors
anticipated about 1,000 students (mostly curiosity seekers) would sign up
for the Web course. They received a shock when over 160,000 students from
over 100 nations signed up for the Web course. This was the birth of MOOC
courses that now are available free on over 1,000 specialized topics
from mostly highly prestigious universities around the world.
MOOC stands for a "Massive Open Online Course." By definition a MOOC course
must be free of charge without any restrictions on who can take the Web
course. Some MOOC providers now charge a small amount for students who
additionally want an official certificate of attendance. Students may
sometimes, but not always, elect to pay considerably more to take written or
oral competency examinations of the subject matter for transcript credit.
However, institutions vary as to what if any MOOC credits they will accept
for degree programs. MOOC credits have a long way to go before being
accepted by universities other than universities who are delivering the MOOC
credits. They are gaining ground since some highly respected universiteis
like the University of Wisconsin and the University of Akron are now giving
competency-based examinations and course credits to students who have not
taken any particular courses.
- Only about 35,000 students completed Stanford's MOOC course which
is a miserable completion rate that is common in nearly all MOOC courses.
Virtually all MOOC courses to date have been intense and difficult to
master. Curiosity seekers soon discover that to really focus on a MOOC
course it will take a lot of time and concentrated self-study. Richard
Campbell reported that he signed up for a MOOC and soon thereafter dropped
out. He reported that learning from that MOOC was like drinking from a
high-pressure fire hose. Others, even professors, who finished taking the
courses reported being totally exhausted.
- For examples of hundreds of MOOC courses now available on the Web from
prestigious universities and instructions on how to sign up, go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
- Most MOOC courses are not typical of smaller-sized online education
courses that are seldom free (i.e., online but not open-shared) and have
much more frequent and often intense communications between an instructor
and each of the students in the online class. Really dedicated and highly
professional distance education teachers like tax professor Amy Dunbar at
the University of Connecticut make themselves available to their online
students ten hours a day via instant messaging ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/Dunbar2002.htm
Secondly, most distance education courses these days have student-to-student
communications, chat rooms, and even team projects. There have been some
experimental MOOC courses where teams of students have been formed to
monitor the progress of each team member, but these are still very
experimental at this point in time in the evolution of MOOCs.
- The first really interesting part of this anecdote about the first MOOC
course is that about 300 students taking the course live for credit on
Stanford's campus were given the option of attending all live classes or
viewing the MOOC videos of those classes or both. Eventually, about 90%
of those 300 students stopped attending the live classes. Of course they
still had to take the examinations and do whatever else was required for
transcript grades.
- The second really interesting part of this anecdote is that all 300
students that term taking the course for grades did significantly better
when the MOOC choice was available to them --- better relative to prior
semesters when the course was taught without having a MOOC option.
- It is not clear that the course videos of live classes would have been
as good if there were no live students in the classroom. Although 90% of the
students eventually stopped attending class, it's important to note that the
instructors still faced live students face-to-face in every class. They
could ask questions and have some interactive feedback. The videos may not
have been as good if the professors faced totally empty classrooms. The same
thing happens with live television performers like Johnny Carson who
performed better with live audiences
Jensen Comment
This Stanford anecdote performance outcome is consistent with the much more
formalized SCALE experiments that were conducted years ago for 30 undergraduate
courses across five years at the University of Illinois. In that experiment
resident full-time students were divided between those that took only live
sections versus those that took online sections from the same instructors using
the same assignments and examinations in those sections of each course. In the
SCALE experiments there was a higher proportion of A-grade outcomes in the
online sections. More C students tended to become B students in the online
sections. Unmotivated D and F students tended to be poor students whether onsite
or online ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
One has to be very cautious when making extrapolations from either the
Stanford MOOC anecdote or the SCALE experiments. The improvements in learning
due to online teaching in the SCALE experiments varied by course. Also the
professors teaching those courses tended to be very enthused about the potential
of online learning at a time when there was very little online learning in the
world. It may well be that these professors had more intense communications with
their online students than is normally the case these days for distance
education courses in general. Instant messaging had not yet been invented for
the SCALE experiments such that most of the online communication was via regular
email. Course instructors had to spend a lot of time adapting onsite learning
materials for online learning.
The improvements in learning in the above Stanford anecdote are harder to
explain.
Stanford's first Artificial Intelligence online MOOC was not a distance
education course with communications between the professors and their online
students. In general, MOOC courses are no tests of what we think of as good
distance education courses because MOOC courses have so many more students
making such communications impractical. Remember the first letter in the MOOC
acronym stands for "Massive."
One thing about a MOOC video is that it can be repeated over and over and
over until slower learning students master the technical explanations in the
video. This appears to be the main comparative advantage in the 2,000+ technical
video modules available from the Khan Academy. This is also a comparative
advantage in MOOC courses since the quality videos can be repeated over and over
and over 24/7.
We may also question how well the 35,000 students who completed Stanford's
MOOC Artificial Intelligence course would've performed on competency-based
examinations. In doing so we should probably factor out those online "students"
who were also themselves artificial intelligence experts (e.g., computer science
professors) who were taking the MOOC simply out of curiosity on how this subject
matter is taught at Stanford. We would expect those experts to pass a
competency-based examination before they took this MOOC course.
Among the remaining students who completed the course, I surmise that over
90% would've failed the course if they took the same competency-based
examinations as the 300 on-campus students who received grades for the course on
their transcripts. For most students the grade on a transcript is the primary
motivator for time and sweat devoted to a course. We would expect passage rates
to increase if students intended to take competency-based examinations (oral or
written) and understood what was to be required in terms of learning in the MOOC
course.
The Unsolved Mystery of the Stanford MOOC Anecdote
The unsolved mystery of this anecdote is why the 300 students on campus who were
taking this Artificial Intelligence course for a grade on a transcript tended to
do better when the MOOC option was available versus when the only option was to
attend live lectures. Those that dropped out of live classes and viewed the MOOC
classes could have done worse --- which many educators would've expected when
students can no longer ask their questions in a live class..
Keep in mind that this is only the outcome for one course in one semester. My
hunch, however, is that it would be the same for virtually all live courses
where a MOOC option is also made available on a voluntary basis. I assume that
the synchronous in-class experience in each MOOC course can be viewed over and
over and over asynchronously on video.
By the way, individual top students in a course tend to rank the same under
order under various pedagogy alternatives for that course. This became known as
the famous "No-Significant-Differences Hypothesis" in the literature of teaching
and learning for motivated students ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#AssessmentIssues
I think pedagogy matters more to students with low motivation and/or learning
disorders.
Sometimes traditionalist educators who have not studied the
"No-Significant-Differences Hypothesis" research tend to make statements
inconsistent with that research --- especially when putting down online
education. Nobody argues that onsite education, especially among students who
live and learn on campus, is not usually better than online education,
especially in some performance courses like music, speech, and theater. But much
of the advantages of onsite education comes from the learning and maturing that
takes place on campus outside the classrooms.
In his plenary address, Jeffry Selingo points out that less than 20% of USA
higher education students live and learn on campus. For them the costs of this
on-campus living and learning keeps outpacing inflation. And the living in
learning experience varies greatly. Living and learning at Trinity University
where nearly all students live on campus and never have a course with more than
40 students is entirely different than living and learning at the University of
Texas where one dormitory complex (Jestor Hall) is so huge it has two zip codes
and students frequently sit in classrooms holding more than 500 students.
I don't think President Obama is focusing on the 20% nearly as much as he's
focusing on the 80% who need lower cost and higher quality education
alternatives. He wants that 80% to have access to the best teachers in the world
when possible. His main problem lies in how to motivate that 80% to want to
learn (even from the world's best subject matter experts) and to bring those
least prepared for college up to speed. The present model for the 80% in higher
education is pretty much a failure. Our K-12 schools vary more, but for most of
the urban K-12 schools and it's pretty much a gangland horror story.
Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs and SMOCs are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
The University of Texas Gives Birth to the SMOC Based Upon Online
Extensions Enormous Lecture Sections in Basic Psychology
Unlike a MOOC this is not a free non-credit course --- currently costing $550
online for three credits and
Enrollment is capped at 10,000 students per course
Anyone can enroll in the course -- as long as they can
foot the $550 registration fee and can make themselves available at 6 p.m.
central standard time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Registration is handled
online at a
separate site, and students who finish the course
earn three transferable credit hours. In comparison, full-time resident
students (taking the course live on campus) pay
$2,059 (out-of-state students pay $7,137) for three credit hours in the
College of Liberal Arts, but there is no out-of-state premium charged for
the SMOC.
"Don't Call It a MOOC," by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed,
August 27, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/27/ut-austin-psychology-professors-prepare-worlds-first-synchronous-massive-online
Two University of Texas at Austin psychology
professors will Thursday night take the stage for the fall semester’s first
session of Introduction to Psychology. Their audience will consist of a
production crew and their equipment. In their years of working together, the
professors’ research has shown their students benefit from computer-based
learning to the point where they don’t even need to be physically present in
the classroom.
Just don’t call it a MOOC. The university styles
the class as the world’s first synchronous massive online course, or SMOC
(pronounced “smock”), where the professors broadcast their lectures live to
the about 1,500 students enrolled.
“I think we were influenced predominantly by this
mix of Jon Stewart and 'The View' or Jay Leno,” said James W. Pennebaker,
chair of the department of psychology at UT-Austin.
The course is the result of almost a decade of
research into how students learn. After teaching separate 500-student
sections of the introductory course, Pennebaker and fellow psychology
professor Samuel Gosling decided to schedule the sections back-to-back. The
professors then began experimenting with adaptive learning, requiring
students bring a laptop to class so they could take multiple-choice tests
and receive instant feedback. Gosling and Pennebaker then built group chats
that randomly paired five or six students together for in-class discussions.
Last year, they moved one of the two sections of the course online. And with
this change, the class will be taught exclusively online.
"More and more, we have been integrating a sort of
research element,” Gosling said. “Everything the students do, we learn
about, and we learn about it so we can find out what works. They’re guinea
pigs and we’re guinea pigs.”
As more and more of the coursework continued to
shift toward digital, the data showed a clear trend: Not only were students
in the online section performing the equivalent of half a letter grade
better than those physically in attendance, but taking the class online also
slashed the achievement gap between upper, middle and lower-middle class
students in half, from about one letter grade to less than half of a letter
grade.
“We are changing the way students are approaching
the class and the way they study,” Pennebaker said.
Anyone can enroll in the course -- as long as they
can foot the $550 registration fee and can make themselves available at 6
p.m. central standard time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Registration is
handled online at a separate site, and students who finish the course earn
three transferable credit hours. In comparison, full-time resident students
pay $2,059 (out-of-state students pay $7,137) for three credit hours in the
College of Liberal Arts, but there is no out-of-state premium charged for
the SMOC.
Goslin and Pennebaker said they have set an upper
limit of 10,000 students, but managing a course of this size “shakes a big
bureaucracy to its knees,” Pennebaker said. Between lecturers, audiovisual
professionals, teacher’s assistants, online mentors and programmers, the
number of people associated with teaching one class has ballooned to more
than 125.
“No human can do more than one of these a year,”
Pennebaker said. “It has been the hardest I’ve ever worked in my entire
life.”
In that sense, running the course as a traditional
MOOC would be more efficient, but Gosling said, “I think it wouldn’t be this
class.” As the two professors prepared for what Gosling called “the largest
leap we’ve taken,” they agreed to sacrifice some of that efficiency to
maintain some elements of a classroom setting.
“The cons of a MOOC is that you take away a sense
of intimacy, a sense of community, a sense of a simultaneous, synchronous
experience,” Gosling said.
To ensure that students don’t treat the class as a
static broadcast, the class will be split into smaller pods monitored by
former students, who essentially work as online TAs. The pods will remain
static throughout the semester, giving students a core group of classmates
to chat with during the lectures. And should a student be confused about the
content of a lecture, Pennebaker said, “a blue light comes on and we’ll say,
‘We have a question out there in T.V. land.’ ”
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
It is not yet clear how SMOCs will be viewed by President Obama, but given their
cheap price for credits from a prestigious university it appears that he will
lavish praise on universities that offer SMOCs for credit in comparison with
universities that offer only MOOCs for non-credit or MOOCs for credit from
for-profit corporations that offer competency-based examinations to accompany
MOOC courses.
Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs and SMOCs are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
"President Obama’s Plan for College Reform," Judge Richard Posner,
The Becker-Posner Blog, August 25, 2013 ---
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2013/08/president-obamas-plan-for-college-reformposner.html
Several days ago the
President proposed that the federal government create a rating system
("scorecards”) beginning in 2015 to rank colleges by such metrics as
tuition, percentage of low-income
students, graduation rates, alumni earnings, and debt of graduates. Federal
financial aid to students, currently running at $150 billion a year, would
be allocated on the basis of the ratings, though this part of the proposal
would require legislation; the other parts the President can effectuate
without congressional action. For a good summary of the program, see Dylan
Matthews, “Everything You Need to Know About Obama’s Higher Ed Plan,”
Wonkblog, Aug. 22, 2013,
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/22/everything-you-need-to-know-about-obamas-higher-ed-plan/.
There are of course
college rating systems already, such as that of U.S. News & World Report.
