Tidbits on September 29, 2015
Bob Jensen
at
Trinity University
Set 4 of My
Favorite Cloud Photographs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/CloudFavorites/Set04/Clouds04.htm
The Invention of Clouds: Goethe’s Poems
for the Skies and His Heartfelt Homage to the Young Scientist Who Classified
Clouds ---
Scroll down at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/CloudFavorites/Set04/CloudFavoritesSet04.htm
If I should ever
cease to be amazed and enraptured by the magic of clouds, I should wish
myself dead. And I am hardly alone — since the dawn of our species, the
water cycle’s most visible expression in the skies has bewitched artists,
poets, and scientists like as a beautiful natural metaphor for the
philosophy that there in an inherent balance to life, that what we give will
soon be replenished. More than two millennia before poet Mark Strand and
painter Wendy Mark joined forces on their
breathtaking love letter to clouds, before Georgia
O’Keeffe
extolled the beauty of the Southwest skies, before
scientists figured out
why cloudy days help us think more clearly, the
great ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote: “They are the
celestial Clouds, the patron goddesses of the layabout. From them come our
intelligence, our dialectic and our reason.” Indeed, there is a
singular quality of prayerfulness to clouds — a certain secular reverence
undergirding their allure to both art and science.
Continued in article
Tidbits on September 29, 2015
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/
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Updates from WebMD
---
Click Here
Autumn and Foliage
Links
See when it actually feels like autumn where you live ---
http://time.com/4043133/is-it-fall-yet/?xid=newsletter-brief
The chart does not accept zip codes or small towns. It's best to enter the name
of a country or a USA State to see what cities are linked.
Where I live in northern New Hampshire our furnace usually kicks back in in
mid-September, but the foliage season usually does not make traveling up here
worthwhile until October.
Bob Jensen's Foliage Pictures
(Scroll down to the Foliage section) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
The Best Places To See Fall
Foliage In The US ---
http://www.fodors.com/news/photos/10-best-fall-foliage-trips-in-the-us#!1-intro#ixzz3EQRiqEq6
Autumn Foliage Interactive Map
for the Entire USA (most of the leaves have now fallen in the north, but there's
a bit of color left)---
http://smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map/
Foliage in New Hampshire's White Mountains ---
http://www.nhliving.com/foliage/index.shtml
Fall Foliage ---
http://gonewengland.about.com/cs/fallfoliage/l/blfoliagecentrl.htm
Foliage Pictures ---
http://photo.net/travel/us/ne/foliage
Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
A Wealth of Free Documentaries on All Things
Japanese: From Bento Boxes to Tea Gardens, Ramen & Bullet Trains ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/a-wealth-of-free-documentaries-on-all-things-japanese.html
John Heeley's Masterclass (mathematics in seven
short videos)---
http://archive.teachfind.com/ttv/www.teachers.tv/series/jonny-heeleys-masterclass.html
IUCN: Multimedia (environment and energy) ---
http://www.iucn.org/knowledge/multimedia/
Spectacular Wildlife Video ---
https://www.youtube.com/embed/fdSVp9GFeS4
A giant ocean observatory has captured thousands of hours of video revealing
some crazy natural phenomena ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/about-the-oceanic-neptune-project-2015-9
Battle of Britain: Historic flypast for 75th
anniversary ---
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34250794
Thomas Edison’s Recordings of Leo Tolstoy: Hear
the Voice of Russia’s Greatest Novelist
---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/hear-thomas-edisons-recordings-of-leo-tolstoy.html
47 Animated Videos Explain the History of Ideas:
From Aristotle to Sartre ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/47-animated-videos-explain-the-history-of-ideas-from-aristotle-to-sartre.html
Watch 1915 Video of Monet, Renoir & Rodin
Creating Art, and Edgar Degas Taking a Stroll ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/watch-1915-video-of-monet-renoir-rodin-creating-art-and-edgar-degas-taking-a-stroll.html
Robots Serving Healthy, Cheap Fast Food At This
New San Francisco Restaurant ---
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/08/31/robots-serving-healthy-cheap-fast-food-at-new-san-francisco-restaurant/
Columbia U. Launches a Free Multimedia Glossary
for Studying Cinema & Filmmaking ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/columbia-u-launches-a-free-multimedia-glossary-for-studying-cinema-filmmaking.html
Steve Martin & Robin Williams Riff on Math,
Physics, Einstein & Picasso in a Heady Comedy Routine (2002) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/steve-martin-robin-williams-do-intellectual-comedy.html
Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersby
Not free, but available cheap on NetFlix
Thank you Richard Campbell for the heads up
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
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
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
"Below Ground Zero," by John Ward,
by John Ward, The Rivard Report, September 9, 2015 ---
http://www.therivardreport.com/below-ground-zero/
The Drawings &
Paintings of Richard Feynman: Art Expresses a Dramatic “Feeling of Awe” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/the-drawings-paintings-of-richard-feynman.html
2 coders used old photographs to make a mesmerizing Google
Street View map of San Francisco in the 1800s ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/old-san-francisco-photos-turned-into-google-street-view-map-2015-9
A former National Geographic
photographer shows what America was like in the 1970s and 1980s ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-america-in-70s-and-80s-nathan-benn-2015-8
The multimillionaire founder of
MySpace now travels the world taking jaw-dropping photographs ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/myspace-tom-instagram-photos-2015-9
Spectacular Wildlife Video ---
https://www.youtube.com/embed/fdSVp9GFeS4
The new Pluto photos reveal complex
features that 'rival anything we've seen in the solar system' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-pluto-photos-2015-9
Gorgeous photos of stealth F-35
jets flying alongside F-16s ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/gorgeous-photos-of-stealth-f-35-jets-flying-alongside-f-16s-2015-9
The 9 fastest piloted planes in the world (the dates may
surprise you) ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-9-fastest-piloted-planes-in-the-world-2015-9
All of the beautiful locations in
Matt Damon's new thriller about Mars are real — here are the epic photos that
prove it ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/real-places-the-main-character-in-the-martian-went-on-mars-2015-7
A long-lost GoPro that fell from
the edge of space was recovered, and its footage is incredible ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/gopro-footage-from-the-edge-of-space-2015-9
21 pictures that will make you want
to visit Thailand ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-that-will-make-you-want-to-visit-thailand-2015-9
A couple has been road tripping
across the US for 3 years and took these incredible pictures ----
http://www.businessinsider.com/idletheory-bus-instagram-pictures-2015-8
Beauties of America: Staffordshire Pottery ---
http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Ridgway/enter.htm
A British farmer is auctioning off
his £2 million collection of 230 vintage tractors ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/british-farmer-auctioning-collection-of-230-tractors-2015-9
Bob Jensen's threads on art history ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#ArtHistory
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
18-Year-Old James Joyce Writes a Fan Letter to His Hero Henrik Ibsen (1901)
---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/18-year-old-james-joyce-writes-a-fan-letter-to-his-hero-henrik-ibsen-1901.html
Bob Jensen's threads on libraries ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#---Libraries
History As Big Data: 500 Years Of Book Images
And Mapping Millions Of Books ---
http://lisnews.org/history_as_big_data_500_years_of_book_images_and_mapping_millions_of_books
Behold the Largest Atlas in the World: The
Six-Foot Tall Klencke Atlas from 1660 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/behold-the-largest-atlas-in-the-world-the-six-foot-tall-klencke-atlas-from-1660.html
James Baldwin’s One & Only,
Delightfully-Illustrated Children’s Book, Little Man Little Man: A Story of
Childhood (1976) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/james-baldwins-one-only-delightfully-illustrated-childrens-book.html
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Read by Sir
John Gielgud: A Great Way to Celebrate the Novel’s 150th Anniversary ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-read-by-sir-john-gielgud.html
"A Romantic Notion: One Scholar’s Lifetime of
Devotion to the Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning,"
by Nicholas A. Basbanes |, HUMANITIES,September/October 2015 | Volume 36, Number
5 ---
http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/septemberoctober/feature/romantic-notion-one-scholars-lifetime-devotion-the-letters-
Revel in The William Faulkner Audio Archive on
the Author’s 118th Birthday ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/revel-in-the-william-faulkner-audio-archive-on-the-authors-118th-birthday.html
F. Scott Fitzgerald Reads Shakespeare’s Othello
and Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” (1940) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/f-scott-fitzgerald-reads-shakespeares-othello-and-keats-ode-to-a-nightingale-1940.html
Sylvia Plath, Girl Detective Offers a
Hilariously Cheery Take on the Poet’s College Years ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/sylvia-plath-girl-detective-offers-a-hilariously-cheery-take-on-the-poets-college-years.html
Sylvia Plath Reads Her Poetry: 23 Poems
from the Last 6 Years of Her Life ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/9_umsFYHqzY/sylvia-plath-reads-her-poetry-23-poems.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
"Sylvia Plath’s Unseen Drawings,
Edited by Her Daughter and Illuminated in Her Private Letters," by Maria
Popova, Brain Pickings, November 6, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/11/06/sylvia-plath-drawings-2/
Sylvia Plath Reads Her
Poetry: 23 Poems from the Last 6 Years of Her Life ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/9_umsFYHqzY/sylvia-plath-reads-her-poetry-23-poems.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
On 50th Anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s Death, Hear Her
Read ‘Lady Lazarus’ ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/on_50th_anniversary_of_sylvia_plaths_death_hear_her_read_lady_lazarus.html
The Short Literary Life of Sylvia Plath
---
http://www.sylviaplath.de/
"Our acknowledged Queen of Sorrows"
For Sylvia Plath’s 80th Birthday, Hear Her Read ‘A Birthday Present’ ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/10/for_sylvia_plaths_80th_birthday_hear_her_read_a_birthday_present.html
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 September 29, 2015
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2015/TidbitsQuotations092915.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/
GAO: Fiscal Outlook & The Debt ---
http://www.gao.gov/fiscal_outlook/overview
Bob Jensen's threads on entitlements ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
For 24 years in a row, US News ranked Trinity University as the Number 1
Regional School of the West ---
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/trinity-university-texas-3647
Trinity
University is a private institution that was founded in 1869. It has a total
undergraduate enrollment of 2,297, its setting is urban, and the campus size is
117 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Trinity University's
ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is Regional Universities (West), 1.
Its tuition and fees are $37,856 (2015-16).
Trinity University
overlooks downtown San Antonio, home to the Alamo, four professional sports
teams including the NBA Spurs, and more than 175 city parks and recreation
areas. Not to be ignored: San Antonio has on average 300 days of sunshine per
year. Students can get involved in any of the more than 115 campus organizations
ranging from the Loon-E Hip-Hop Dance Crew to the Entrepreneurship Club. A
thriving Greek community at Trinity represents about a quarter of the
undergraduate student body and consists of mainly local chapters. Nearly 80
percent of students live on campus in one of the residence halls, and there are
designated areas on campus for freshmen and sophomore housing. The Trinity
Tigers compete in Division III and are known for their strong tennis program.
In addition to the
undergraduate bachelor of music, bachelor of science, and bachelor of arts
degrees, Trinity grants master’s degrees in teaching, school administration, and
school psychology, and master of science degrees in accounting and health care
administration. Undergraduates can choose from nearly 40 majors and must
complete the Common Curriculum, a distribution requirement intended to provide a
well-rounded liberal arts education. More than 40 percent of students take
advantage of study abroad programs around the world. Trinity’s Laurie Auditorium
has hosted performances and lectures by Bill Cosby, B.B. King, and Jay Leno.
My New Dell Inspiron 15 5000 laptop and Venue
8 Pro 3000 tablet computer
I received my
new Dell Inspiron 15 5000 laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed. Thus far I
like it as well or more than my more expensive and older Dell Studio that
runs on Windows 7. I'm glad I bought the home-visit extended warranty on the
Dell Studio since between 2010 and now a Dell technician has had to come to
my mountain cottage four times to install new motherboards. However, the
in-home service has been great. The technician arrives with parts in hand
within three working days, and up in these mountains the technician travels
at least 100 miles each way. Dell lost money selling me the Studio
laptop and extended in-home warranty back in 2010.
Windows 10 is
easy to start up he first time as long as you think ahead to have your
wireless passcode and your Microsoft login name and password.
Of course you
have to expect to spend time installing your favorite software for any new
computer. I keep a lot of my old favorite software disks in my studio such
as my old 2003 version of FrontPage that I like better than my newer version
of Expression Web.
I spent over
an hour with two online Dell technicians trying to connect my new laptop to
a new U2414H monitor. The first problem was that dell lied when it claimed
the monitor shipped with all the necessary cables. Dell did not include the
crucial HDMI cable. So I bought a new HDMI cable.
Next I had
trouble getting the new monitor work through my new HDMI cable. The Dell
technician on the phone and I spent about an hour trying to figure out what
was wrong with my new computer. Nothing was wrong. We finally discovered how
to get a connection working by using the buttons on the monitor. Dah!. If
you hit the right buttons the monitor is plug and play.
My new laptop
came with a Venue 8 Pro 3000 tablet computer on the side. There was no
problem with the slow and free upgrade to Windows 10. But the USB 2.0 port
is weird. It's both the power plug and the USB plug. So I run mostly on
battery using the USB port to connect to a hub that gives me an external
mouse and keyboard and external hard drives. I don't plan to use this tablet
for anything other than as a VPN connection. If I don't surf or install
anything other than VPN it should remain free of malware.
I prefer my MS
Surface tablet, although I don't use it enough to upgrade to Windows 10. The
Surface screen is slightly larger and it has a HDMI port for monitor and
television connections.
Mostly I
operate out of my Windows 10 and Windows 7 laptops. I have a cheap Google Chromebook permanently attached to a television set for my daily movie date
with Erika. Mostly BBC mysteries like Touch of Frost and Foyle's
War that we enjoy. Of course there are others such as Prime Suspect
and The Last Detective. Since Netflix does not stream a lot of its
archives we still have to watch many of these movies on disks shipped via
pony express up here.
Tablet
computers suck in part because mini ports and mini adapters suck.
Laptops
with larger ports are terrific.
Bob Jensen
In Norway, she said, "universities exchange papers for
grading." Objectivity is compromised by mere humanity. Educators who engage
personally with their students are psychologically vulnerable to bias in
grading.
Kathleen Tarr ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Little-More-Every-Day-/233303/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
USA Department of
Education: Guidance on Competency-Based Education
Inside Higher Ed, September 23, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/09/23/guidance-competency-based-education?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=3d26811214-DNU20150923&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-3d26811214-197565045
The U.S. Department Education said Tuesday it is poised to release an extensive reference guide for institutions that are participating in an experiment on competency-based education. Since that project was begun last year, the department said it became clear that more guidance was needed -- for both colleges and accrediting agencies.The department has yet to release the document publicly, but plans to post it at this link --- https://experimentalsites.ed.gov/exp/guidance.html
“We believe that this guide will offer tremendous support for both experienced and new competency-based education providers as they implement this experiment,” Ted Mitchell, the under secretary of education, said in a written statement. “We recognize that many of you were anticipating that the guide would be released earlier this summer, but it was very important for us to have a high level of confidence that the guidance it contains is on very firm ground.”
Bob Jensen's threads on
competency-based education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge
Bob Jensen's threads on
assessment ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Ignoble Prize Winners of 2015: These
academic studies won this year’s most absurd awards ---
http://www.improbable.com/
Jensen Comments
I really miss Senator Proxmire's infamous Golden Fleece Awards ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award
Two MIT students lay out the facts about why the Mars One mission is bogus
---
http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-one-mit-students-mission-not-feasible-debate-2015-8
If Senator Proxmire were alive the Mars One absurdity would probably get a
Golden Fleece Award ---
Golden Fleece Awards ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award
One has to admire deeply intense historical scholarship that's essentially
analogous discovering the thousands angels on the head of a pin. One has to
admire the unwavering mission of Phillip Kelly to devote his entire life to the
task of unearthing, analyzing, publishing, and sharing one set of letters. My
discipline of accountancy has never had such a narrowly focused historical
scholar. How Kelly could remain so devoted and energetic day-to-day on this
lifelong mission is almost beyond belief. How did he love the Brownings .
. . let Nicholas Basbanes count the ways.
"A Romantic Notion: One Scholar’s Lifetime of
Devotion to the Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning,"
by Nicholas A. Basbanes |, HUMANITIES,September/October 2015 | Volume 36, Number
5 ---
http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/septemberoctober/feature/romantic-notion-one-scholars-lifetime-devotion-the-letters-
. . .
Whatever misgivings the
“academic world” may have had, they were set aside as later volumes
appeared, each one as “brilliantly conceived” and “executed” as the last.
Reviewing Volumes 9 and 10 in the Times Literary Supplement in 1993, Ian
Jack, an esteemed professor of English at the University of Cambridge and
editor of five volumes of The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, pronounced
that Kelley and Scott Lewis, who had come aboard as coeditor following the
death of Ronald Hudson, “are assembling material to which all future
students of the life and work of the two poets will be indebted.”
Daniel Karlin, a professor
of English at the University of Bristol in England who has written and
edited several books on the Brownings, told me by e-mail that he judges The
Brownings’ Correspondence to be “one of the greatest achievements of modern
editorial scholarship,” and that he “can’t imagine my own work, or that of
any other Browning scholar or student for pretty much half a century,
without the fruits” of Kelley’s “ambition and energy.” Others have echoed
Karlin’s admiration. Rita S. Patteson, director of the Armstrong Browning
Library at Baylor, works closely with Kelley and says that she has “never
known such a singularly focused individual.” Marjorie Stone, a professor of
English and women’s studies at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, who
edited three of the five volumes of The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
and Sandra Donaldson, general editor of that project, were similarly
enthusiastic. Stone opined that Kelley’s “indefatigable work on this project
will benefit scholars, students, and members of the wider public for years
to come.” Donaldson stressed that she and her colleagues “could not
have—indeed would not have” undertaken their massive project without the
material Kelley had made available.