A federal rating system would probably have somewhat greater credibility;
and if it became the basis for allocation of federal financial aid, the
system would have far greater effect on college choice, given that more than
80 percent of college students receive federal financial aid.
Multi-factor rating
systems have an obvious, and very serious, problem: weighting. It is almost
certainly the case that the factors in the proposed “scorecard” don’t have
the same importance to an intelligent choice of which colleges to apply to.
Worse, there is unlikely to be agreement on which factors are the most
important and so should be given the greatest weight—and how much more
weight than the other factors. That won’t matter a great deal as long as the
ratings just guide college
choice, for then parents and their kids will give whatever weight they want
to the various factors. But the ratings will matter greatly—and influence
that choice—if Congress allows them to be used to govern the allocation of
federal financial aid to students.
To evaluate the
President’s proposal, we need to step back and consider what ails our
higher-education system. It is helpful to note the affinity between its
rather doleful situation and that of our health care system. The top
institutions in both systems provide world-class quality of service, mainly
to children of the affluent and nearaffluent—the top tier of American
universities and colleges is generally considered tops in the world. Both
systems provide indifferent quality at the bottom, the bottom-tier
universities and colleges being worse than the bottom-tier hospitals and
clinics. Both systems are very expensive, with much of the tab picked up by
the taxpayer—both are very expensive in part because of poor quality control
by the federal government. The government is not a very competent financier,
in major part because it is buffeted by interest groups wielding formidable
political power.
The Administration’s
Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is an enormously ambitious, almost
incomprehensibly complex, effort to improve medical care and at the same
time reduce the rate of growth of the nation’s medical expenditures. The
President’s new higher-education proposal is much less ambitious, especially
if one sets to one side the part that requires congressional approval—the
part about keying federal financial aid to universities and colleges to how
well they perform on the “scorecard.” It is worth analysis, of course, but
can be relegated to secondary concern on the pragmatic ground that
congressional approval appears to lie far in the future.
The Presidente’s
proposed ratings do identify characteristics of colleges and universities
that parents and their high-school children should consider in deciding
whether (and where) to apply to college. True, most of the information is
available already, but not (so far as I know) in a compact, readily readable
and comprehensible form, amd of course missing the imprimatur of the federal
government. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial yesterday
(August 24) scoffed at the supposition that the government can pick
“winners.” But that isn’t the purpose of the ratings. The purpose is to
provide accurate, readable information for the relevant consuming public,
and so understood seems perfectly appropriate. The “picking winners”
criticism will become more apt if and when Congress authorizes the
allocation of federal financial aid on the basis of the ratings.
But I do think the
scorecard even when viewed purely as an information device can be
criticized. For example, while I can see why the percentage of low-income
students in a college would be an appropriate factor to consider in
allocating federal aid, I don’t see its relevance to the choice of a college
by would-be applicants. Tuition, on the other hand, is a relevant factor,
obviously, but is disclosed up front by any college or university to which
one applies. Alumni earnings sound relevant, but the problem is
that they necessarily are backward looking. They are the record of
experiences of previous students, and may reflect characteristics of the
college or of the job market that have changed since those generations of
students graduated. The amount of debt of graduates is similarly an
ambiguous signal to a prospective applicant. If the debt of graduates of a
particular institution is above average, this may reflect career choices or
excessive optimism, things for which the college may bear only limited, if
any, responsibility. The factor is included in the scorecard I assume
because of a belief that some colleges lure students by obfuscating the
financial obligations that a student who applies for financial aid will be
taking on. I think this belief is correct but I don’t know how much
of the indebtedness of graduates it is responsible for.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on the systemic aggregation problem when weighting
nutrients in vegetables ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
Purportedly, President Obama favors a Jewish heritage college/university that
does not even have an accounting courses, although it does have some business
and finance (Israeli universities in general do not offer accounting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touro_College
"These 11 Colleges Just Hit The Jackpot In Obama's New Education Plan,"
by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, August 23, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-that-will-benefit-form-obamas-education-plan-2013-8
Jensen Caution
Don't treat distance education courses and MOOC courses as synonyms. President
Obama is suggesting priority for distance education courses and online degree
programs that are neither free nor "massive" in size. Smaller distance education
courses can have intense communications between students and an instructor plus
intense communications between students in a course (including team projects).
Grading in these distance education courses is very similar to onsite course
grading.
MOOCs present an entire new dimension to student communications and grading.
I don't think President Obama was thinking in terms of MOOCs in his latest
proposal. However, MOOCs are on the horizon, especially for very specialized
courses that colleges cannot afford to teach on campus. Credit in such courses
may be given on the basis of competency testing.
"Obama Proposals for Colleges Highlight Online Courses," by
Megan O'Neil, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 22, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/obama-proposals-for-colleges-highlight-online-courses/45595?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Developing online classes and other nontraditional
teaching approaches could earn colleges money under new federal financing
priorities
proposed on Thursday by President Obama.
More colleges should be encouraged “to embrace
innovative new ways to prepare our students for a 21st-century economy and
maintain a high level of quality without breaking the bank,” the president
said in a
speech at the University at Buffalo, part of the
State University of New York.
The financial rewards for such innovation would be
part of a larger retooling of financing priorities, Mr. Obama said.
Under his proposal, the Department of Education
would have two years to create a college-rating system to help students and
their parents determine the value of an institution. Criteria would include
graduation rates, graduates’ competitiveness in the work force, and their
debt load upon graduation, among others.
As one example of innovation in online learning
that meets students’ needs, Mr. Obama cited an
online master’s program in computer science at the
Georgia Institute of Technology. The program will make its debut in January
and cost a fraction of a traditional on-campus degree.
Continued in article
A Ranking of Online MBA Programs from AACSB-accredited universities
(there are no such online accounting doctoral programs) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/CrossBorder.htm#MBA
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education and training alternatives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/CrossBorder.htm
"Obama Vows Action on College Costs, but Will It Work?" by Kelly
Field, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 21, 2013 --- |
http://chronicle.com/article/Obama-Vows-Action-on-College/141203/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
In a speech at Knox College last month, President
Obama said he would "shake up higher education" with an "aggressive
strategy" aimed at making college more affordable.
On Thursday, the president embarks on a two-state,
three-campus tour where he'll lay out what he has in mind. In a
letter sent to his supporters this week, he
promises "real reforms that would bring lasting change."
"Just tinkering around the edges won't be enough,"
he says in the letter. "To create a better bargain for the middle class, we
have to fundamentally rethink about how higher education is paid for in this
country."
The plan, he continues, "won't be popular with
everyone—including some who've made higher education their business—but it's
past time that more of our colleges work better for the students they exist
to serve."
But it's hard to see how the president will tackle
two of the root causes of tuition growth: labor costs and state budget cuts.
Despite productivity gains, and a move toward self-guided,
"competency-based" learning, higher-education remains an industry that's
highly dependent on skilled labor. At the same time, many states have
slashed their spending on higher-education, forcing public colleges to raise
tuition to cover costs.
Taking Colleges
to Task
Over the past year-and-a-half, Mr. Obama has become
a frequent critic of colleges, taking them to task over rising tuition and
warning that the government won't continue to pour money into an
"undisciplined system." He has threatened to withhold some federal aid from
colleges that fail to hold down tuition growth, and has proposed grants for
states and colleges that adopt cost-saving measures.
So far, those ideas have fallen flat, largely
because of federal budget constraints. The president has had better luck
increasing aid to students and making debt more manageable, through expanded
income-based repayment options and lower interest rates on student loans.
His administration has also made information about
college costs and student debt more transparent, through the use of an
online College Scorecard and a standardized financial-aid award letter, or
"shopping sheet."
This week's college tour is the latest in a string
of campaign-style events the White House is using to promote its economic
policies in the run-up to debates in Congress over the federal budget and
the debt ceiling. It includes stops on Thursday and Friday at two State
University of New York campuses—the University at Buffalo and Binghamton
University—and at Lackawanna College, in Scranton, Pa.
Details of the president's proposals aren't yet
available, but some observers expect Mr. Obama to recycle a plan that would
tie some money from the campus-based aid programs to efforts to rein in
tuition growth, and to repeat his call for a "Race to the Top"-style grant
program for colleges and states that take steps to control costs.
He might also propose an expansion of his signature
Pay-as-You-Earn student-loan repayment plan, or declare use of the
financial-aid shopping sheet mandatory for all colleges.
To address state budget cuts, he might propose
requiring states to sustain their spending on higher education to receive
certain federal funds. But past maintenance-of-effort provisions haven't
proven particularly effective, and some members of Congress oppose their
expansion. Tackling labor costs would be even trickier.
"When it comes down to it, there's not all that
much the president can do, besides using the bully pulpit" to exhort states
and colleges to do more, said Daniel T. Madzelan, a longtime Education
Department official who retired last year. "It just comes down to the price
of labor."
From Benefactor
to Critic
During his first years in office, President Obama
focused on expanding student aid, pushing for increases in the maximum Pell
Grant and the creation of a more generous tuition tax credit. Those changes
helped make college more affordable for current students, but they didn't do
anything to slow tuition growth, and skeptics say they may have even fueled
it.
In 2010, the administration turned its attention to
for-profit colleges, proposing to cut off federal student aid to
institutions where borrowers struggle to repay their debt. The resulting
"gainful employment" regulation was overturned by the courts, and the
Education Department is opening negotiations to rewrite the rule this fall.
But it was not until 2012, in his State of the
Union address, that the president began to apply pressure to all of higher
education, putting colleges "on notice" that his administration would not
continue to subsidize
"skyrocketing tuition."
"If you can't stop tuition from going up, the
funding you get from taxpayers will go down," he said.
Three days later, in a speech
at the University of Michigan, he issued a
"blueprint for keeping college affordable,"
repeating proposals to shift more money from the campus-based student-aid
programs to colleges that "do their fair share to keep tuition affordable,"
and create new incentive programs for colleges and states. The plan also
included a call for the
College Scorecard that would provide families with
"essential information" for choosing a college, including data on
institutions' costs, graduation rates, and the potential earnings of
graduates.
He returned to those themes in his 2013 State of
the Union address, calling on colleges to
"do their part to keep costs down," and urging
Congress to consider "affordability and value" when awarding federal aid. In
a
policy plan that accompanied the speech, he
suggested incorporating measures of value and affordability into the
existing accreditation system or establishing a new, alternative system of
accreditation "based on performance and results."
Sidestepping
Congress
Getting Congress to agree to any of those ideas
will be difficult, given budget realities and competing priorities—not to
mention the partisan gridlock currently gripping Washington. Recognizing
this, Mr. Obama has vowed to use the powers of his office to get things
done.
Continued in article
It's troubling enough to study one university's
financial reports. It's a nightmare to compare universities.
"So You Want to Examine Your University's Financial Reports?" by Charles
Schwartz, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 7, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/So-You-Want-to-Examine-Your/130672/
Issues in Computing a College's Cost of Degrees Awarded and "Worth" of
Professors ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#CostAccounting
"Treating Higher Ed's 'Cost Disease' With
Supersize Online Courses," by Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education,
February 26, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Treating-Higher-Eds-Cost/130934/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
"A Policy Wonk Brings Data on College Costs
to the Table," by Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education,
February 5, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-College-Cost-Policy-Wonk/130662/
The University of Texas System released data
Thursday designed to help the system's regents gauge the productivity of
faculty members, The Texas Tribune
reported -- one part of
an accountability push that has concerned many
professors and troubled some lawmakers. The massive spreadsheet -- which
system officials insisted was raw and unverified, and should be treated as a
draft -- contained numerous data points about all individual professors,
including their total compensation, tenure status, total course enrollments,
and information about research awards. A similar effort this spring at Texas
A&M University -- also undertaken in response to pressure from Gov. Rick
Perry --
created a stir there.
"Release of Faculty-Productivity Data Roils U. of Texas," by Audrey Williams
June, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Release-of/127439/
Issues in Computing a College's Cost of Degrees Awarded and "Worth" of
Professors (including discussions of the Texas A&M cost allocation study) ---
See below
April 7, 2011 message from Francine McKenna
Huffington Post:
$817 an hour. Are professors worth what they're getting paid?
http://huff.to/dXxZx6
Original Tweet:
http://twitter.com/HuffingtonPost/statuses/55973110557581312
April 7, 2011 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Francine
I think the title put on this by Huffington Post is misleading. The
"worth" of somebody in a profession must focus as much or even more on the
worth of the benefits of that person vis-a-vis the cost. My wife had four
(soon to be five) very expensive surgeries from one of the outstanding spine
surgeons in the world. We can aggregate the cost of this Boston surgeon's
billings, but how in the world would we ever measure his benefit or worth?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm
Incidentally he's also one of the most important surgical residency teachers
in the shadows of the Harvard Medical School. Residents seek him out because
he's such a superb teacher. How do we measure the value of his contributions
to the future surgeries performed by all the surgical residents who've
worked closely with this surgeon?
Similarly we can aggregate the cost of having Dennis Beresford for 14 years
at the University of Georgia. But how in the world would we ever measure his
"worth?" How do we measure the value of his contributions to all the
accounting students who've worked closely with this remarkable professor of
accountancy?.
Of course we could also argue that the benefit of 23-year old Ms. Kinder
teaching kindergarten in South Chicago is invaluable. About the only way we
have of comparing a unique Harvard spine surgeon with a kindergarten teacher
is how much it takes to replace them with professionals having comparable
skills. I would argue that Ms. Kinder can be replaced for a whole lot less
money than my wife's very uniquely qualified spine surgeon.
However, comparing their annual compensation is only a very, very rough way
to measure "worth" to society. Like you, I hesitate to conclude that the
"worth" of Stanley O'Neal was the $160 million it took to get him out the
door. Compensation is confounded by a whole lot of factors other than
societal "worth."
.
"Stanley O'Neal who is leaving Merrill Lynch after
giving it a big fat gift of a $8 billion dollar write-off thanks to risky
investments. The board just can't help but feed this obesity epidemic.
They're giving him $160 million plus in severance for his troubles as he
heads for the door. At some point, the nation's corporations, or most
pointedly, their corporate boards, will realize throwing money at their CEOs
is probably not the best idea"
"Obesity Epidemic Among CEO Pay," The Huffington Post, November 1, 2007 ---
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-tahmincioglu/obesity-epidemic-among-ce_b_70810.html
Related to this is the vexing issue of computing the cost of degrees awarded
such as an undergraduate degree in art history versus a PhD in accountancy
---
Issues in Computing a College's Cost of Degrees Awarded ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#CostAccounting
Here are my earlier threads on the controversial Texas A&M costing study
that focused more on comparing the cost of degrees awarded than the "worth"
of Aggie professors like Ed Swanson.or Tom Omer.
Also see ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory02.htm#ManagementAccounting
Texas A&M Case on Computing the Cost of Professors and Academic Programs
Jensen Comment
In an advanced Cost/Managerial Accounting course this assignment could have two
parts. First assign the case below. Then assign student teams to write a case on
how to compute the cost of a given course, graduate in a given program, or a
comparison of a the cost of a distance education section versus an onsite
section of a given course taught by a tenured faculty member teaching three
courses in general as well as conducting research, performing internal service,
and performing external service in his/her discipline.
From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on November 5,
2010
Putting a Price on Professors
by: Stephanie Simon and Stephanie Banchero
Oct 23, 2010
Click here to view the full article on WSJ.com
TOPICS: Contribution Margin, Cost Management, Managerial Accounting
SUMMARY: The article describes a contribution margin review at Texas A&M
University drilled all the way down to the faculty member level. Also
described are review systems in place in California, Indiana, Minnesota,
Michigan, Ohio and other locations.
CLASSROOM APPLICATION: Managerial concepts of efficiency, contribution
margin, cost management, and the managerial dashboard in university settings
are discussed in this article.
QUESTIONS:
1. (Introductory) Summarize the reporting on Texas A&M University's Academic
Financial Data Compilation. Would you describe this as putting a "price" on
professors or would you use some other wording? Explain.
2. (Introductory) What is the difference between operational efficiency and
"academic efficiency"?
3. (Advanced) Review the table entitled "Controversial Numbers: Cash Flow at
Texas A&M." Why do you think that Chemistry, History, and English
Departments are more likely to generate positive cash flows than are
Oceanography, Physics and Astronomy, and Aerospace Engineering?
4. (Introductory) What source of funding for academics is excluded from the
table review in answer to question 3 above? How do you think that funding
source might change the scenario shown in the table?
5. (Advanced) On what managerial accounting technique do you think
Minnesota's state college system has modeled its method of assessing
campuses' performance?
6. (Advanced) Refer to the related article. A large part of cost increases
in university education stem from dormitories, exercise facilities, and
other building amenities on campuses. What is your reaction to this parent's
statement that universities have "acquiesced to the kids' desire to go to
school at luxury resorts"?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
RELATED ARTICLES:
Letters to the Editor: What Is It That We Want Our Universities to Be?
by Hank Wohltjen, David Roll, Jane S. Shaw, Edward Stephens
Oct 30, 2010
Page: A16
"Putting a Price on Professors," by Stephanie Simon and Stephanie Banchero,
The Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703735804575536322093520994.html?mod=djem_jiewr_AC_domainid
Carol Johnson took the
podium of a lecture hall one recent morning to walk 79 students enrolled in
an introductory biology course through diffusion, osmosis and the
phospholipid bilayer of cell membranes.
A senior lecturer, Ms.
Johnson has taught this class for years. Only recently, though, have
administrators sought to quantify whether she is giving the taxpayers of
Texas their money's worth.
A 265-page spreadsheet,
released last month by the chancellor of the Texas A&M University system,
amounted to a profit-and-loss statement for each faculty member, weighing
annual salary against students taught, tuition generated, and research
grants obtained.
Ms. Johnson came out very
much in the black; in the period analyzed—fiscal year 2009—she netted the
public university $279,617. Some of her colleagues weren't nearly so
profitable. Newly hired assistant professor Charles Criscione, for instance,
spent much of the year setting up a lab to research parasite genetics and
ended up $45,305 in the red.
The balance sheet sparked an
immediate uproar from faculty, who called it misleading, simplistic and
crass—not to mention, riddled with errors. But the move here comes amid a
national drive, backed by some on both the left and the right, to assess
more rigorously what, exactly, public universities are doing with their
students—and their tax dollars.
As budget pressures mount,
legislators and governors are increasingly demanding data proving that money
given to colleges is well spent. States spend about 11% of their
general-fund budgets subsidizing higher education. That totaled more than
$78 billion in fiscal year 2008, according to the National Association of
State Budget Officers.
The movement is driven as
well by dismal educational statistics. Just over half of all freshmen
entering four-year public colleges will earn a degree from that institution
within six years, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
And among those with
diplomas, just 31% could pass the most recent national prose literacy test,
given in 2003; that's down from 40% a decade earlier, the department says.
"For years and years,
universities got away with, 'Trust us—it'll be worth it,'" said F. King
Alexander, president of California State University at Long Beach.
But no more: "Every
conversation we have with these institutions now revolves around
productivity," says Jason Bearce, associate commissioner for higher
education in Indiana. He tells administrators it's not enough to find
efficiencies in their operations; they must seek "academic efficiency" as
well, graduating more students more quickly and with more demonstrable
skills. The National Governors Association echoes that mantra; it just
formed a commission focused on improving productivity in higher education.
This new emphasis has raised
hackles in academia. Some professors express deep concern that the focus on
serving student "customers" and delivering value to taxpayers will turn
public colleges into factories. They worry that it will upend the essential
nature of a university, where the Milton scholar who teaches a senior
seminar to five English majors is valued as much as the engineering
professor who lands a million-dollar research grant.
And they fear too much
tinkering will destroy an educational system that, despite its acknowledged
flaws, remains the envy of much of the world. "It's a reflection of a much
more corporate model of running a university, and it's getting away from the
idea of the university as public good," says John Curtis, research director
for the American Association of University Professors.
Efforts to remake higher
education generally fall into two categories. In some states, including Ohio
and Indiana, public officials have ordered a new approach to funding, based
not on how many students enroll but on what they accomplish.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
This case is one of the most difficult cases that managerial and cost
accountants will ever face. It deals with ugly problems where joint and indirect
costs are mind-boggling. For example, when producing mathematics graduates in
undergraduate and graduate programs, the mathematics department plays an even
bigger role in providing mathematics courses for other majors and minors on
campus. Furthermore, the mathematics faculty provides resources for internal
service to administration, external service to the mathematics profession and
the community, applied research, basic research, and on and on and on. Faculty
resources thus become joint product resources.
Furthermore costing faculty time is not exactly the same as costing the time
of a worker that adds a bumper to each car in an assembly line. While at home in
bed going to sleep or awakening in bed a mathematics professor might hit upon a
Eureka moment where time spent is more valuable than the whole previous lifetime
of that professor spent in working on campus. How do to factor in hours spent
in bed in CVP analysis and Cost-Benefit analysis? Work sampling and
time-motion studies used in factory systems just will not work well in academic
systems.
In Cost-Profit-Volume analysis the multi-product CPV model is
incomprehensible without making a totally unrealistic assumption that "sales
mix" parameters are constant for changing levels of volume. Without this
assumption for many "products" the solution to the CPV model blows our minds.
Another really complicating factor in CVP and C-B analysis are semi-fixed
costs that are constant over a certain time frame (such as a semester or a year
for adjunct employees) but variable over a longer horizon. Of course over a
very long horizon all fixed costs become variable, but this generally destroys
the benefit of a CVP analysis in the first place. One problem is that faculty
come in non-tenured adjunct, non-tenured tenure-track, and tenured varieties.
I could go on and on about why I would never attempt to do CVP or C-B
research for one of the largest universities of the world. But somebody at
Texas A&M has rushed in where angels fear to tread.
Bob Jensen's threads on managerial and cost accounting are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory02.htm#ManagementAccounting
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
"KRUGMAN: Apple Might Be More Screwed Than Microsoft," by Joe
Weisenthal, Business Insider, August 24, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/krugman-apple-might-be-more-screwed-than-microsoft-2013-8
Also see
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/on-the-symmetry-between-microsoft-and-apple/?_r=1&
Limits of Human Knowledge (and calculating power)
The traveling salesman problem provides the mathematical basis for modern
transportation systems ---
"Unhappy Truckers and Other Algorithmic Problems: Transportation
optimization starts with math, but ends in understanding human behavior," by Tom
Vanderbilt, Nautilus, August 2013 ---
http://nautil.us/issue/3/in-transit/unhappy-truckers-and-other-algorithmic-problems
"Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal," by Bill Barrett,
AccountingWeb, August 19, 2013 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/article/inside-mind-white-collar-criminal/222228
Jensen Comment
Bill has written a nice summary of what motivates white collar crime, although
the article could use a few more footnotes and references to both case studies
and empirical research that investigated white collar criminals.
The really hard part of predicting who will commit white collar crime arises
when some of of the major factors leading to such crime are in place (e.g.,
personal debt, addictions, infidelity, feelings of resentment, etc.) are in
place for those who commit white collar crime versus those who do not commit
white collar crime on the job. The problem is the phrase "on the job." For some,
fear of loss of a job just seems to outweigh all the other temptations to steal.
For example, for every employee who wants a bigger house or better horses enough
to steal from employers, there are more employees who really want bigger houses
and better horses who will not steal for such things. There are some who steal
millions for such things, especially a particular woman accountant from Dixon,
Illinois who stole $30 million for faster horses and more money.
Whereas it's pretty easy to understand why an unemployed drug addict in dire
need of a fix robs a convenience store, it's far more complicated to understand
multimillionaires like CFO like Andy Fastow or hedge fund manager Bernie Madoff
want to stack millions more to their piles of loot. In some instances it's more
than the money, but I think more often than not its still primarily the money.
But what stops a really greedy CFO or hedge fund manager from committing a crime
while others become criminals like Andy and Bernie? I don't think we know enough
to fine tune our predictions about who will and who won't steal.
White collar crime is often very complicated. For example, some shoplifters
really want the merchandise they steal. But the wife of one of my low-income
coaches in school was known in my small Iowa home town to be a shoplifter who
really didn't much want the high-end clothing and fancies she stole. I lived in
town during high school, and the coach and his wife also happened to be our
neighbors. They were good neighbors, although unlike most of our other neighbors
in this small town they had no children. Perhaps this shoplifter was a bit
more bored without having a job and children to occupy her time. But certainly
most spouses who have no jobs and children do not become shoplifters.
My coach visited each of retail merchants on Main Street and explained
beforehand that his wife had a mental problem that nobody seemed to understand.
He asked them to report to him rather than the police when they detected her
shoplifting. He promised to return the merchandise and pay for any damages and
inconvenience. Of course this is not an ideal solution since there could be and
probably were instances where her shoplifting was not detected. It also
presented a moral hazard in that an unscrupulous merchant might have taken
advantage by extorting extra money from the coach as an incentive not to report
her crime.
I suspect that in private my coach pleaded over and over with his wife to
stop shoplifting. This couple eventually moved to Arizona, and I don't know how
her "addiction to shoplifting" was eventually resolved.
What bothers me most about white collar crime is that more often than not it
pays even when you know you are most likely going to get caught ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays
It can be very lucrative since sentences are relatively light for such crimes.
Bernie Madoff's life sentence is an exceptionally rare, very rare event. But
then he stole more than anybody else.
"CEO in fraud case needs more than
seven days prison: court," by Jonathan Stempel, Reuters,
February 15, 2013 ---
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-ceo-sentencing-decision-idUSBRE91E0W320130215
The law
does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously
interfere with business.
Clarence Darrow ---
Click Here
Why white collar crime pays for
Chief Financial Officer:
Andy Fastow's fine for filing false Enron financial statements: $30,000,000
Andy Fastow's stock sales benefiting from the false reports: $33,675,004
Andy Fastow's estimated looting of Enron cash:
$60,000,000
That averages out to winnings, after his court fines, of $10,612,500 per year
for each of the six years he spent in prison.
You can read what others got at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#StockSales
Nice work if you can get it: Club Fed's not so bad if you earn $29,075 per day
plus all the accrued interest over the past 15 years (includes years where he
got away with it).
"Philosopher's Downfall, From Star to 'Ruin,'
Divides a Discipline," by Seth Zweifler, Chronicle of Higher Education,
July 1, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Prominent-Philosophers/140071/
Colin McGinn is towering above Miami Beach.
The prominent British philosopher, who was
considered a star hire by the University of Miami several years ago, is
sitting on the deck of his penthouse condo as waves crash onto the shore 43
floors below.