Kelley’s uncommon set of
skills has inspired several descriptions, but “literary detective” seems
best. “Provenance,” he tells me more than once during the two days we
discuss his relentless quest of all things Browning, “is the means to
finding everything.”
One of his most dramatic
finds along these lines began with a gnawing hunch that important material
might be found in the ancestral home of Joseph Milsand (1817–1886), a French
philosopher, critic, and avid Anglophile who was one of Robert Browning’s
closest friends and confidants. Twenty-six years would elapse from the time
Kelley knocked on the front door of the old homestead in the Burgundy city
of Dijon to the day in 1997 when he was finally granted access to a gloomy
garret in the attic where scores of family artifacts had remained untouched
for more than a century.
Continued in article
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on
September 24, 2015
Buyers of VW cars are left wondering how the
company’s emissions scandal will affect their vehicles’ performance, resale
value and compliance with clean-air standards. But the scandal’s costs are
already trickling back into the supply chain as well. The price of platinum,
widely used in diesel car engines,
could fall below $900 a troy ounce for the first
time since the financial crisis amid the scandal at VW, according to some
metals investors and analysts.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/vws-customers-feel-confusion-remorse-1443051169?mod=djemCFO_h
Jensen Comment
This left me wondering if there are air quality controls for diesel lawn
tractors, farm tractors, and on up to heavy equipment (caterpillars, excavators,
cranes, etc.). I don't know enough about my diesel lawn tractor to write about
its equipment to clean the air. I do know that gasoline lawnmowers in general
are heavy air and noise polluters because there are hundreds of millions of
these and other small-engine machines. I have eight such machines in my barn,
including a snow thrower, edger, trimmer, mulcher, etc.
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on
September 23, 2015
Washington Post to put all articles on Facebook
http://www.wsj.com/articles/all-washington-post-stories-to-go-to-facebook-1442961105?mod=djemCFO_h
The Washington Post said it will publish 100% of the
stories that go on its website to Facebook Inc.’s Instant
Articles—roughly 1,200 a day. The Wall Street Journal has been in talks with
Facebook but has yet to agree to participate. One issue is that Facebook
wants access to subscriber data that the Journal isn’t eager to share,
according to a person familiar with the situation.
"Universities Move to Flat-Rate Textbooks,"
by Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology, September 16, 2015 ---
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/09/16/universities-move-to-flat-rate-textbooks.aspx
Course materials
management company
Rafter
today announced new agreements with several colleges and
universities to deploy
Rafter360, technology
that provides both print and digital textbooks through a flat-rate model.
Students at
Mars Hill University (NC),
Green Mountain College (VT), the
Institute of American Indian Arts
(NM),
Illinois College
and
Bethany College
(KS) will now receive all course materials by the first
day of class, for a reduced fee that is incorporated into their tuition.
Rafter's pricing is expected to save students more than 50 percent compared to
traditional textbooks. And when students have access to all their course
materials up front, their chances of success improve, according to the company.
Continued in article
Podcast ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast
"Improving My Teaching Via Podcast," by Jim Lang, Chronicle of
Higher Education, September 17, 2015 ---
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1125-improving-my-teaching-via-podcast?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
At the end of every academic year, my department
gathers to celebrate our graduating English majors and everyone is invited
to share a favorite poem or passage. One of my colleagues always reads aloud
Galway Kinnell’s poem "Oatmeal," in which the poet describes how the great
authors of the world enrich his breakfast with their writing.
"Yesterday morning," she recites, "I ate my oatmeal
porridge, as he called it with John Keats.
Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him:
"due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness,
hint of slime, and unusual willingness to disintegrate, oatmeal should not
be eaten alone.
"He said that in his opinion, however, it is
perfectly OK to eat it with an imaginary companion, and that he himself had
enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John Milton."
I’ve been having a similar experience lately,
although, instead of the great poets, my companions have been leading
thinkers and visionaries on teaching in higher education. Nevertheless, they
have been very kind to accompany me as I run my daily errands, do chores
around the house, exercise, and even wait in security lines at the airport.
As I was making pancakes for my twins the other day
(I’m not an oatmeal fan),
Jose Antonio Bowen, president of Goucher College
and author of Teaching Naked,
spoke to me about why he loves "noisy and messy
classrooms." He also reminded me that "the thing that teachers do best in
the classroom is to be human beings, and to get to know their students as
human beings, and to make that connection between what matters to your
students and what matters to you." -
Read more at:
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1125-improving-my-teaching-via-podcast?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en#sthash.KZe6xhFe.dpuf
Bob Jensen's threads on tools and tricks of the trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Following the lead taken by the Cornell University Library some years ago in
saying no to rip off prices of scholarly journals
Harvard University says it can't afford
journal publishers' prices (at least not from price rip off publishers)---
http://lisnews.org/node/43679/
Exasperated
by rising
subscription
costs
charged by
academic
publishers,
Harvard
University
has
encouraged
its faculty
members to
make their
research
freely
available
through open
access
journals and
to resign
from
publications
that keep
articles
behind
paywalls.
A memo from
Harvard
Library to
the
university's
2,100
teaching and
research
staff called
for action
after
warning it
could no
longer
afford the
price hikes
imposed by
many large
journal
publishers,
which bill
the library
around $3.5m
a year.
From
Harvard
University says
it can't afford
journal
publishers'
prices | Science
| The Guardian
Bob Jensen's threads on how the journal
publishing oligopoly rips off libraries ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals
I'm suspicious of how those oligopoly publishers persuade top name researchers
to become editors of their rip off journals. Is there an independence issue
here?
Librarians Accuse Harvard Business Publishing of
Unfair Prices ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Librarians-Accuse-Harvard/142947/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Jensen Comment The Harvard Business School is
operating on the margin and cannot afford to open share or price
fairly. Yeah right!
At any price I view most HBS books and the Harvard
Business Review as best used in place of sleeping aids.
Jensen Comment
The Harvard Business School is operating on the margin and cannot afford to open
share or price fairly. Yeah right!
At any price I view most HBS books and the Harvard Business Review as
best used in place of sleeping aids.
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 the journal
publishing oligopoly rips off libraries ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals
I'm suspicious of how those oligopoly publishers persuade top name researchers
to become editors of their rip off journals. Is there an independence issue
here?
Social Security Strategies for Spouses: Do You Know Your Options?
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/carrieschwabpomerantz/2015/09/23/social-security-strategies-for-spouses-do-you-know-your-options-n2055519?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
Dear Carrie:
My wife and I are both turning 66, and I understand that this is "full
retirement age" according to the Social Security Administration. Should we
both file on our birthdays, or is it better to wait? And could a spousal
benefit help us collect more? --
A Reader
Carrie's Answer ---
Click Here
If you—or your folks—are anywhere near retirement, you should be asking
these questions now ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-18/don-t-fall-into-the-social-security-trap?cmpid=BBD091815_BIZ
Jensen Comment
Don't be misled by averages. Just because early retirees die younger on average
has little if anything to do with you in particular (not that I'm recommending
early retirement for you). But if you are getting anxious, many employers,
including universities, have early retirement deals such as a year or two of
salary that delays when you have to tap retirement funds.
Retirement decisions should probably not be made before consulting experts on
retirement financing and timing. Employers often make competent and unbiased
experts available free of charge.
The sad news about retirement now is that interest rates have plunged so low
such that you may have to take some financial risks with your retirement
savings.
And don't look for retirement deals to soar just because the Fed eventually
raises interest rates by a microscopic epsilon.
And don't rely on Medicare to cover your retirement needs. Medicare is not
free to you in retirement and has coverage limitations you should know about.
Supplemental plans are increasingly expensive. And to sustain Medicare as an
entitlement cost to retirees will go up and coverage will decline substantially.
And most of all remember that Medicare does not cover nursing home costs. And
if you are over 55 nursing home insurance is not usually a good deal unless you
know something about your future that you're keeping secret. It may be better to
have a strict savings plan for nursing home and other health contingencies. This
is something to talk over with your retirement counseling expert.
Bob Jensen's helpers on personal finance ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers
"Ending the Credit Ratings Racket: Seven years after the financial
crisis, the SEC enacts a critical reform," The Wall Street Journal,
September 18, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ending-the-ratings-racket-1442615384?mod=djemMER
America’s financial system is sturdier today thanks
to some rare good news from a Washington regulator. Seven years after the
financial crisis, the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a big
step toward ending a policy that helped cause the mess.
For decades before the crisis, SEC staff had
recognized a small group of private credit-rating agencies—including
Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch—as official judges of risk. Federal
regulators referred to these favored companies in their rules and even
forced financial institutions to invest in paper rated highly by this
anointed cartel.