To an outsider, it looks like paradise. Mr.
McGinn's home is in one of the most sought-after high-rises on Miami Beach's
"Millionaire's Row"; his cabana, where he stores paddleboards and surfing
gear, is larger than some city apartments.
But on the inside, he says, he's living in a state
of "total ruin."
It has been six months since Mr. McGinn informed
the university that he would resign at the end of the calendar year. His
decision followed allegations that he had engaged in an inappropriate
relationship (not sexual intercourse) with a graduate student. The student
told the university that she felt uncomfortable after receiving a number of
sexually explicit e-mail and text messages from Mr. McGinn. He denies any
wrongdoing.
The ignominious conclusion to Mr. McGinn's career
at Miami has fueled a continuing conversation about sexual harassment in
philosophy departments. Stories of harassment of women have long plagued the
discipline, in which fewer than one in five full-time professors are female.
That imbalance, many say, has created a sense of isolation for women who
have struggled to combat the sometimes clubby culture they say they have
encountered.
. . .
The polarization of perceptions about whether the
field of philosophy has a problem, and if so how big, are one reason an
individual case like Mr. McGinn's may not lead to much change, some
philosophers say.
Shay Welch, an assistant professor of philosophy at
Spelman College, says the gap between Mr. McGinn's supporters and those who
have spoken out against him is representative of a broader divide in
philosophy.
Ultimately, Ms. Welch says, that divide—along with
the current climate in philosophy—will not change until the numbers do. More
than 80 percent of full-time faculty members in philosophy are male,
according to 2003 data from the U.S. Education Department, the latest
available. That compares with 60 percent for the professoriate as a whole.
The 16.6 percent of full-time faculty in philosophy who are female
constitutes the lowest proportion of women in any of the humanities.
Others, however, remain optimistic about the
potentially precedent-setting effects of Mr. McGinn's resignation. Jennifer
M. Saul, head of the philosophy department at the University of Sheffield,
in England, says she has already heard from women in the field who, after
learning of Mr. McGinn's case, are considering coming forward to report
incidents of sexual harassment. She hopes that trend will continue. Ms. Saul
started a blog in 2010 called What Is It Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy?,
which has become a place where women in the field have gone to submit
anonymous accounts of sexual harassment.
Mr. McGinn's high-profile status in the discipline,
some believe, is part of what gives his case broader implications. "It goes
to show that even a very powerful philosopher like Colin McGinn is not
exempt from adverse professional effects," says Linda Martín Alcoff, a
professor of philosophy at Hunter College and the City University of New
York Graduate Center. She is president of the American Philosophical
Association's Eastern Division.
Ned Markosian, a professor of philosophy at Western
Washington University, says he would not be surprised if Mr. McGinn's
resignation emboldened administrators across the country to take a harder
line on sexual-harassment allegations, even when those allegations involve
prominent faculty members.
"This has the potential to be a real turning point
for the profession," he says, "and already I think it's a sign that things
are changing for the better."
Mr. McGinn though, is worried that his own future
in philosophy may be changing for the worse. "I don't know if I'll get
another job offer," he says. "I think the answer may be no."
For the self-proclaimed most enlightened person in
the world, that much appears clear.
Jensen Comment
I'm really outside the loop when it comes to knowledge of "scandals" in college
accounting departments these days. But younger people are probably outside the
loop when it comes to "scandals" that arose decades ago where accounting
professors divorced their spouses to marry graduate students, including at least
four widely-known instances that I recall although I was not a faculty member in
those universities. I later worked with some of those professors on AAA
assignments and became friends with them.
There are other instances where unmarried
accounting faculty eventually married graduate students. I don't know that any
of these fell under what most of us considered "scandals" at the time. I also
don't know there there were always pressures brought by the universities to
force terminations, although I think in most instances that I'm aware of the
faculty member voluntarily left the university with a new spouse. There were
probably instances where faculty members remained in the same university,
although I know of only one such case. We have a daughter who, after taking a
graduate class from her microbiology professor, was eventually courted by that
professor. Neither of them had been married previously, and they're still
happily married after nearly 20 years. Her husband remains in the same
university after all those years.
Unlike Colin McGinn's fears mentioned above, I don't think any professor
departing accounting with a new graduate student spouse had troubles finding new
faculty positions in top universities. Times may have changed these days in this
regard. In Professor McGinn's recent ase the problem may have be that the
graduate student did not consent to some of his somewhat unusual advances.
My point is that I think times have changed over
the past few decades regarding what constitutes "sexual harassment." One
constant in all of this is that grades for sexual favors and thesis supervision
under similar circumstances were then and still are unethical violation of the
policies in virtually all colleges. One variable that perhaps changed over time
is greater administrative obsession these days with romance between faculty and
consensual adult students. Non-adult students of course were and still are out
of bounds in all instances.
The Cult of the Dead
"Philosophy's Loss," by John Kaag, Cronicle of Higher Education's
Chronicle Review, August 19. 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Philosophys-Loss/141119/?cid=cr
If you walk through Harvard Yard toward the
library, you will notice a boxy building to your left, which houses the
philosophy department. This is Emerson Hall, named after that bard of
Concord whom no one in philosophy really cares about any more. If you tramp
up to the second floor, you will find the department office and Robbins
Library. Reginald Robbins was a student of the American philosophers William
James and Josiah Royce. For the most part, today's mainstream philosophy
(the type that is done at institutions like Harvard) has left those
characters behind as well.
At the back of Robbins Library is a broom
closet, which doubles as a little-used storage space.
Five years ago, on an evening spent avoiding the
serious archival research that I was supposed to find fascinating, I decided
to explore that closet. There I discovered a piece of research I actually
cared about. At one point, someone had decided to frame it, but in
subsequent years someone else had wedged the frame between the waste bin and
the file cabinet. I pried it out far enough to see the words written on the
bottom of the now-yellowing piece of paper inside the frame:
"Last written words of Josiah Royce ... "
If you don't know who Josiah Royce is, don't feel
too bad. Many serious philosophers don't either. Cornel West is one of the
few who care about him. Twenty years ago, West wrote a very good book called
Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times, and in the chapter, "Pragmatism and
the Tragic," he argues for the enduring importance of Royce's thought. Too
often, American philosophy, and particularly pragmatism, glosses the strife
and pain of everyday life, concentrating instead on the productive optimism
that is supposed to define the American ethos. West suggests that Royce went
against that grain, standing out in his adamant refusal to sugarcoat human
existence.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
This highlights the reason we should dig among campus broom closets and other
obscure storage places where professors may intentionally or unintentionally
leave words of wisdom for future generations.
Technology changes this somewhat. I was scanning through some digital files
on by Website and discovered obscure words of wisdom that I'd stored that were
inputs in a 1992 Trinity Faculty Seminar that I had proposed concerning trends
in education technology at the time. The ideas of my colleagues about education
technology at the time will be forever lost if my Website is taken down when I'm
no longer able to maintain this monster I created.
One of the sad things about the Web is that broken
links do not lead to broom closets where original works in hard copy are stored.
Broken links become a stone wall to history researchers in the digital age.
1992 Free Scholarly
Downloads from Harvard University ---
http://athome.harvard.edu/archive/archive.asp
Recollections of Trinity's
Faculty Summer Seminar of 1992
Multimedia Music Instruction: Robert Winter Versus Thomas Kelly
Thomas Kelly's Harvard
University Lectures ---
http://athome.harvard.edu/dh/Kelly.html
I don't think that you can download these without a broadband connection.
This part of a wonderful
Harvard University site that Bob Blystone pointed out to us ---
http://athome.harvard.edu/
Kelly's lectures take me
back to when Bob Blystone, Glenn Kroeger, Suzanne Williams-Rautiola, and Bob
Jensen organized a 1992 faculty summer seminar. Among our outstanding visitors
was a music professor from UCLA named Robert Winter. Professor Winter's
specialty is putting multimedia music education modules on CD-ROM disks,
including Multimedia Beethoven, Multimedia Stravinsky, Multimedia Bach, and
Multimedia Mozart. Note the following links:
http://scolar.vsc.edu:8005/VSCCAT/ACY-6130
http://snurl.com/AmazonBooks (Search for "Robert Winter")
http://alpha.ddm.uci.edu/zotmail/archive/1997/19971008001.html
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/reserves/old/summer97/cd-rommlo.html
http://alpha.ddm.uci.edu/zotmail/archive/1997/19971008001.html
I have to admit that I
liked Professor Winter's productions better that the above production by
Professor Kelly, but Professor Winter's productions cannot be downloaded free
and are a bit difficult to find these days. Robert Winter puts full orchestra
and chorus presentations on his CDs. His multimedia education designs are
fabulous.
Does anybody know where Robert Winter has a Web homepage today? I
could not find his current home page (which is no longer at UCLA).
There are various "books"
on each of Robert Winter's CDs such as a book on the life and times of the
featured composer. You can then hit selected hot words such as scherzo to pop
up definitions, music clips, etc. There is a book on the art of listening to
the music selection on the CD (with full orchestra and music). There is a book
on how to critically listen to the piece. There is also a "book" in which you
can play the piece completely through and/or interrupt it at any time for
detailed explanations. The detailed explanations are divided into a side for
casual listeners and a side for music experts. And best of all there is a
Jeopardy-like game at the end where teams of students can compete to test their
knowledge of the history and music contained on the CD. I especially like
Multimedia Beethoven because this was not only one of the first but it is
absolutely the best application of Multimedia ToolBook using OpenScript that I
have ever seen. I sunk years of my life into programming with OpenScript and
cried real tears when Asymetrix abandoned OpenScript.
I think all Trinity
University faculty who participated in the two week 1992 Faculty Summer Seminar
will recall Robert Winter's visit as being a highlight.
A videotape of his Trinity University presentation and suggestions for
educational designs is on file in Instructional Media Services in the Trinity
University Library. I also have a copy in my office. There are also
video tapes of the other excellent and one rather lousy presentation of other
featured speakers at our summer seminar.
"Ex-Sports Writer Kills Himself And Leaves Massive Website Explaining Why,"
by Tony Manfred, Business Insider, August 18, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-sports-writer-kills-himself-and-leaves-massive-website-explaining-why-2013-8
Jensen Comment
I maintain two massive Websites, but these only explain why I want to live.
Site 1 (main site) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
Site 2 (for some of the technical education files) ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/
The Very Concise Suicide Note by Kodak Founder George Eastman: “My Work is
Done. Why Wait?” (1932) ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/the-very-concise-suicide-note-by-kodak-founder-george-eastman-my-work-is-done-why-wait-1932.html
Balanced Scorecard ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_scorecard
Mark Cuban (billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks) Discovers the
Balanced Scorecard
"Mark Cuban's Philosophy About The Mavericks Should Be An Inspiration For
Every Great Business Leader And Owner ," by Henry Blodget, Business Insider,
August 16, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cubans-business-philosophy-2013-8
Jensen Comment
Perhaps profits mean less after you're already multibillionaire. I wouldn't know
from firsthand experience. If you're the owner of a losing startup who is stuck
with paying off $160,000 in student loans, profit growth and cash flows take on
greater importance. I don't need an empirical study or first-hand experience to
prove this.
Asbestos and the Law ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_and_the_law
"Exposing Asbestos Fraud: A federal judge helps the trial bar keep
its claims evidence secret," The Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2013
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323608504579023184181111614.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h
The good news about asbestos legal fraud is that
there's a straightforward way to expose it. The bad news is that the
judiciary too often remains the roadblock to transparency.
That's what has been happening in federal
bankruptcy court in North Carolina in the case of Garlock Sealing
Technologies. The gasket manufacturer never had more than peripheral
involvement in the asbestos business, yet it was forced into bankruptcy in
2010 by a flood of frivolous claims.
Plaintiffs attorneys are now pushing federal Judge
George Hodges to force Garlock to put some $1.3 billion into a bankruptcy
trust for future asbestos claims. Garlock estimates its liability is closer
to $125 million, but the trust gambit is a plaintiffs bar favorite to
guarantee a perpetual payday. Garlock also says it has evidence that
plaintiffs are "double-dipping"—filing claims with multiple bankruptcy
trusts that blame non-Garlock products for their diseases, even as they
pursue Garlock in court.
The tort bar is desperate to continue this scam by
keeping trust claims hidden from the public. The plaintiffs attorneys argued
to Judge Hodges that the information Garlock rooted out about their claims
ought to remain "confidential." Judge Hodges agreed, dismissing Garlock's
information as not "particularly sexy" or of "interest" to the public. He
has repeatedly closed his courtroom when Garlock presented evidence and
expert testimony.
The judge's airy dismissal of a public interest is
astonishing. A handful of other judges have in recent years exposed
egregious cases of double-dipping, inspiring states like Ohio and Oklahoma
to pass laws to force trust disclosure. The House Judiciary Committee in May
passed the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act, which would
require the nation's 60 asbestos trust funds—yes, there are 60—to file
quarterly reports that detail claimant names and the basis for their
payouts.
Garlock's evidence could be especially revealing
given that lawyers from the firms suing it are on public record denying any
double-dipping even as they have led the campaign against transparency.
Elihu Inselbuch of Caplin & Drysdale testified in Congress in March against
the FACT Act: "The bill also ignores the fact that despite trying to find
instances of widespread fraud and abuse, there is none. Defendants have no
evidence to support their assertion of fraud by plaintiffs." If Mr.