When the members of the cartel turned out to be
wrong about the risks in mortgage-backed securities, the result was
catastrophic because the government had forced so many other firms to follow
their advice.
The new rule enacted by the commission this week
says that instead of simply holding assets rated highly by the cartel, the
operators of money-market mutual funds must instead rely on their own
analysis to select securities presenting minimal credit risk. Investors
probably assume that’s what mutual fund companies do already, and many of
them do. All of them should.
Kudos to SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher, who has
the welcome habit of breaking Beltway decorum. In various public fora, Mr.
Gallagher kept reminding his colleagues that this needed reform was being
ignored while they went about drafting rules that had nothing to do with
addressing the causes of the last crisis or preventing the next one.
This week’s reform leaves one SEC rule that still
carries an endorsement of the ratings cartel—so-called Regulation M for
securities offerings. SEC Chair Mary Jo White should now get her agency all
the way out of the business of deciding whose opinions about credit risk
ought to be followed. Let markets decide whose opinions have value. It will
make financial crises less likely.
There’s also need for reform outside Washington.
Too many state pension systems still show too much deference to the cartel.
A rating expresses a point of view, not a guarantee.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads in the credit ratings racket ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Sleaze
Wow: 97% of Elementary NYC Public Students Get A or B Grades --- There
must be higher IQ in the water!
"City Schools May Get Fewer A’s," by Jennifer Medina, The New York Times,
January 28, 2010 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/education/30grades.html?hpw
"California Reports First Common Core
Assessment Scores," by Leila Meyer, T.H.E. Journal, September 14,
2015 ---
http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/09/14/california-reports-first-common-core-assessment-scores.aspx
. . .
Key results of the CAASPP
assessments include the following:
•Statewide in all
grades, 44 percent of students met or exceeded the English language arts
standard and 33 percent met or exceeded the math standard;
•for English language
arts in all grades, 16 percent of students exceeded the standard, 28
percent met the standard, 25 percent nearly met the standard and 31
percent did not meet the standard;
•for math in all grades,
14 percent exceeded the standard, 19 percent met the standard, 29
percent nearly met the standard and 38 percent did not meet the
standard;
•among
11th-graders, the assessments found that 56 percent of students are
ready or conditionally ready for college-level work in English language
arts and 29 percent are ready or conditionally ready for college-level
work in math; and
•the CAASPP revealed a
persistent achievement gap among students from low-income families,
English language learners and some ethnic groups when compared to other
students.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Now we know why teachers' unions are so down on Common Core testing.
Not being able to read is no longer a constraint
for high school graduation in California
Bill allowing diplomas for California's students who failed exit exam goes to
governor ---
http://edsource.org/2015/bill-allowing-diplomas-for-students-who-failed-exit-exam-goes-to-governor
Jensen Question
Why bother with the trouble and expense of administering exit exams?
"When a Degree Is Just the Beginning:
Today’s employers want more, say providers of alternative credentials," by
Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 14, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/When-a-Degree-Is-Just-the/232969/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
. . .
T he underlying ethos of the
credentials movement — that "it’s all about the job" — may make many
four-year colleges and even some community colleges uncomfortable. But that
hasn’t kept several of them from experimenting with new types of credentials
— in many cases aided by a burgeoning group of young companies like
Pathbrite, Fidelis Education, and Parchment, which sell digital products
that help students manage and communicate their skills and expertise. Gunnar
Counselman, a founder of Fidelis, which also offers tools that colleges can
use to build assessments that underlie their badges, says that until
recently, his company’s services were a hard sell: "Five years ago, nobody
believed the degree was insufficient." Today, he says, more college
officials are starting to say that degrees are necessary, but not enough.
"The whole skills gap," says
Mr. Counselman, "is the result of schools’ not understanding what employers
need" and not creating the kind of curriculum modules that would translate
to the workplace. Changing attitudes are fueled by frustration with the
status quo. You go to school for 16 years, he points out, "and you get four
freaking data points out of it": the name of the college, the name of the
degree, the year it was issued, and maybe a GPA.
Lipscomb University, which
is working with Fidelis, hopes to fill the information gap with badges that
describe the "soft" skills its students have acquired, like communicating
effectively and working in teams. Colleges tell students they’re getting
training for life, but "we didn’t ever have any way of verifying that or
quantifying that," says Nina J. Morel, dean of the College of Professional
Studies there. The badge program is "something more concrete," she says.
Lipscomb, in Tennessee, has
developed 41 badges based on employment-screening techniques developed by
Polaris Assessment Systems. The badges will be digital elements of a
competency transcript, she says, and can be added to students’ LinkedIn
accounts and online portfolios.
It could be a long time
before employers start demanding such evidence from graduates, acknowledges
Ms. Morel, but "we want to make sure they have every opportunity and every
tool in their tool box to convince an employer."
In fact, for most employers,
the college degree remains the key credential, so much so that a 2014 report
by Burning Glass, a company that analyzes job ads, found that employers in
many fields were requiring bachelor’s degrees for jobs that previously
didn’t need them. (The exceptions were for fields, such as health care, in
which there are good alternatives for identifying skill proficiency.)
But that may be changing.
Recently. Burning Glass analyzed 20.6 million non-health-care job ads from a
12-month period, and it found that 20 percent of all posts requiring a
bachelor’s degree also called for applicants to have a certificate or a
license for a particular skill. That, says Matthew Sigelman, the company’s
chief executive, suggests that employers see the college degree "as a
minimum ticket to ride rather than something validating specific
competencies."
Burning Glass hasn’t seen
much interest from employers in badges, at least not yet. "That doesn’t mean
they don’t have value," says Mr. Sigelman. But they’ll need to be externally
validated, or carry their own brand, if they’re going to matter.
Certificates themselves are
not all equal, either. Of the 20.6 million jobs analyzed, Burning Glass
found 2.8 million requiring a certificate. But only certain certificates
were highly sought. Of the thousands of possible certificates, the same 200
came up again and again. The Project Management Professional (PMP) and
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) credentials were
among those that topped the list.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Respect for badges and other certificates of competence depend heavily upon
difficulties of accomplishment.
There are really two interactive indicators of such accomplishment. One is the
accomplishment it takes to become eligible to take the competency test. For
example, a 3.0 grade average does not mean much when 80% of the graduating
classmates at Harvard have higher grade averages. However, the accomplishment of
greater importance is the fact that you got into Harvard in the first place.
Similarly a certificate of accomplishment in a
technical procedure in brain surgery interacts with the fact that this surgeon
was even allowed to take the steps necessary to get a badge for that procedure.
Respect for masters degrees in education for
school teachers declined greatly in education when they became virtual
certificates of attendance. These degrees in the past led to automatic pay
raises. Teachers at K-12 levels traveled off to take masters degree courses in
the summertime that gave out A and B grades with almost no performance standards
other than class attendance. The same thing applies to badges of attendance that
are almost anybody in a discipline can obtain with little or no effort.
Another problem lies with great test takers who
have skills at passing technical examinations without really having great skills
other than tremendous memorization skills for passing tests. This is most likely
why surgeons must actually perform mentored surgeries in addition to passing
written tests for a badge of accomplishment.
In the future we may see more interactions of
colleges with on-the-job experiential training required for badges of competence
--- what we might call the advanced medical model of competency.
The bottom line is that badges do not mean much
unless they are difficult to earn.
That of course is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. For a career there
is also a market test of the demand curve for such skills. Brain surgeons are in
high demand; Less so for bassoon musicians and Shakespeare scholars.
Once a serial plagiarist always a serial
plagiarist
"Alleged Serial Plagiarizer on Leave From Arizona State," Chronicle of
Higher Education, September 18, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/09/18/alleged-serial-plagiarizer-leave-arizona-state?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=52fbbd44c7-DNU20150918&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-52fbbd44c7-197565045
A professor of history at Arizona State University who’s been accused of plagiarism multiple times was placed on administrative leave this week as the university looks into new allegations of misconduct, The Arizona Republic reported. While previous allegations against Matthew Whitacker involve his published research, the most recent complaint involves Whitacker’s extracurricular consulting business.Last month, the city of Phoenix demanded a refund of the $21,900 it had already paid the Whitacker Group to develop cultural consciousness training material for its police force, according to The Republic. The city said more than half of some 80 slides Whitaker produced were ripped from the Chicago Police Department, with minor, if any, changes. Lonnie J. Williams Jr., Whitacker’s attorney, said he questioned why the university would investigate a matter in which it’s not involved, and that Whitacker had been up front about his intention to borrow the Chicago material.
Continued in article
From Full to Associate Professor: A Rare Demotion in the Academy
"Anonymous Charges Vindicated," by Scott Jaschik, July 13, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/13/arizona-state-demotes-history-professor-after-investigation-his-book
When an anonymous blog last year accused
Matthew C. Whitaker of plagiarizing portions of
Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama,
he said that he wouldn't respond to charges
presented in that way. His publisher, the University of Nebraska Press,
backed him.