Inselbuch is so confident there's no fraud, why does he object to
transparency?
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"UK Banks To Pay Out 1.3 Billion In Massive Credit Card Compensation
(for fraudulent ID theft insurance policies)," by Rupert Jones, Business
Insider, August 22, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/uk-banks-to-pay-out-13-billion-in-massive-credit-card-compensation-2013-8
Jensen Comment
The pay outs are coming from the usual U.K. organized crime banks --- Barclays,
HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland. These are the same banks paying out billions
because of LIBOR fraud conspiracies.
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"5 Top Business Schools Just As Great As Harvard and Wharton," by Akil
Holmes, Policymic, August 14, 2013 ---
http://www.policymic.com/articles/59441/5-top-business-schools-just-as-great-as-harvard-and-wharton
Jensen Comment
I do not agree with the author on what constitutes being "just as great." The
five business schools mentioned in the above article are very good business
schools and serve their constituencies admirably with outstanding faculty. But
we must be honest about what Harvard, Wharton, Yale, Dartmouth, Chicago, and
Stanford business schools have that sets them apart. Firstly is the historic
prestige of the entire university that opens doors apart from the business
schools themselves. Secondly is the close networking between influential
business school alumni and current graduates where alumni open doors to their
own kind. Thirdly, there's a difference in both average and often top GMAT
scores that arises from the academic quality of applicants to the U.S. News
Top 10 business schools. Fourthly, and somewhat related to alumni power is
the fact that corporations and elite consulting firms expect the very best
students to be graduating from the Top 10 MBA programs in the U.S. News
Top 10. Even if some other business school has a higher placement rate in a
given year, the compensation opportunities and professional growth opportunities
are going to be higher for the top placements of the U.S. News Top 10.
What can be misleading in the U.S. News Top 10 are the criteria used
by business school deans in choosing the U.S. News Top 10. These deans
are heavily influenced by reputations of faculty in terms of research. Top
researchers are often top teachers, but this is not always the case. For
example, some polls rank Indiana's and Maryland's business schools as
having the top business school teachers but not the very top researchers on
average.
"B-Schools With Five-Star Teachers,"
by Louis Lavelle, Bloomberg Business Week, November 12, 2012 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-12/b-schools-with-five-star-teachers#r=hpt-ls
One problem sometimes overlooked is that top business schools like the
Harvard Business School have enormous class sizes relative to small and
prestigious business schools such as the smaller business school at Rice
University. Students might learn more in smaller classes than students in
enormous classes taught by more well-known researchers.
And we expect certain qualities in some graduates that on average may not be
as great in the U.S. News Top 10. For example, we expect the highest ethical
standards to exist on average in BYU's business school. Although this school
probably focuses more on teaching ethics than most other business schools, the
high ethical standards of its graduates going out after their last term at BYU
are primarily due to the higher ethical standards of its students coming into
the school for their first term.
Lastly, almost no graduates of the U.S. News Top 10 MBA programs are
going to become auditors and tax accountants for CPA firms, business firms, and
the U.S. Government. Some of U.S. News Top 10 MBA graduates may be headed
for higher-paying positions in the consulting divisions of large international
accounting firms, but their careers are probably in IT, finance, and executive
management rather than accounting., auditing, and tax.
Most MBA graduates have very little technical knowledge of accounting,
auditing, and tax unless they were undergraduate accounting majors. The "5 Top
Business Schools Just As Great As Harvard and Wharton" listed by Akil Holmes are
going to place many more accounting, auditing, and tax specialists than the
U.S. News Top 10 MBA programs. In this context of technical accounting
programs, those five schools have accounting degrees beat out Harvard and
Wharton and Stanford, and the other U.S. News Top 10 "business" schools.
"Volvo Reveals The Powerful And Efficient Engines It's Going To Put In All
Its Cars," by Viknesh Vijayenthiran, Business Insider, August 16,
2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/volvo-reveals-a-powerful-new-engine-2013-8
Unique turbodiesel and gasoline engine choices
Book Cooking at the Highest Levels of USA
Government
Why all this controversy over new lease accounting standard revisions to show
more debt on the books.
The best way to not show more debt is to simply stop booking more debt when you
borrow more money to pay your bills.
"Jack Lew’s “Extraordinary Measures” on Debt Just 'Cooking the Books”',"
by Morgan Brittany, Townhall, August 19, 2013 ---
. . .
When you delve deeper into what the Treasury
Department did, you see that there is a magic number of $16,699,421,000,000
to reach the debt limit set in a law passed by Congress and signed by the
King himself. Isn’t it odd that the number reached when the
clock stopped ticking was about $25 million below the limit?
If the clock had continued to click, by the end of
July it would have gone over the legal debt limit and would have been in
violation of the law. However, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement
for July, even though money was spent, their reports didn’t show a change in
the debt by even one penny. Isn’t that the definition of “cooking the
books”?
When it became apparent that the debt was going to
exceed the limit, Jack Lew sent a “cover my behind” letter to Speaker John
Boehner explaining that he was going to take “extraordinary measures” to
prevent the Treasury from exceeding the legal limit on the Federal debt.
This massaging of the numbers has been going on for months now.
Jensen Comment
The GAO declared the Pentagon and the IRS are impossible to audit. Why should it
come as a surprise that the Treasury Department of the U.S. Government is
incapable of being audited? Why all this debate about whether QE is tantamount
to printing money. Our Treasury Secretary has a better idea. Borrow all you want
and just don't book it into the accounts. Why didn't I think of that?\
"The Pentagon Is Wasting Billions Of Dollars Because It Can't Audit Its
Own Contracts," by David Francis (The Fiscal Times), Business Insider,
May 22, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/pentagon-wastes-billions-it-cant-audit-2013-5
The Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers can no longer be believed. Honesty in
reporting is no longer a policy of our Government leaders ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/peterschiff/2013/08/11/the-half-full-economy-n1661450?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
Welcome to Zimbabwe of North America.
Bob Jensen's threads on the sad state of governmental accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory02.htm#GovernmentalAccounting
One of the Highest Tax State in the USA Creates Tax-Free Zones Around Its State
Universities
"The New York Tax Advantage," by Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed,
August 14, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/14/new-yorks-tax-free-plan-puts-suny-center-economic-development
"Why Innovation Is Still Capitalism’s Star," by Yale Economist Robert J.
Shiller, The New York Times, August 17, 2013 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/business/why-innovation-is-still-capitalisms-star.html?_r=0
CAPITALISM is culture. To sustain it, laws and
institutions are important, but the more fundamental role is played by the
basic human spirit of independence and initiative.
The decisive role of the
“spirit of capitalism” is an old concept, going back at least to Max Weber,
but it needs refreshing today with new evidence and new thinking.
Edmund S. Phelps, a professor of economics at
Columbia University and a
Nobel laureate, has
written an interesting new book on the subject. It’s called “Mass
Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created
Jobs, Challenge and Change” (Princeton University Press), and it contains a
complex new analysis of the importance of an entrepreneurial culture.
Professor Phelps discerns a
troubling trend in many countries, however, even the United States. He is
worried about corporatism, a political philosophy in which economic activity
is controlled by large interest groups or the government. Once corporatism
takes hold in a society, he says, people don’t adequately appreciate the
contributions and the travails of individuals who create and innovate. An
economy with a corporatist culture can copy and even outgrow others for a
while, he says, but, in the end, it will always be left behind. Only an
entrepreneurial culture can lead.
Is the United States really
becoming corporatist? I don’t entirely agree with such a notion. Even so,
President Obama has
been talking a lot about innovation as a job creator this year, and while
some of his intentions may be good, I’m afraid that some of his proposals
look a little corporatist, and might suppress individual initiative.
In his
State of the Union address in January, for
example, the president proposed that the government should create
15 new “innovation institutes,” modeled on a
public-private partnership that he helped start in
Youngstown, Ohio, that is devoted to developing 3-D printers. There was more
in this vein in his administration’s 2014 budget, offered in April. And in a
speech on July 30 in Chattanooga, Tenn., Mr. Obama
suggested extending the number of innovation institutes to 45, or almost one
for every state. The institutes, he said, would be “getting businesses,
universities, communities all to work together to develop centers of
high-tech industries all throughout the United States.”
Will such measures work?
Should the government really be trying to start a 3-D printer center? And
why in Youngstown? It is easy to be skeptical of such a plan, especially
when it was started in a swing state just before the presidential election.
Web sites of the two senators and two representatives introducing
bills this month supporting the president’s latest
proposals are suggesting, in not-too-subtle terms, that the legislation
would bring jobs to their own states.
Successful companies aren’t
usually started this way. Professor Phelps, citing a McKinsey study,
suggests that in free-market capitalism, “from 10,000 business ideas, 1,000
firms are founded, 100 receive venture capital, 20 go on to raise capital in
an initial public offering, and two become market leaders.” It is easy to
doubt, as
Professor Phelps does, that the odds are favorable
for a Youngstown 3-D printer center.
How you view the innovation
institutes, and the topic of capitalism and culture, may depend on your own
experience. Many people have never seen the hatching of a successful
business idea. That makes it hard to judge the subtle changes that may be
occurring in the nation’s culture and in its potential for innovation.
My own business experience
has certainly helped shape my thinking. Yale, like many other universities,
sensibly allows its professors to spend limited time in business, providing
the opportunity for faculty members to gain valuable experience outside of
the ivory tower and to offer their technical skill to the business world.
In 1991, I started a
business with
Karl Case, an economics professor at Wellesley
College, and Allan Weiss, a former student of mine at Yale. We called it
Case Shiller Weiss, Inc., and it was devoted to an innovation we dreamed up.
The idea was a new “repeat sale” home price index — which would track the
changes in the value of the same houses over time.
At the time, this was an
entirely new line of business. And, at first, that posed a problem: we were
spectacularly unsuccessful in raising money. We talked to venture
capitalists and their committees, to no avail. They just didn’t seem to get
our business plan. We must have appeared odd to them — overly academic,
perhaps. One remarked that we’d do better proposing a new shopping center.
But we went ahead with our
idea anyway. At first, Allan worked without pay. A friend of Professor Case,
Chuck Longfield, contributed some money. And in 1995, I took out a home
equity line of credit on my house in New Haven so I could personally lend
more money to help keep our business afloat. The experience was stressful,
especially when adding it to the burdens of my main job, as a professor. I
have much to thank my wife, Virginia, for her tolerance of my overwork and
my worrying, and for allowing me to put our family savings at risk.
In the end, our business was
successful, and I think a big part of it was that we relied on our own ideas
and energy and, to a large extent, our own money. In 2002, we sold the
business to Fiserv Inc., then licensed Standard & Poor’s to create what are
now known as the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. In 2006, the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange began trading futures on 11 of our indexes. Fiserv sold
the index business to CoreLogic early this year.
In short, our business made
its mark without any help from the government.
This little real-life
experiment convinces me that committees of experts, even at smart venture
capital firms, will often not recognize real innovation. I think that
America’s business success through the decades has occurred because we have
so many people with specialized knowledge who are willing to put their
money, time and resources on the line for ideas that can’t be proved to a
committee.
THAT experience may also
help explain why I think the new
crowdfunding initiative, started by the Jobs Act
that the president signed last year, is an exciting step forward. It’s all
about finding and mobilizing people who really understand specific,
hard-to-prove ideas for important investments.
At the same time, other of
my experiences incline me to think that government-appointed committees of
experts can help set the stage for an entrepreneurial culture,
under certain limited circumstances.
Long before I started any
commercial ventures of my own, I received some federal government support —
in the form of National Science Foundation research grants, awarded to me
decades ago as a young professor. They allowed me to do research, and though
it was not directly related to my later business endeavors, the process
developed my expertise and reinforced a sense of entrepreneurial
opportunity.
Continued in article
The Nordic countries are reinventing their model of
capitalism (Economics, Capitalism, Socialism, Krugman, Entitlements,
Immigration)
MIT, like Harvard, places enormous value on having both feet planted in
the real world
The professions of architecture, engineering, law, and medicine are heavily
dependent upon the researchers in universities who focus on needs for research
on the problems of practitioners working in the real world.
If accountics scientists want to change their ways and focus more on problems
of the accounting practitioners working in the real world, one small step that
can be taken is to study the presentations scheduled for a forthcoming MIT Sloan
School Conference.
Financial Education Daily, May 2012 ---
http://paper.li/businessschools?utm_source=subscription&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=paper_sub
Learning best practice from the best practitioners
MIT Sloan invites more than 400 of the world’s
finest leaders to campus every year. The most anticipated of these visits
are the talks given as part of the Dean’s Innovative Leader Series, which
features the most dynamic movers and shakers of our day.
At a school that places enormous value on having
both feet planted in the real world, the Dean’s Innovative Leader Series is
a powerful learning tool. Students have the
rare privilege of engaging in frank and meaningful discussions with the
leaders who are shaping the present and future marketplace.
Bob Jensen's comparisons of the American versus Denmark dreams ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/SunsetHillHouse/SunsetHillHouse.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on other steps that should be taken by accountics
scientists to become more focused on the needs of the profession ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
"Chasing Coincidences Statistics: Why it’s hard to recognize the unlikely,"
by Amir D. Aczel, Nautilus, September 2013 (Issue 4) ---
http://nautil.us/issue/4/the-unlikely/chasing-coincidences
Whenever I fly, I like to talk to the person
sitting next to me. Once in a while, I find that we know at least one person
in common. If you are like me, perhaps coincidences such as this happen in
your life as well.
The most unusual coincidence in my life took place
when I flew from Boston, my home, to Chicago to meet Scott Isenberg, the new
editor assigned to revise a statistics textbook I had authored a few years
earlier. We were having dinner at a restaurant overlooking Lake Michigan,
and Scott began to talk nostalgically about the orange groves that graced
his neighborhood in a small town in California, where he grew up. I recalled
that my wife, Debra, who is also from California, used to talk about orange
groves as well. We both smiled and continued our conversation—after all, the
state has 38 million people. But every remark he made about his childhood
abode reminded me of something that my wife had told me. As we continued to
notice more of these coincidences, I told him Debra’s name and he literally
jumped out of his chair. It turned out that they had been friends in high
school. You might think, what is the probability of such a rare event? It
may be one in many millions.
The simple question might be “why do such unlikely
coincidences occur in our lives?” But the real question is how to define the
unlikely. You know that a situation is uncommon just from experience. But
even the concept of “uncommon” assumes that like events in the category are
common. How do we identify the other events to which we can compare this
coincidence? If you can identify other events as likely, then you can
calculate the mathematical probability of this particular event as
exceptional.
The simple question might be “why do such unlikely
coincidences occur in our lives?” But the real question is how to define the
unlikely.
Probabilities are defined as relative measures in
something called the “sample space,” which is the set of all possible
outcomes of an experiment—such as drawing a card out of a well-shuffled
deck, rolling a fair die, or spinning a roulette wheel. We generally assume
that every elementary outcome of the experiment (any given card or any of
the possible numbers, in the case of dice or roulette) has an equal
likelihood, although the theory can handle sample spaces with varying
likelihoods as well. If we can define a sample space in a real-world
situation that may not involve a game of chance, then we can measure
probabilities through this sample space.
In its essence, the idea of coincidences could be
explained (somewhat simplistically) using a deck of cards. Drawing the ace
of spades out of a well-shuffled deck of 52 cards is a relatively rare
event: Its probability is only 1 in 52. We compute it using the mathematical
rule that divides the size of the event, one card (if we’re talking about
drawing any ace, this would be a size of four), by the size of the sample
space for drawing a card out of a deck, which is 52, the total number of
cards.
But if every day of your life you draw a card out
of a deck, you can be sure to see the ace of spades sometimes. In fact, you
expect this to happen roughly once in 52 draws. It is the fact that cards
can be drawn repeatedly out of a deck (with reshuffling after every draw)
that makes rare events show up.
This is essentially what happens in our lives. We
are exposed to possible events all the time: some of them probable, but many
of them highly improbable. Each rare event—by itself—is unlikely. But by the
mere act of living, we constantly draw cards out of decks. Because something
must happen when a card is drawn, so to speak, the highly improbable does
appear from time to time.
If every day of your life you draw a card out of a
deck, you can be sure to see the ace of spades sometimes.
It is the repetitiveness of the experiment that
makes the improbable take place. The catch is that you can’t tell beforehand
which of a very large set of improbable events will transpire. The fact that
one out of many possible rare outcomes does happen should not surprise us
because of the number of possibilities for extraordinary events to occur.
The probabilities of these singly unlikely happenings compound
statistically, so that the chance of at least one of many highly improbable
events occurring becomes quite high.
So if Scott and Debra had not been friends in high
school, I could have found out at some point in my life that my
father—rather than my wife—was the friend of the father of the person
sitting next to me on a transatlantic flight. Or that my sister took piano
lessons from the mother of my new neighbor who’d just moved here from
another state. All of these are rare events, but we are exposed to so many
possibilities for them to occur that, even though they are rare, some of
them have to happen.
Such an event has a tiny probability of occurring
only if we specify beforehand that this is what will happen. If I went to
Chicago expecting Scott to know my wife, its occurrence would be an event of
fantastically small probability. Within the possible occurrence of millions
of other coincidences in my life, it shouldn’t shock me that I did once
observe a very unlikely coincidence.
Coincidences and their analysis have led to
important academic research in all areas where probability plays a role.
Persi Diaconis, professor of statistics at Stanford University, describes
extremely unlikely coincidences as embodying the “blade of grass paradox.”
If you were to stand in a meadow and reach down to touch a blade of grass,
there are millions of grass blades that you might touch. But you will, in
fact, touch one of them. The a priori fact that the blade you touch will be
any particular one has an extremely tiny probability, but such an occurrence
must take place if you are going to touch a blade of grass.
Mathematically, the sample space (in this case, a
field of grass) is made up of many elementary outcomes, which are the
particulars of a sample space—a single card, in the card-drawing example, or
a blade of grass in Diaconis’ paradox. Elementary outcomes can then be
classed into larger events. Drawing an ace is the event made up of the four
aces, so the event has four possibilities out of the sample space of 52.
While the relative size of each event determines its probability,
philosophically we may look at an experiment as being made up of many
elementary outcomes, all of them equally likely.
If you were to stand in a meadow and reach down to
touch a blade of grass, there are millions of grass blades that you might
touch. But you will, in fact, touch one of them.
This means that we assume that any card has just as
good a chance of being picked as any other, and so does every blade of grass
in a meadow. Thus the knowledge that one elementary outcome must happen,
should make us realize that the unlikely and the likely both can take place.
It’s a matter of frequency. Events that contain many elementary outcomes are
more likely than those with few of them: Drawing any ace is four times as
likely as drawing the ace of clubs.
Continued in article
Jensen Question
Is their a difference between Telib's black swan event and a rare coincidence?
Black Swan Theory ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
Jensen Comment
There's probably not a substantive difference except that Black Swan Theory
usually assumes that the rare even was predictable even if it was not predicted.
I suspect that some coincidences are totally unpredictable, although Einstein
would probably contend that all events are predictable and events surprise us
only due to our ignorance of the underlying processes. Real scientists are never
content until they discover causes. Psuedo scientists pat themselves on the back
for finding statistically significant correlations and don't bother with
granulation to discover causes ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm#Pseudo-Science
Black Swan Theory suggests that we tend to underestimate fatness of tails in
probability distributions. However, this doesn't help a great deal if the
probability distributions themselves are totally unknown due to unknown priors.
In biology, one of the hardest things to predict is the exact points in time
genetic mutations happen. Then can be anticipated, but pinpointing an exact
point in time is really troublesome even when rounding off to the closest
Century.
DNA evidence is somewhat bothersome in the context of Aczel's article above.
Scientists might say that the chances that a specimen collected at the crime
scene was not Bad Guy's semen is one in 98.37641383 billion. But Guardhouse
Lawyer will remind us that the probability that this is not Bad Guy's semen is
not zero. The legal system would be paralyzed if it required zero probabilities
for convictions.
"Trump University Made False Claims, Lawsuit Says." by Alan Feuer,
The New York Times, August 24, 2013 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/nyregion/trump-university-made-false-claims-lawsuit-says.html?_r=1&
The
New York State attorney general’s office filed a
civil lawsuit on Saturday accusing Trump University,
Donald J. Trump’s
for-profit investment school, of engaging in illegal business practices.
The lawsuit, which seeks restitution of at least $40
million, accused Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization and others involved with
the school of running it as an unlicensed educational institution from 2005
to 2011 and making false claims about its classes in what was described as
“an elaborate bait-and-switch.”
In a statement,
Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general, said
Mr. Trump appeared in advertisements for the school making “false promises”
to persuade more than 5,000 people around the country — including 600 New
Yorkers — “to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn’t afford for
lessons they never got.”
The advertisements claimed, for instance, that Mr.
Trump had handpicked instructors to teach students “a systematic method for
investing in real estate.” But according to the lawsuit, Mr. Trump had not
chosen even a single instructor at the school and had not created the
curriculums for any of its courses.
“No one, no matter how rich or famous they are, has a
right to scam hardworking New Yorkers,” Mr. Schneiderman said in the
statement. “Anyone who does should expect to be held accountable.”
The inquiry into Trump University came to light
in May 2011 after dozens of people had complained
to the authorities in New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois about the
institution, which attracted prospective students with the promise of a free
90-minute seminar about real estate investing that, according to the
lawsuit, “served as a sales pitch for a three-day seminar costing $1,495.”
This three-day seminar was itself “an upsell,” the lawsuit said, for
increasingly costly “Trump Elite” packages that included so-called personal
mentorship programs at $35,000 a course.
On Saturday evening, Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Mr.
Trump, denied the accusations in the lawsuit and said the school had
received 11,000 evaluations, 98 percent of which rated students as
“extremely satisfied.”
George Sorial, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, called
the lawsuit politically motivated. He said that Mr. Schneiderman had asked
Mr. Trump and his family for campaign contributions and grew angry when
denied.
Continued in articoe
Five years after Donald
Trump
opened an online university --
called Trump University,
of course -- New York State's Education
Department is taking a dim view of the tycoon's
venture into higher education,
The Daily News
reported today. The university, which promises
to teach would-be plutocrats how to make
themselves rich if they will only make Mr. Trump
a bit richer first, is not a university at all,
say state officials. In a letter obtained by the
News, one official demanded that Mr.
Trump drop "University" from the unaccredited,
non-degree-granting institution's name. "Use of
the word 'university' by your corporation is
misleading and violates New York Education Law
and the Rules of the Board of Regents," the
letter says. Michael Sexton, president of Trump
U., told the News that, if necessary,
"we will change our name to Trump Education."
Interestingly, the word
“accounting” does not appear in the course catalog --- not even the traditional
first course in accounting ---
http://www.trumpuniversity.com/learn/index.cfm
The “courses” appear to be
mostly sales pitch seminars like con men/women put on in hotel conference rooms.
Bob Jensen's threads on more legitimate
distance education training and education alternatives are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on for-profit "schools" operating in the gray zone of
fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
"Black Hole Analogue Discovered in South Atlantic Ocean," MIT's Technology Review, August 19, 2013 ---
Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/518416/black-hole-analogue-discovered-in-south-atlantic-ocean/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20130819
Jensen Comment
Doesn't matter sucked up in a black hole disappear forever? Most garbage like
empty beer cans that get sucked down in an ocean vortex just gets moved around.
I think we should offer some free South Atlantic cruises to some of our
politicians.
"How Einstein Thought: Fostering Combinatorial Creativity and Unconscious
Connections," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, August 14, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/14/how-einstein-thought-combinatorial-creativity/
"Psychology’s
Treacherous Trio: Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, and Motivated
Reasoning," by sammcnerney, Why We Reason, September 7, 2011 ---
Click Here
http://whywereason.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/psychologys-treacherous-trio-confirmation-bias-cognitive-dissonance-and-motivated-reasoning/
"The Art of Looking: What 11 Experts Teach Us about Seeing Our Familiar
City Block with New Eyes," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, August
12, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/12/on-looking-eleven-walks-with-expert-eyes/
"IRS Agent Faked Pastor's Letter To Claim Charity Deduction,"
Forbes, August 16, 2013 ---
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2013/08/16/tax-court-irs-agent-faked-pastors-letter-to-claim-charity-deduction/
. . .
It’s unclear what discipline Payne might face. In
its 1997 reform of the IRS, Congress specified “willful” understatement of
tax liability as one of 10 offenses for which IRS employees must be
fired. (Eight of the nine relate to abuse of taxpayer rights or official
position, while the 10th is willful failure to file a return.)
Jensen Comment
She even pleaded ignorance of the law which, if true, is worse than deliberate
cheating.
It's almost certain she won't get the same deal as Lois Lerner who continues
to draw her $16,000 per month full salary from the IRS for keeping her mouth
shut about taxpayer abuses of the IRS and no longer comes to work at her IRS
office ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_Scandal
"The Many Internet-Video Options for TVs Guide to Watching Online Video on
a Big Screen," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, August
14, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323585604579010722909527660.html
Watching TV shows, movies and other video via the
Internet on your big-screen television has become all the rage. But the
proliferation of devices and methods for doing so has made the whole thing
mighty confusing.
Should you buy a "smart TV" to watch, say,
Netflix
NFLX +2.15%
? Or should you make an older TV "smart" by attaching
a box that includes Netflix? Or should you buy an adapter and just beam
Netflix wirelessly from your smartphone or tablet? And then, should you
stream a movie or download it? Do you have to pay to get TV shows and movies
from the Internet, or can you get them for free?
There's no one right answer for everyone, or every
situation. To help sort out the choices, here's a primer for watching
Internet video on a TV, legally. This isn't a review of any one product and
it's aimed at average, non-techie consumers. Techies reading this won't find
some of the more obscure products and methods. I've also chosen to omit the
oldest, but most complex, method—hooking up a PC to a TV using cables.
That's so 2008.
Streaming vs. Beaming vs. Downloading
First, let's sort out some confusing terms.
Downloading, the method used by
Apple's
AAPL +0.89%
iTunes, usually means you are buying or renting a show
or movie individually and typically storing it on your device. Streaming,
used by services like YouTube or Netflix, generally means you aren't buying
a program or film, but are watching it as it flows from the company's
servers. Beaming simply means you're streaming the video from a smartphone,
tablet or PC to the TV, usually via an adapter device plugged into the TV.