The anonymous nature of the charges bothered
some at Arizona State University, where Whitaker was a full professor
and led a research center. But after the university conducted an
investigation and found misconduct, Whitaker now says that he agrees
that he made significant mistakes in the book.
Mark S. Searle, Arizona State's interim
provost, last week sent an email message to history faculty members in
which he said an investigation into the book had "identified significant
issues with the content of the aforementioned book." Searle went on to
say that "as a result of the outcomes from that investigation, Dr.
Whitaker has accepted a position as associate professor without a
Foundation Professorship [an honor he previously held], and now
co-directs his center."
Searle also forwarded a letter from Whitaker,
in which he admitted wrongdoing. Both letters were forwarded by someone
other than the authors to Inside Higher Ed.
"I have struggled to overlook the personal
nature of the criticisms, and to evaluate and recognize that there was
merit to some of them. I alerted ASU administration to the fact that the
text contained unattributed and poorly paraphrased material. I accept
responsibility for these errors and I am working with my publisher to
make the appropriate corrections," he wrote.
Continued in article
From Full to Associate Professor: A Rare Demotion in the Academy
"Anonymous Charges Vindicated," by Scott Jaschik, July 13, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/13/arizona-state-demotes-history-professor-after-investigation-his-book
When an anonymous blog last year accused
Matthew C. Whitaker of plagiarizing portions of
Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama,
he said that he wouldn't respond to charges
presented in that way. His publisher, the University of Nebraska Press,
backed him.
The anonymous nature of the charges bothered
some at Arizona State University, where Whitaker was a full professor
and led a research center. But after the university conducted an
investigation and found misconduct, Whitaker now says that he agrees
that he made significant mistakes in the book.
Mark S. Searle, Arizona State's interim
provost, last week sent an email message to history faculty members in
which he said an investigation into the book had "identified significant
issues with the content of the aforementioned book." Searle went on to
say that "as a result of the outcomes from that investigation, Dr.
Whitaker has accepted a position as associate professor without a
Foundation Professorship [an honor he previously held], and now
co-directs his center."
Searle also forwarded a letter from Whitaker,
in which he admitted wrongdoing. Both letters were forwarded by someone
other than the authors to Inside Higher Ed.
"I have struggled to overlook the personal
nature of the criticisms, and to evaluate and recognize that there was
merit to some of them. I alerted ASU administration to the fact that the
text contained unattributed and poorly paraphrased material. I accept
responsibility for these errors and I am working with my publisher to
make the appropriate corrections," he wrote.
Continued in article
"New Book, New Allegations," by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed,
May 13, 2014 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/13/arizona-state-professor-accused-plagiarism-second-time#sthash.OmcGllGb.dpbs
An investigation into plagiarism allegations
against an Arizona State University professor of history in 2011 found him
not guilty of deliberate academic misconduct, but the case remained
controversial. The chair of his department’s tenure committee resigned in
protest and other faculty members spoke out against the findings, saying
their colleague – who recently had been promoted to full professor – was
cleared even though what he did likely would have gotten an undergraduate in
trouble.
Now, Matthew C. Whitaker has written a new book,
and allegations of plagiarism are being levied against him once again.
Several blogs – one anonymously, and in great detail – have documented
alleged examples of plagiarism in the work. Several of his colleagues have
seen them, and say they raise serious questions about Whitaker’s academic
integrity.
Meanwhile, Whitaker says he won’t comment on
allegations brought forth anonymously, and his publisher, the University of
Nebraska Press, says it’s standing by him.
Three years ago, several senior faculty members in
Whitaker’s department accused him of uncited borrowing of texts and ideas
from books, Wikipedia and a newspaper article in his written work and a
speech. In response, the university appointed a three-member committee to
investigate. The group found that Whitaker’s work contained no “substantial
or systematic plagiarism,” but that he had been careless in some instances,
as reported by Inside Higher Ed at the
time. As a result, the university did not impose serious sanctions on the
scholar, who is the founding director of Arizona State’s Center for the
Study of Race and Democracy.
In response, Monica Green, professor of history,
resigned as department tenure committee chair. Several other professors
called the investigation flawed and incomplete in a formal complaint to the
university and in public statements.
Whitaker at the time told the university that his
colleagues were pursuing a personal vendetta, possibly due to his race and
the fact that they disagreed with his promotion,
The Arizona Republic reported.
The university backed Whitaker, saying that the
investigation had been thorough and carried out by distinguished scholars.
In January, the University of Nebraska Press
published Whitaker’s newest book,
Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama.
Several prominent professors of history have written
blurbs for the book, which won the Bayard Rustin Book Award from the Tufts
University Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.
But not everyone is impressed.
Since the book’s publication, a blog called the
Cabinet
of Plagiarism has detailed numerous alleged
instances of plagiarism in the book, including text and ideas taken from
information websites and published scholarship. The blog is
moderated by someone using the name Ann Ribidoux, who did not return a
posted request for comment. There is no one on the Arizona State faculty by
that name.
Matthew C. Whitaker Homepage at ASU ---
https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/91993
Bob Jensen's threads on professors who cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize
"Meet Retraction Watch, the Blog That Points
Out the Human Stains on the Scientific Record," by Steve Kolowich,
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 25, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Meet-Retraction-Watch-the/233373/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Most
people would not have been interested in the sins of
Ariel Fernández.
In 2013 someone suggested that Mr. Fernández, an
Argentine scientist, had contributed bad data to a
genomics paper. Two of the
institutions affiliated with Mr. Fernández had
investigated; one had found his data credible, the
other had not. "Interpret the data with due
caution," wrote the editors of BMC Genomics,
the journal that had published the paper two years
earlier, in a note to readers.
The implications of the
note were hard to parse.
What exactly had gone wrong? Could the paper be
trusted, or not? What did "due caution" mean?
Retraction Watch was set
up to answer questions like those. By that time the
thorny little blog had already planted itself in the
side of journal editors and researchers who
preferred that errors in the scientific record be
dealt with discreetly. Its founders, a pair of
veteran science writers, were not just interested in
big-ticket fraud cases; they were determined to
apply scrutiny to scientific screwups of all kinds,
including the obscure ones that tended to slip
through the cracks.
So when BMC Genomics
posted its note, Retraction Watch wanted answers.
"One of Fernández’s three institutions, we don’t
know which, found cause for concern with his
results," wrote Adam Marcus, one of the blog’s
founders, in a
post about the journal’s
note. "Another did not (why only two are referenced
here is a mystery). What, we wonder, did Fernández
have to say about all this?"
He
soon got a response: Take down the post, or I will
sue you.
Retraction Watch later quoted
several emails that its editors said Mr. Fernández
had sent to Mr. Marcus and to editors at BMC
Genomics. The messages
threatened legal action
against the blog and asked the journal to help stop
Retraction Watch from damaging Mr. Fernández’s
reputation. (In an email to The Chronicle,
Mr. Fernández denied writing the messages. "Someone
is using my email address," he said, adding, "I
don’t read blogs.")
In
the messages, Mr. Fernández argued that his paper
should not have been written about on a blog called
Retraction Watch because technically the journal had
issued an "expression of concern," not a retraction.
When Mr. Marcus explained that he had made the
distinction clearly in his post, he received a
reply, in all caps, insisting that his post amounted
to libel.
It
was not the first time a scientist had threatened to
sue Retraction Watch, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Over the last five years, Mr. Marcus and his
partner, Ivan Oransky, have gotten under the skin of
plenty of researchers and journal editors by turning
retraction-spotting into a spectator sport. In the
process they have earned a few enemies — along with
many fans, including a few powerful grantmakers.
Unexpected Influence
Armed now with a bona fide
reputation and $700,000 in foundation funding,
Retraction Watch finds itself in a position of
unexpected influence at a time when scientific
researchers are struggling to maintain their
credibility in the public eye. The past decade has
seen an boom in research-fraud cases, some of which
have made national headlines. A
recent meta-study of 100
psychology papers found that less than half of the
published findings could be replicated. People
looking for excuses to distrust scientists no longer
need to look very hard.
Continued in article
New TAR (The Accounting Review) Retractions Listed in the July 2015 Edition of The Accounting
Review ---
http://aaajournals.org/toc/accr/current
RETRACTIONS
1707 |
|
Partial Retraction: Section IV: Survey in R&D
Capitalization and Reputation-Driven Real Earnings Management
Nicholas
Seybert
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (437 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
1709 |
|
Retraction: Potential Functional and
Dysfunctional Effects of Continuous Monitoring
James E.
Hunton,
Elaine G. Mauldin and
Patrick R. Wheeler
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (377 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
1711 |
|
Retraction: Financial Reporting Transparency and
Earnings Management
James E.
Hunton,
Robert Libby and
CheriL. Mazza
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (358 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
1713 |
|
Retraction: Does the Form of Management’s
Earnings Guidance Affect Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts?
Robert Libby,
Hun-Tong Tan and
James E. Hunton
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (384 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
1715 |
|
Retraction: Capital Market Pressure, Disclosure
Frequency-Induced Earnings/Cash Flow Conflict, and Managerial
Myopia
Sanjeev
Bhojraj and
Robert Libby
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (297 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
1717 |
|
Retraction: An Assessment of the Relation Between
Analysts' Earnings Forecast Accuracy, Motivational Incentives
and Cognitive Information Search Strategy
James E.
Hunton and
Ruth Ann McEwen
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (458 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
New AH (Accounting Horizons) Retractions Listed in the September 2015 Edition of Accounting
Horizons ---
http://aaajournals.org/toc/acch/current
RETRACTIONS
743 |
|
Retraction: The Impact of
Client and Auditor Gender on Auditors' Judgments
Anna Gold,
James E. Hunton and
Mohamed I. Gomaa
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (363 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
745 |
|
Retraction: Does Graduate
Business Education Contribute to Professional Accounting
Success?
Benson Wier,
Dan N. Stone and
James E. Hunton
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (364 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
747 |
|
Retraction: Sampling
Practices of Auditors in Public Accounting, Industy, and
Government
Thomas W. Hall,
James E. Hunton and
Bethane Jo Pierce
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (368 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
749 |
|
Retraction: Is Analyst
Forecast Accuracy Associated With Accounting Information Use?
Ruth Ann McEwen and
James E. Hunton
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (347 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
751 |
|
Retraction: Performance of
Accountants in Private Industry: A Survival Analysis
James E. Hunton and
Benson Weir
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (397 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
|
753 |
|
Retraction: Hierarchical
and Gender Differences in Private Accounting Practice
James E. Hunton,
Presha E. Neidermeyer and
Benson Wier
Citation |
Full Text |
PDF (408 KB) |
Supplemental Material |
Retraction Watch (cheating in research) ---
http://retractionwatch.com
Bob Jensen's threads on professors who cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize
Evernote ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evernote
So what's the future of Evernote as it searches
for an expanded business model?
Evernote, the first dead unicorn ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/evernote-the-first-dead-unicorn-2015-9
"Using Evernote in the Classroom," by Amy Cavender, Chronicle of
Higher Education, October 20, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/using-evernote-in-the-classroom/58347?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
"A Brief Word from an Evernote Convert," by Kathleen Fitzpatrick,
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 6, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/A-Brief-Word-from-an-Evernote/25291/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
"Evernote and Markdown: Two Tools that Work Great Together," by Amy
Cavender, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 10, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/evernote-and-markdown-two-tools-that-work-great-together/58457?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Sometimes, I come across ideas for posts quite by
accident.
Early this afternoon (November 6), for instance, I
was looking at the wiki that we use for scheduling our posts, trying to
figure out my posting schedule for the next few weeks. I was also wondering
whether I’d be able to post something for the week of November 10. We try to
have our posts in by midnight on Thursday of the week before the post runs,
and I was, quite frankly, drawing a blank on post ideas.
I’d pretty much concluded I’d have to put posting
anything off for a week, and I turned to other concerns. I’ve been
frustrated with my writing (or lack thereof) lately, and I’ve been thinking
I need to restart a daily writing practice — something along the lines of
using 750words.com,
but without relying on that service
Readers may recall that I recently wrote about
using Evernote in the classroom.
In that post, I noted that I use Evernote for storing
all kinds of information, not just for keeping track of my class notes.
Since everything in my Evernote account is searchable, it seemed a good
place to start keeping that daily writing.
The catch is that I’ve started doing most of my
writing in Markdown, for a number of reasons. (I won’t go into them here,
but if you’d like some good reasons and a quick introduction to
Markdown, check out
Lincoln’s post
from a few years back.)
So far as I’m aware, Evernote doesn’t handle Markdown natively. Still, I was
sure there had to be a way to get them working together, and that more than
likely some clever person had already figured something out. So off to
Google I went, and I found this:
Evernote for Sublime Text.
I’ve been using
Sublime Text
for most of my writing for some months now. A Sublime
Text package that integrates with my Evernote account is ideal. I can do my
writing in the application and markup language I’ve become most accustomed
to using, and can send daily work to my Evernote account with just a few
keystrokes, and without having to leave Sublime Text. The note shows up in
Evernote formatted in rich text, but I can easily open it (or any other note
in my account) again in Sublime Text to continue editing in Markdown. This
may turn out to be just the tool I was looking for.
It turned out to be a fine post idea, too.
Bob Jensen's threads on Evernote and other
Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
"Rutgers Football Coach Tried to Get a
Player’s Grade Changed. He Got Caught," by Andy Thomason, Chronicle of
Higher Education, September 16, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/rutgers-football-coach-tried-to-get-a-players-grade-changed-he-got-caught/104585?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
. . .
To make matters worse, Mr.
Barnwell and five other players are facing criminal charges for their roles
in a series of alleged home invasions and assaults.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Maybe Rutgers players should concentrate more on invading opponents backfields
as well as their studies.
Over the years this type of thing will become a
bigger and bigger issue as the "denominators" grow for affirmative action
testing
"Indian Enough for Dartmouth?" by Scott
Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, September 16m 2015 ---
Click Here
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/17/indian-activists-raise-questions-about-woman-appointed-lead-native-american-program?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=a9bc92c37b-DNU20150917&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-a9bc92c37b-197565045
Jensen Comment
When I was on the faculty at the University of Maine in the 1970s, the
University of Maine System charged $0 tuition for Native Americans. By then it
was already a problem deciding who was eligible, although there were not great
numbers of applicants. I had a Native American advisee from the Penobscot
Reservation whose family allegedly disowned her because she elected to go to
college. She could no longer live at home even though her family lived less than
five miles from campus.
"Journal Of Legal Education Symposium:
Igniting Law Teaching," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog, September 11,
2015 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/09/journal-of-legal-education-symposium-igniting-law-teaching.html
Conference
Papers,
Igniting Law Teaching, 64 J. Legal Educ. 542-687 (2015) (10-minute TED
Talks
here):
- Jay Gary Finkelstein (Partner, DLA
Piper; Adjunct Professor, American, Georgetown, Stanford & UC-Berkeley),
Practice
in the Academy: Creating "Practice Aware" Law Graduates, 64 J. Legal
Educ. 622 (2015)
- Emmeline Paulette Reeves (Richmond),
Teaching to the Test: The Incorporation of Elements of Bar Exam
Preparation in Legal Education, 64 J. Legal Educ. 645 (2015)
- Jeremiah A. Ho (Massachusetts),
Function, Form, and Strawberries: Subverting Langdell, 64 J. Legal
Educ. 656 (2015)
"Shining a Light on Effective Teaching Best
Practices: Survey Findings from Award-Winning Accounting Educators," by
Donald E. Wygal and David E. Stout, Issues in Accounting Education,
Article Volume 30, Issue 3 (August 2015) ---
http://aaajournals.org/doi/full/10.2308/iace-51038
This is not a free download.
Abstract
This paper provides best practices evidence from a sample of accounting
educators in the U.S. recognized formally for their teaching excellence.
These teaching exemplars were surveyed and asked to list, in their own words
and in ranked order of importance, “a minimum of three and up to five
factors or qualities of your teaching that you believe have helped
distinguish you as an effective teacher.” We received 453 responses to this
question from our sample of 105 award-winning accounting educators. A
content analysis of these responses suggests the following major
characteristics of teaching effectiveness in accounting (in decreasing order
of perceived importance): class session learning environment, student focus,
preparation and organization, importance of the practice environment,
passion and commitment to teaching (as a profession), and the design of the
course learning environment. Response breakdowns suggest the existence of
contextual effects: differences in importance ratings for selected
characteristics of teaching effectiveness were observed with respect to
respondent professorial rank, years of full-time teaching experience, and
gender. Results shine a light on teaching effectiveness in accounting
education providing, for the first time, both evidence of the perceived
relative importance of specific characteristics, as well as insights on
pedagogical knowledge to guide educator classroom pursuits.
Jensen Comment
Most of the findings in this study are motherhood and apple pie, but I found it
interesting to read the respondents' remarks about such things as passion,
delivery skills, classroom management, active learning, empathy, preparation,
etc. Very little reference is given to humor, grading, and easiness
although these seem to be of importance to respondents on RateMyProfessors.com.
It's very hard to be an award-winning teacher with a median class grade below a
B+ at the undergraduate level. Times have changed over the years.
There's nothing in this study about
effectiveness of technology and multimedia other than email. For example, how
does use of videos outside of flipped classes affect teaching evaluations and
learning?
The study is not much help in comparing pedagogy
such as lecturing versus Socratic method and case method teaching.
There's nothing regarding online teaching versus
onsite teaching except an appeal for future research into this topic.
My conclusion is that the study leaves out too
much to be of great interest to me. I get more insights from scanning
RateMyProfessors.com for award-winning treachers ---
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/
"Gaps in Alumni Earnings Stand Out in Release
of College Data," by Kevin Carey, The New York Times, September 13,
2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/upshot/gaps-in-alumni-earnings-stand-out-in-release-of-college-data.html?_r=0
Thank you Elliot Kamlet for the heads up.