But when watching Internet video on a TV, it isn't
that simple. If you're using iTunes on an Apple TV, you're downloading the
movie or show to your Apple cloud-based storage, not to the device itself.
And after a short amount of downloading, the device allows you to start
watching, which is essentially the same as streaming.
Another example: Beaming a show to your TV from
Netflix on an iPad via an Apple TV means you are wirelessly sending it from
the iPad to the Apple TV, which projects it on the television screen. But
beaming the same show from the same iPad via the
Google
GOOG -0.32%
Chromecast actually triggers a streaming session
directly from the cloud to the Chromecast, which projects it on the big
screen.
To you, the viewer, the experience on the TV screen
is pretty much the same. So don't be put off by the terminology.
What's Free and What's Not
Some services, like YouTube, are free. YouTube is
on most of the popular smart TVs and add-on boxes, with the notable
exception of the Roku line. Others, like Netflix and Hulu Plus (not to be
confused with the free Hulu website) charge a monthly fee for watching as
much as you like. These two leaders charge $8 a month. Netflix is
commercial-free. Hulu Plus has ads.
Some services, like HBO Go or WatchESPN are
technically free, but can only be viewed if you are a paying customer of a
participating cable service, which is much costlier than something like
Netflix.
Apple's iTunes, as noted, charges for shows and
movies individually.
Amazon's
AMZN -0.58%
Instant Video offers many free streaming shows and movies to members of its
$79-a-year Prime service but also sells shows and movies individually.
Smart TVs
Leading television makers, such as
Samsung,
005930.SE -0.38%
Sony
6758.TO -0.25%
and
LG,
066570.SE -1.85%
offer high-end models that include apps like Netflix
and other Internet-video sources built in.
Pros: You don't need an add-on
device and you don't need to change inputs on your TV to watch Internet
video. LG offers Google TV, which includes lots of Android apps.
Cons: They cost more than add-on
boxes, often have confusing interfaces and tend to be updated less often.
Game Consoles
Many people don't know that
Microsoft's
MSFT +0.03%
Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation also have many
entertainment offerings for users who belong to their online gaming
networks.
Pros: Lots of homes already have
them for gaming.
Cons: They are larger than add-on
boxes and with Xbox, you have to pay $60 a year for the gaming network in
addition to fees the Internet-entertainment services charge.
TiVo
Best known for pioneering digital recording of
standard TV shows,
TiVo
TIVO -1.01%
is mainly a cable box that's a premium alternative to
the boxes provided by cable providers. But many users don't know it also
offers Internet TV services like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and Hulu Plus.
Pros: It has a slick interface and
combines a cable box and Internet TV, so you don't have to change TV inputs.
Cons: It costs more than an add-on
box, charges a $15 monthly fee, has only a handful of Internet video
services and can require tricky setup.
Apple TV
This $99 hockey-puck-sized gadget is the most
popular pure Internet video add-on box.
Apple
Apple TV: It's
the only option with iTunes and the company's cloud services.
Pros: It is the only contender
with iTunes, integrates with Apple's photo and music cloud services,
features all three methods of getting Internet video on your TV—downloading,
streaming and beaming from Apple devices.
Cons: It has a limited selection
of Internet services, beams to TVs only from Apple devices and lacks Amazon.
Roku
Similar in size to Apple TV, it offers many more
Internet sources.
Roku
Roku: It comes in
four models and has 750 Internet services.
Pros: It has 750 Internet
services, comes in four models starting at $50, and the top model, at $100,
has a headphone jack in the remote.
Cons: It lacks YouTube, and can't
yet beam video from a mobile device.
Chromecast
This new Google offering is a tiny fob, the size of
a USB flash drive, that plugs into the back of a TV.
Pros: The fob is small and costs
only $35. It works with Android, Apple devices and Windows PCs.
Cons: It only gets beamed content
from other devices and has no built-in services. It only works with four
services on Android, two on iPhones and iPads, and the Chrome browser on
PCs. There's no remote so you must have a mobile device to use it.
WD TV Play
A bit larger than Apple TV and Roku, this $70
device from
Western Digital
WDC -2.15%
is much less well known, but similar.
Continued in article
"If You Want To Spend $600 On A Cable Box, Apparently This Is The One To
Spend It On," by Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider, August 20, 2013
---
http://www.businessinsider.com/if-you-want-to-spend-600-on-a-cable-box-apparently-this-is-the-one-to-spend-it-on-2013-8
The
Verge's Nilay Patel reviewed the Roamio, and he
loves it. He calls it "the ultimate cable box."
Here's
the "good stuff" he likes about it…
-
"Integrates cable TV and internet services like
nothing else"
-
"Fast, simple interface"
-
"TV
streaming to iOS devices"
-
"Support for casting YouTube and Netflix from
phones and tablets"
He concludes: "Installing
it can be a huge pain, and it’s outrageously
expensive — on top of the box,
TiVo
service costs either $14.99 / month or a ridiculous
$499 flat fee per unit — but if you’re spending
loads of money on cable service with premium
channels, it’s worth it. You will record more shows
and movies and watch them in more places with a
TiVo than
with your cable company’s DVR, hands-down."
"Movies Of The Past That Correctly Predicted The Technology We Have Today,"
by Daniel Goodman, Business Insider, August 19, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/movies-tech-prediction-real-2013-8
From the Scout Report on August 16, 2013
Slides ---
http://slid.es/
If you're looking for a new way to present your
work, you might do well to look at Slides. The application stores users'
presentations in the cloud and it's quite intuitive in terms of adding
audio, video, images, and text. The site contains a helpful tutorial and
this particular version is compatible with all operating systems.
Air Call-Accept ---
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.necta.aircall_accept.free
We've all had our hands in the dishwater when an
important call comes in. The Air Call-Accept application gives users the
ability to just wave their hand across the proximity sensor, and voila: the
call is accepted. It's quite useful for people who are driving around quite
a bit, though others will certainly find it efficacious. This version is
compatible with devices running Android 1.6 and newer
Up in the air, business class options continue to improve, but at what
cost to the coach traveler?
The Future of Business Class
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12005198/1/luxury-brands-are-the-latest-way-to-coddle-first-class-fliers.html
The race to build better business-class seats on airplanes
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021570578_airlineseatsxml.html
As Airlines Focus on Business Class, Will Coach Decline?
http://www.petergreenberg.com/2013/08/12/as-airlines-focus-on-business-class-will-coach-decline/
A Hard Landing for the Middle Class
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-a-hard-landing-for-the-middle-class/2013/08/06/e8948e4c-fec4-11e2-bd97-676ec24f1f3f_story.html?tid=pm_pop
Long-haul Business Class Comparison Chart
http://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_business_class.php
Transportation Library Menu Collection
http://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/catalog/inu-ead-trans-001
From the Scout Report on August 23, 2013
Fidus Writer ---
http://fiduswriter.org/
The Fidus Writer is an application that academics
will be most excited to learn about. This version functions as an online
collaborative editor made specifically for academics who need to use
citations and formulas. The program is focused on the content rather than
the layout, which means users can publish it later in a variety of formats.
The site also contains an FAQ and information about updates. This version is
compatible with all operating systems running Google Chrome.
Jensen Note
The Wolfram Alfa site is fantastic for computing answers from formulas,
generating graphs, and formatting formulas for documents ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
For illustrations see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theorylearningcurves.htm
DebateGraph ---
http://debategraph.org/Stream.aspx?nid=61932&vt=bubble&dc=focus
DebateGraph states, "to change the world you need
to look at it in a different way." Many would agree; this platform gives
multiple partners the ability to visualize and share different ideas. It's a
neat concept and it's one that has been used by the United Kingdom's Foreign
Office and CNN. A helpful "how-to" area can get users started and the
application allows visitors to link ideas visually via a very easy-to-use
interface. This version of debate graph is compatible with all operating
systems
Deep fried Mars bars? Oh no, state fairs must try harder than that.
State Fair Vendors Innovate to Survive
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323455104579013233026497554.html
The Hunger Games: State Fair Food Gets More Outrageous
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/hunger-games-state-fair-food-gets-more-outrageous/68536/
The Minnesota State Fair: Origins and Traditions
http://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2013/08/minnesota-state-fair-origins-and-traditions
Iowa Digital Library: Iowa State Fair
http://pinterest.com/iowadiglib/idl-iowa-state-fair/
A Brief History of State Fairs
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1916488,00.html
State Fair Recipes
http://statefairrecipes.com/
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
University of Virginia Teaching Resource Center ---
http://trc.virginia.edu
Bob Jensen's Tools and Tricks ofthe Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Private Universe Project in Science ---
http://www.learner.org/resources/series29.html
The Calculator Pad (for solving physics word problems) ---
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/calcpad/
Online Helpers for Physics Educators and Students
The Physics Front ---
http://www.compadre.org/precollege/
City of Chicago: Public Art Collection ---
http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/public_art_collection.html
The Art Institute of Chicago: Education: Online Resources [Quick Time]
---
http://www.artic.edu/aic/visitor_info/podcasts/video/education_videos/
Bob Jensen's bookmarks for multiple disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Private Universe Project in Science ---
http://www.learner.org/resources/series29.html
An Animated History of Physics Introduces the Discoveries of Galileo, Newton,
Maxwell & Einstein ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/an-animated-history-of-physics-introduces-the-discoveries-of-galileo-newton-maxwell-einstein.html
Online Helpers for Physics Educators and Students
The Physics Front ---
http://www.compadre.org/precollege/
Physics Teacher Education Coalition ---
http://www.ptec.org/
The Calculator Pad (for solving physics word problems) ---
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/calcpad/
Explore: Exploratorium ---
http://www.exploratorium.edu/explore
ChemCollective ---
http://www.chemcollective.org/
American Biology Teacher ---
http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/index.php?p=26
Geology of Britain Viewer ---
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/viewer.html
ical-sciences-image-library
Open Learning Initiative: Anatomy & Physiology
http://oli.cmu.edu/courses/free-open/anatomy-physiology/
Anatomical Sciences Image Library ---
http://www.anatomy.org/content/anatom
American Society for Engineering Education: PRISM ---
http://www.prism-magazine.org
Natural History of the Berkshires ---
http://cdm.williams.edu/nhb/
Geologic Heritage in the National Parks ---
http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/geoheritage/index.cfm
Geology of National Parks ---
http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/
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
Accounting for Non-Accountants
"How can finance professionals help their non-financial colleagues understand
corporate financial statements that land on their desks?" by Manuel Sicre,
Business Finance, August 12, 2013 ---
http://businessfinancemag.com/tax-amp-accounting/accounting-non-accountants
Bob Jensen's threads on financial literacy ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#FinancialLiteracy
Watch Family Planning, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Production, Starring Donald
Duck ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/family-planning-walt-disneys-1967-sex-ed-production.html
Everyday Sociology Blog ---
http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/
National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Education Programs ---
http://www.nrel.gov/education/
The National Security Archive: The Limited Test Ban Treaty ---
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb433/
The Test Ban Challenge: Nuclear Nonproliferation and the Quest for a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ---
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb323/index.htm
Anthropology Ethics: Online Resources ---
http://ethics.unl.edu/ethics_resources/online/anthropology.shtml
The Wikipedia page on ethics ---
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
California Department of Transportation ---
http://www.dot.ca.gov/
University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute ---
http://www.umtri.umich.edu/news.ph
Northwestern University Transportation Center ---
http://www.transportation.northwestern.edu/
University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute ---
http://www.umtri.umich.edu/news.ph
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute ---
http://www.vtti.vt.edu/
Pew Internet & American Life Project: Infographics ---
http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Data-Tools/Get-the-Latest-Statistics/Infographics.aspx
From the Scout Report on August 16, 2013
Up in the air, business class options continue to improve, but at what
cost to the coach traveler?