Colleges give prospective students very little information about how much
money they can expect to earn in the job market. In part that’s because
colleges may not want people to know, and in part it’s because such
information is difficult and expensive to gather. Colleges are good at
tracking down rich alumni to hit up for donations, but people who make
little or no money are harder and less lucrative to find.
On Saturday, the federal government solved that
problem by
releasing a huge set of new data
detailing the earnings of people who attended nearly
every college and university in America. Although it abandonded efforts to
rate the quality of colleges, the federal government
matched data from
the federal student financial aid system to federal tax returns. The
Department of Education
was thus able to calculate how much money people who
enrolled in individual colleges in 2001 and 2002 were earning 10 years
later.
On
the surface, the trends aren’t surprising — students who enroll in wealthy,
elite colleges earn more than those who do not. But the deeper that you
delve into the data, the more clear it becomes how perilous the higher
education market can be for students making expensive, important choices
that don’t always pay off.
The
national universities producing the top earners are no surprise: Harvard,
M.I.T., Stanford and others that routinely top the annual U.S. News & World
Report college rankings. The most troubling numbers show up far beneath the
upper echelons of higher education. Elite institutions prop up the overall
average earnings of college graduates nationwide. Although earnings of
college graduates continue to outpace those of non-collegians by a
significant margin, at some institutions, the earnings of students 10 years
after enrollment are bleak.
The Department of Education calculated the percentage
of students at each college who earned more than $25,000 per year, which is
about what high school graduates earn. At hundreds of colleges, less than
half of students met this threshold 10 years after enrolling. The list
includes a raft of barber academies, cosmetology schools and
for-profit colleges that often leave
students with few job prospects and mountains of debt.
. . .
At the University of
Cincinnati, a third of low-income students (from households earning less
than $30,000 per year) had failed to pay back any of their student loans
five years after graduation. At the University of Alabama, the number was
roughly a quarter; at Wayne State University in Detroit, over 40 percent. At
the for-profit University of Phoenix, nearly two-thirds of poor students are
in these dire straits.
It will take time for the
raft of new federal earnings data to seep into the complex reputational
ecosystem that continues to govern the higher education market. But this new
bottom line will eventually become a permanent aspect of how colleges of all
kinds are understood.
Continued in article
"With Website to Research Colleges, Obama Abandons Ranking System," by
Michael D. Shear, The New York Times, September 12, 2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/us/with-website-to-research-colleges-obama-abandons-ranking-system.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
President Obama on
Saturday abandoned his two-year effort to have the government create a
system that explicitly rates the quality of the nation’s colleges and
universities, a plan that was
bitterly opposed by presidents
at many of those institutions.
Under the original idea,
announced by Mr. Obama with fanfare in 2013,
all of the nation’s 7,000 institutions of higher education would have been
assigned a ranking by the government, with the aim of publicly shaming
low-rated schools that saddle students with high debt and poor earning
potential.
. . .
They said the new scorecard — which can be found at
collegescorecard.ed.gov
— will allow students and parents to compare schools
based on measurements that are important to them. Using the website, for
example, a student might search for schools with average annual costs of
under $10,000, a graduation rate higher than 75 percent and average salaries
after graduation of more than $50,000 per year.
The data is based on students who have received a
federal loan or grant to attend college, but officials said their economists
believe it is representative of all students. And they said the new
government data offers critical information that is not available elsewhere,
a point underscored on Saturday as researchers began mining the data for
trends. In
a Twitter post, one
writer called it an “amazing new treasure trove” of education data.
“You’ll be able to see how much each school’s
graduates earn, how much debt they graduate with, and what percentage of a
school’s students can pay back their loan,” Mr. Obama
said in his weekly address.
Administration officials said the data that powers the
scorecard was also being freely shared with companies and other
organizations that already offer online college search tools. White House
officials said three such sites —
ScholarMatch,
StartClass and
College Abacus — already
have begun using the data to enhance the information they provide.
Officials said they hoped the information would help students avoid making
poor choices when deciding where to attend college.
“The new way of assessing college choices, with the help of technology and
open data, makes it possible for anyone — a student, a school, a policy
maker or a researcher — to decide what factors to evaluate,” the White House
fact sheet said.
"White
House Unveils College Scorecard That Replaces Its Scuttled Ratings Plan," by
Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 12, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/White-House-Unveils-College/233073/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
"The New College Scorecard," by
Michael Stratford, Inside Higher Ed, September 14, 5015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/14/obama-administration-publishes-new-college-earnings-loan-repayment-data?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=ec84d1f219-DNU20150914&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-ec84d1f219-197565045
What is a “honorary chancellor?”
"Hillary’s For-Profit Education: The company that paid Bill doesn’t do
well on the Obama scorecard," The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillarys-for-profit-education-1442273388?mod=djemMER
Consider Laureate
International Universities, based in Baltimore. According to Bill and
Hillary’s tax records, Laureate paid
Bill $16.5 million to serve as its “honorary chancellor” from April 2010
to April 2015. Laureate has also
donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation. It
was probably no coincidence that Mr. Clinton dropped off Laureate’s
payroll when his wife began running for President.
Laureate operates more
than 80 colleges world-wide—most in developing countries—and five are
located in the U.S. This allows investors to skirt the White House’s
“gainful employment” regulation because schools that don’t draw federal
aid don’t have to disclose their students’ median debt and job placement
rates.
While such for-profits
as Corinthian, ITT Tech and Education Management Corporation have drawn
government scrutiny, Laureate seems to have avoided political attention.
However, it performs no better than other profit-making schools on the
Obama scorecard.
Continued in article
Theory is Not Practice: Do the majority of downtown library patrons
mainly play video games,seek shelter, hang out, have sex, and use the toilets?
"Police officials say downtown library branch is draining resources,
'culture change' needed," by Roseann Moring, World Herald, September
17. 2015---
http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/police-officials-say-downtown-library-branch-is-draining-resources-culture/article_5e9424d8-5cdb-11e5-a6c3-87784c9c1c52.html
Frequent disturbances, rowdy behavior and even
reports of sex in the stairwell spurred Omaha police to ask library officials
Wednesday to clean up the downtown library.
Police Chief Todd Schmaderer and Capt. Katherine
Belcastro-Gonzalez told the Omaha Public Library Board that the branch is
draining police resources.
Several board members agreed that there is a problem
at the W. Dale Clark Library and two said they have felt intimidated by people
at the location.
The board took no formal action but asked staffers to
work with police to make a plan to fix the problems.
In the past year or so, Belcastro-Gonzalez said, the
Police Department has received about 200 calls to the main branch at 215 S. 15th
St. If every business did that, she said, “our police resources would be
exhausted.”
Police officials said the problem appears to be
groups of people — some of them homeless — who congregate in and around the
library and cause frequent disturbances.
The officials said much of the problem would be
solved if library staff better enforced the institution’s policies and rules. “I
believe there needs to be a culture change,” Belcastro-Gonzalez said.
Belcastro-Gonzalez cited two instances in which she
said someone caused a disruption but was allowed back into the library. One was
a sex offender who made an inappropriate comment about a child. The other was a
person accused of theft.
She asked the board to enact a policy that would
allow library officials to turn over footage from security cameras to police
without requiring a subpoena. She also suggested searching patrons’ bags to make
sure they don’t have weapons or open containers of alcohol.
The board also discussed the possibility of
installing metal detectors.
Library staffers said they’ve been working with other
entities to make the library less of a congregation point for disruptive people.
Library staff would like to see a nearby bus stop moved down the block, and for
the Open Door Mission stop dropping people off across the street at the Gene
Leahy Mall.
Continued in article
"An Academic Reputation at Risk: The U.
of Oregon’s big brand masks its fragile standing," by Jack Stripling,
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 14, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/An-Academic-Reputation-at-Risk/233049/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
. . .
What
has been more difficult, however, is for Oregon to
remain competitive with the top-tier research
universities that it has for decades described as
its peers. Save a few marquee programs, Oregon often
fails now to measure up to higher education’s heavy
hitters, which bring in more federal grants, produce
more doctoral degrees, and boast higher graduation
rates.
Oregon
falls behind for some good reasons, most notably its
relatively modest array of academic programs.
Without cash cows like engineering, medicine, and
pharmacy, Oregon cannot expect to generate the kind
of research dollars that the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor or the University of Washington might.
But
few question that something must change here. After
decades building an identity around a vibrant and
alluring undergraduate experience, Oregon now
wrestles with the sober reality that it must either
elevate its academic standing or risk sliding
further down the prestige ladder.
In recent years, the
university has been known for all of the wrong
things. Professors and administrators have been at
frequent loggerheads, arguing over the
outsize role of athletics
at the university and the thorny issue of campus
sexual assault. Many
leaders have come and gone into the Oregon
maelstrom, where five presidents, including two
interim chiefs, have served in the past six years.