The Future of Business Class
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12005198/1/luxury-brands-are-the-latest-way-to-coddle-first-class-fliers.html
The race to build better business-class seats on airplanes
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021570578_airlineseatsxml.html
As Airlines Focus on Business Class, Will Coach Decline?
http://www.petergreenberg.com/2013/08/12/as-airlines-focus-on-business-class-will-coach-decline/
A Hard Landing for the Middle Class
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-a-hard-landing-for-the-middle-class/2013/08/06/e8948e4c-fec4-11e2-bd97-676ec24f1f3f_story.html?tid=pm_pop
Long-haul Business Class Comparison Chart
http://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_business_class.php
Transportation Library Menu Collection
http://findingaids.library.northwestern.edu/catalog/inu-ead-trans-001
From the Scout Report on July 26, 2013
With a flurry of new projects, interest continues to grow in
transit-oriented development
All aboard: Rail Centric Construction Gets Back on Track
http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2013/Jul/SpivakAllAboard?utm_source=uli&utm_medium=eblast&utm_campaign=072213
Citi grant supports transit-oriented development
http://www.stamfordplus.com/stm/information/nws1/publish/realestate/Citi-grant-supports-transit-oriented-development-in-Fairfield-County20557.shtml
What is TOD?
http://www.reconnectingamerica.org/what-we-do/what-is-tod/
Center for Transit-Oriented Development
http://www.cnt.org/tcd/projects/ctod/
Our Built and Natural Environments: A Technical Review of the
Interactions
Between Land Use, Transportation, and Environmental Quality
http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/pdf/b-and-n/b-and-n-EPA-231K13001.pdf
Regional Transportation Authority: Transit-Oriented Development
http://rtachicago.com/initiatives/land-use-transit-oriented-development.html
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
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Math Tutorials
Card Colm (bimonthly column on card tricks and strategies by mathematician
Colm Mulcahy) ---
http://cardcolm-maa.blogspot.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
History Tutorials
2011 Language Mapper Tool (Geography of Language Speaking) ---
\
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/data/language_map.html
Louise Nevelson Papers (art photography) ---
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/louise-nevelson-papers-9093
City of Chicago: Public Art Collection ---
http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/public_art_collection.html
The Art Institute of Chicago: Education: Online Resources [Quick Time]
---
http://www.artic.edu/aic/visitor_info/podcasts/video/education_videos/
Virginia Tech: Digitized Rare Books ---
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/digital_books/index.html
From the Smithsonian
Wonder Books: Rare Books on Early Museums
http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/wonderbound/
Vladimir Nabokov Creates a Hand-Drawn Map of James Joyce’s Ulysses ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/vladimir-nabokov-creates-a-hand-drawn-map-of-james-joyces-ulysses.html
City of Boston Archives: Online Collections ---
http://www.cityofboston.gov/archivesandrecords/collections/onlinecollections.asp
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Florida ---
http://ufdcweb1.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/?n=palmm&c=sanborn&m=hhh
Historic American Buildings Survey ---
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/
National Building Museum ---
http://www.nbm.org/
Forgotten Detroit (buildings) ---
http://www.forgottendetroit.com/
Historic GM Automobiles ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=endscreen&=R=1&v=RvVmDsWnMOk
London’s Historic Buildings Hit: Big Ben, Westminster Abbey,
Parliament
Houses Struck
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lFNQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HA4EAAAAIBAJ&dq=big%20ben&pg=6773%2C2000920
Encyclopedia of Indianapolis ---
http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu/cdm/search/collection/EOI
The National Security Archive: The Limited Test Ban Treaty ---
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb433/
The Test Ban Challenge: Nuclear Nonproliferation and the Quest for a
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ---
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb323/index.htm
Natural History of the Berkshires ---
http://cdm.williams.edu/nhb/
Pew Internet & American Life Project: Infographics ---
http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Data-Tools/Get-the-Latest-Statistics/Infographics.aspx
A Democracy of Images ---
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/photographs/
"Fruit-Full" Arkansas: Apples ---
http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/apples
Arkansas Heritage ---
http://www.arkansasheritage.com/
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture ---
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/
Los Angeles Public Library-Travel Posters ---
http://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/visual-collections/travel-posters
Los Angeles Public Library
Photograph Collection ---
http://photos.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/photosearch_pageADV.jsp
A One-Hour Video (for many of you boring) on the History of the Stanford
University Graduate School of Business ---
http://alumni.gsb.stanford.edu/throughtheages
Among other things you get to see a clip of my friend Bob Jaeicke, former Dean
of the GSB and cowboy (literally) who became the Chairman of Enron's last Audit
Committee during the period in which Enron imploded. My interview with the media
regarding Bob at the time are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
For the GSB grants from the Ford Foundation were essential to the
formation and growth of the GSB. The speakers pay to the rold of the Gordon
and Howell Report in getting those seed grants from the Ford Foundation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm
A great deal of this money went to hiring of top faculty in the major GSB
disciplines. A great deal of money was also used to attract students.
For me personally, the Ford Foundation grants for Stanford's accounting
and business doctoral students were essential to my decision to leave Ernst
& Ernst in Denver to enroll in the new accounting doctoral program at
Stanford. Without this generous fellowship I could not have afforded to
spend five full time years at Stanford. During my time as a doctoral student
Ernie Arbuckle was a dynamic dean drawn from industry to run the GSB during
this paradigm shift.
Bob Jensen
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
2011 Language Mapper Tool (Geography of Language Speaking) ---
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/data/language_map.html
British Library: Sound Maps ---
http://sounds.bl.uk/sound-maps/
Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages
Music Tutorials
British Library: Sound Maps ---
http://sounds.bl.uk/sound-maps/
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
From Grammar Girl on August 21, 2013
"Further" Versus "Farther"
"Farther" is for physical distances, and "further"
is for metaphorical distances.
How much farther do we have to walk? He won't take
the case further.
From Grammar Girl on August 27, 2013
"Lay" Versus "Lie"
In the present tense, "to lie" is something you do,
and "to lay" is something you do to an object.
I want to lie on the couch. Lay the book on the
table.
The past tense is trickier because "lay" is the
past tense of "lie."
Yesterday, I lay on the couch. Yesterday, I laid
the book on the table.
The Magic of Metaphor: What Children's Minds Teach Us about the Evolution
of the Imagination ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/19/james-geary-i-is-an-other-children-metaphor/
Vladimir Nabokov Creates a Hand-Drawn Map of James Joyce’s Ulysses ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/vladimir-nabokov-creates-a-hand-drawn-map-of-james-joyces-ulysses.html
Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, and Anne Enright Give Ten Candid Pieces of
Writing Advice Each ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/richard-ford-jonathan-franzen-and-anne-enright-give-ten-candid-pieces-of-writing-advice-each.html
From the Scout Report on August 23, 2013
Fidus Writer ---
http://fiduswriter.org/
The Fidus Writer is an application that academics
will be most excited to learn about. This version functions as an online
collaborative editor made specifically for academics who need to use
citations and formulas. The program is focused on the content rather than
the layout, which means users can publish it later in a variety of formats.
The site also contains an FAQ and information about updates. This version is
compatible with all operating systems running Google Chrome.
Jensen Note
The Wolfram Alfa site is fantastic for computing answers from formulas,
generating graphs, and formatting formulas for documents ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
For illustrations see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theorylearningcurves.htm
"Where to Find Elmore Leonard Walk into any library and ask for directions to
the fiction section," by Bob Greene, The Wall Street Journal, August 21,
2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323665504579026530814061404.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h
As soon as I heard that Elmore Leonard had died
this week, I went to visit him.
I knew right where to go.
I was in a small Midwestern town, and I walked to
the public library on Main Street.
I asked for directions to the fiction stacks. There
he was—a shelf-and-a-half of him. All the novels, some dust jackets bright,
most faded and worn from years of being checked out. Titles: "The Big
Bounce," "Bandits," "Freaky Deaky," "Escape from Five Shadows," "Get
Shorty," "Touch," "Cuba Libre" and more. This is where he lives.
Leonard was 87 when he died Tuesday in Michigan.
The obituaries noted that he wrote 45 novels, that he started out writing
Westerns, and that the movies based on his work—including "Hombre," "Get
Shorty," "Jackie Brown," "Be Cool" and "3:10 to Yuma"—had made him
financially secure.
But what mattered to him was the craft.
"I write in longhand. I work from 9:30 in the
morning until 6 o'clock at night," he told me the first time we talked, more
than 25 years ago. "What I'll do is write the stuff out in longhand, and
then cross out, and then write some more. I'll cross out more than I keep.
It gets pretty messy—I can barely read the pages when I'm done.
"I try to begin a chapter with something going on.
I very rarely start a chapter with description, or with what the weather's
doing, or something like that. I jump right in," he said.
In the quiet of the public library, I pulled one of
his books from the shelf. It was called "The Hot Kid." It began:
"Carlos Webster was fifteen the day he witnessed
the robbery and killing at Deering's drugstore. This was in the fall of 1921
in Okmulgee, Oklahoma."
Leonard had told me: "When I get into the writing,
I have a pretty good idea of who the main characters will be. But I still
don't know exactly how the story will work. And something happens to me in
almost every book: A character that, in my mind, may have been fairly minor
turns into a major character. I hear him talking, and I realize: This guy is
interesting."
Because he was 59 years old before he became really
famous—he had written more than 20 books before "Glitz," in 1985, became his
first No. 1 best seller—he seemed to understand that the words, the sound
and precision of them, were all that was worth worrying about.
He was protective of them. Once I was in the Fisher
Building in Detroit with him, and someone came up and asked him what his
next book was going to be called.
"Killshot one word," Leonard told the man, just
like that, no pause.
The book was not going to be called "Killshot One
Word," of course. It was going to be called "Killshot." But he wanted to be
absolutely clear. It was impossible for Leonard not to be meticulous, even
in casual conversation with a stranger.
In the library there was one book on the shelf that
was a little fatter than the others. It had a red jacket. I knew what it
was.
In 1986, Leonard's publisher planned to put three
novels he had written into a single edition to be titled "Double Dutch
Treat," a play on Leonard's nickname, Dutch. I received a call: Mr. Leonard,
the voice on the phone was saying, wondered if I would be willing to write
the introduction. It was like somehow hearing that Frank Sinatra wondered if
you would consider writing the liner notes for his next album.
Now, on the day Dutch Leonard died, I pulled
"Double Dutch Treat" from the shelf to see what I had said:
"Let me put it this way: given the chance to see
the most popular movie of the season, watch the most popular television show
of the season, or read an Elmore Leonard novel that I know absolutely
nothing about in advance, I'll go with the Leonard novel every time. He's
just that much fun."
Continued in article
RIP, Elmore Leonard: The Beloved Author's 10 Rules of Writing ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/21/elmore-leonard-10-rules-of-writing/
Eight Common Grammar Mistakes ---
https://www.openforum.com/articles/8-common-grammar-mistakes-you-should-never-make-again/?extlink=of-syndication-sb-p
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
Especially note the first and last links below:
From Web MD on August 17, 2013
August 17, 2013
August 19, 2013
August 20, 2013
August 21, 2013
August 22, 2013
August 23, 2013
August 24, 2013
August 26, 2013
August 27, 2013
Colorado’s Insurance Commissioner Braces For Bumps
New Defibrillator Works Without Wires Touching Heart
Stuttering May Not Cause Emotional Woes in Kids
Babies May Remember Words Heard Before Birth
New Hope for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer
Most Medications OK During Breast-Feeding
Some Video Games May Boost Brain's Flexibility
Bare Bones Plans Expected To Survive Health Law
Who Will Care for Adults With Autism?
August 28, 2013
A new wrinkle in Parkinson's disease research ---
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-08-wrinkle-parkinson-disease.html
Inducing and augmenting labor may be associated with increased risk of
autism ---
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-08-augmenting-labor-autism.html
"The Ethics of Student use of Adderall," by Steven Mintz, Ethics
Sage, August 19, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/08/the-ethics-of-student-use-of-adderall-.html
Last Saturday Major League Baseball (MLB) announced
that Kansas City infielder, Miguel Tejada, received a 105-game suspension
for using a banned substance – Adderall. Tejada claims he had a valid
prescription to use the drug but let the approval expire. That may be the
case and it is important to note that MLB allows a player to use Adderall
with a valid prescription from a doctor.
In this blog I focus on what I know first-hand to
be a growing trend in college students, which is to use Adderall to gain an
edge in the classroom: to help retain more material; to focus better in the
classroom; to improve study habits; and to help cram for tests.
The drug Adderall, which is most commonly
prescribed to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has
been popping up on campuses across North America. I have read estimates that
one-of-three students use it at some time during their college careers.
However, many of the students don’t have
prescriptions and turn to the Internet to get the drug, or reach out to a
friend or family member with a prescription. Some students turn to online
sales sites such as Craigslist, where a quick scan of Adderall listings
shows a price tag of $1 to $10 per pill.
The ethics of using Adderall are relatively clear
cut. It provides a competitive advantage, which in and of itself is not a
crime. However, the edge is gained in an illegal manner. When I try to make
this point to students, I am met with the explanation that gaining a
competitive advantage is a long-used technique to get ahead in college.
Continued in article
A Bit of Humor
Let's Stop and Frisk the Big Time Criminals ---
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-13-2013/frisky-business---jessica-williams
Watch Family Planning, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Production, Starring Donald
Duck ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/family-planning-walt-disneys-1967-sex-ed-production.html
The State of Michigan threatened a family of beavers with a fine of $10,000
per day if they did not remove their new damn ---
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp
Legend About a New Orleans Land Grab ---
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/landgrab.asp
“Why did God invent economists?”
“To make weathermen feel good about themselves.”
David Rosenberg, former chief economist at Merrill Lynch
Forwarded by Paula
Another Government study provides outstanding results . . .
CSIRO officials recently found about 200 dead crows on the highway between
Noonamah and Palmerston in the Northern Territory,
There was concern that they may have died from Avian Flu.
The Northern Territory Government therefore directed that the CSIRO should
contract a bird pathologist to examine the remains of all the crows.
The bird pathologist subsequently confirmed that the problem was definitely
NOT Avian Flu.
However, he did determine that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact
with trucks, and that only 2% had been killed by impact with cars.
The Territory Government then hired an Ornithological Behaviourist to
determine the disproportionate percentages for the truck versus car kills.
After 18 months of research costing $2.7 million, the Ornithological
Behaviourist determined the cause of the deaths.
When crows eat road kill, they always set-up a look-out crow in a nearby tree
to warn of impending danger.
His conclusion was that the lookout crow could only say “Cah”, he could not
say “Truck”.
Just wanted to make sure you Aussies knew where your tax money was being
spent . . .
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