Jensen Comment
Although Oregon has a College of Business that business college has never been a
"heavy hitter" in any business school rankings or doctoral programs. In
accounting for example Oregon averages less than one Ph.D. graduate per year
according to the Hasselback Directory.
Garth Saloner, Dean of Stanford's Graduate
School of Business, Resigns in Less Than Honorable Circumstances
And a Business Professor is Terminated Allegedly Due to Too Many Leaves of
Absence
"Stanford Dean Resigns Amid Suit Over Relationship," Inside Higher Ed,
September 15, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/09/15/stanford-dean-resigns-amid-suit-over-relationship?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=7cf63226ff-DNU20150915&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-7cf63226ff-197565045
"Texas State University System Promotes Free Frosh (MOOC) Year,"
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 11, 2015 ---
Click Here
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/09/11/texas-state-promotes-free-frosh-mooc-year?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=40333d85eb-DNU20150911&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-40333d85eb-197565045
The Texas State University System on Thursday
announced a
"Freshman Year for Free" program in which students
could earn a full year of credit through massive open online courses offered
by edX and coordinated by a new nonprofit called the
Modern States Education
Alliance. The only costs to students would be
either Advanced Placement or College Level Examination Program tests, which
would be passed after completing various MOOCs. Appropriate scores would be
required on the tests to receive credit from Texas State campuses.
Jensen Comment
One unmentioned concern is transferability of these credits to other colleges
and universities such as nonprofit colleges and out-of-state universities.
Times are changing with respect to transferability of distance education,
including MOOC credits, but we are not yet all in synch.
By definition learning on MOOCs is free. However, most MOOCs charge fees for
certificates and college credits. This Texas MOOC program is similar in this
regard.
One reason MOOCs are generally advanced courses is that MOOCs do not work as
well on introductory courses where students are more diverse in terms of
scholastic aptitude and motivation. Introductory students typically require more
personal attention either online or onsite. For example, an online distance
education course with 20 students can and generally does have intense daily
email communications between teachers and students. MOOCs are generally enormous
in size with little or no private communications between teachers and students.
Bob Jensen's threads on thousands of free MOOCs that are mostly advanced
courses for motivated scholars available from prestigious universities in the
Ivy League (especially MIT and Wharton), Stanford, Rice, etc. ---
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
ob Jensen's threads on thousands of free MOOCs that are mostly advanced
courses for motivated scholars available from prestigious universities in the
Ivy League (especially MIT and Wharton), Stanford, Rice, etc. ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on September 9,
2055
Macy’s to close dozens of stores
http://www.wsj.com/articles/consumer-electronics-returns-to-macys-stores-under-best-buy-partnership-1441731349?mod=djemCFO_h
Macy’s Inc.
plans to close 35 to 40 stores, or about 5% of its existing fleet, as it
reacts to changing shopper habits (read that Amazon) and fends off an
activist investor who has pressured it to unlock value from its real estate.
Starboard Value LP said in July that it
had accumulated a stake in the retailer and was
pushing it to spin off key properties.
U.S. News College Compass Details of 1,800 Colleges and
Universities ($29.95 Annual Database Subscription Fee) ---
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/store/college_compass.htm
Jensen Comment
Much of this data is available for free at each Website, but it's harder to find
and match with a student's profile that is this U.S. News consolidated
database. The database appears to be of limited use for comparing academic
discipline, although U.S. News has other sites (most of them free) for such
purposes. For example if you want comparisons (rankings) on selected disciplines
go to
http://www.usnews.com/education
College and University Rankings (free)
---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings
For distance education program
information go to
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Introductory Dilbert Cartoon ---
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-09-11
"Peter Thiel Explains Biotech Investing
Rationale: Get Rid of Randomness," by Antonio Regalado, MIT's Technology
Review, September 12, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541226/peter-thiel-explains-biotech-investing-rationale-get-rid-of-randomness/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150914
. . .
How do you know what an
early stage biotech company is actually worth?
There is disturbingly little
intuition into what biotech companies are worth. If you are able to produce
a drug that cures some sizeable disease for which there is no cure at all,
that is worth billions, or tens of billions of dollars. And if you don’t
succeed it’s worth nothing.
You have to get through
basic research, preclinical, Phase I, II, and III, and then marketing. So
approaching it analytically, the question is how do you discount [the risk
of failure at each step]. If you do half on each step, and there are six
steps, that’s 2 to the 6th, or 64. So something worth a billion at the end
means you start at [a value of] $16 million.
The thing I don’t
like about this as an investor is that the numbers are totally arbitrary.
They are just made-up numbers.
And our feeling with many biotechs is that people understate these
probabilities. They say it’s half, but maybe it’s just one in 10. And if
even if just one of these steps is one in 10, you are really screwed. I
would be very nervous to invest in a company where it gets pitched as a
series of contingencies that “this has to work, and this has to work, and
this has to work.”
So is Stemcentrx doing it
differently?
The question is, can you
change those probabilities into different numbers? The reason we invested in
Stemcentrx at a valuation that would have been higher than many other
biotechs we looked at is that we felt the whole company was designed to get
these probabilities as close to one as possible at every step, to get rid of
as much of this randomness or contingency as possible. That is something
that we found deeply reassuring.
. . .
The Winner's Curse: Business Firm Valuation Errors by the Pros
Large-scale mergers often plague the "winning"
bidder with what academics call the "Winner's Curse." The winner's curse takes
place when a bidder does indeed win the object for which he or she was bidding,
but the value of that object turns out to be less than what was bid for it.
What's a recipe for a winner's curse in an M&A situation? Take one part highly
visible transaction for a highly motivated, deep-pocketed acquirer.
"Kraft, Cadbury, and Hershey: A Not-So-Sweet Deal," by Rita McGrath, Harvard
Business Review, November 19, 2009 ---
Click Here
Large-scale mergers often
plague the "winning" bidder with what academics call the "Winner's
Curse." The winner's curse takes place when a
bidder does indeed win the object for which he or she was bidding, but the value
of that object turns out to be less than what was bid for it. What's a recipe
for a winner's curse in an M&A situation? Take one part highly visible
transaction for a highly motivated, deep-pocketed acquirer. Add a bit of
reluctant bride (or outright naysaying bride) on the part of the target firm.
Add a potential white knight, preferably one that is despised by the original
bidder. Throw in a couple (or more) hard-charging CEOs who view the deal as
crucial to their company's good fortunes (or to their own reputations — either
will do). Finally, entrust the whole mixture to a bunch of sophisticated deal
packagers on Wall Street. Then, make it front-page news on the publications that
"everybody" reads.
The announcement on
Tuesday morning that chocolate maker Hershey (with a possible assist from
Italy's Ferrero) might make a counter-offer to the deal broached by Kraft Foods
for the United Kingdom's beloved Cadbury has exactly this flavor to it.
According to the
Wall Street Journal, Kraft Foods of
Northfield, IL, formally offered to purchase Cadbury for about $16 billion on
November 9, after publicly making its intentions known in September. Cadbury
rejected the initial offer, reports the Journal, as "derisory." But with no
other bidders on the horizon at the time that Kraft was required by the UK to
make its proposal official or to abandon the deal, it didn't increase the bid,
commenting that the offer is "fair and attractive." If Hershey successfully
figures out how to get in the game with a superior offer (and its bankers seem
quite keen on enabling them to do that), a bidding war of attrition could well
break out, as both sides seek to gain the upper hand. In such situations,
emotions run high, spreadsheets are more often used to justify decisions than to
inform them, and the individuals involved tend to get personal.
Something similar (with 3
bidders and a fourth who was enabling it) took place with Boston Scientific's
recent acquisition of Guidant, a merger that was dubbed by Fortune magazine to
be the "second
worst deal ever" right behind the AOL-Time Warner
merger (which is being unwound even as I write this). The stage for that merger
was set when Guidant, a spinoff from Eli Lilly, was entering its tenth year of
major success. Without much of a succession plan and a failed attempt to lure a
new CEO from GE, the company was a perfect target, with a market cap of about
$20 billion. Johnson & Johnson, in 2004, offered to buy the company for
$68/share and, much as Kraft was snubbed by Cadbury, was turned down.
Eventually, J&J was persuaded to increase its offer to $76/share, or $25.4
billion. In March of 2005, a patient equipped with a Guidant pacemaker died and
a public furor broke out when it was revealed that the company had known about
the flaw in the pacemaker for three years, but had not informed doctors about
it.
What happens? First, the
stock tanks, dropping to the mid-$50 range by 2005, amid a recall of over
290,000 devices. J&J's CEO Bill Weldon drops his offer by $6 billion to
$58/share. Guidant rejects that offer. Weldon eventually goes a little higher,
to $63/share, an offer which Guidant, seeing no other bidder, grudgingly
accepts. In November of 2005, however, a new player emerges on the scene —
Boston Scientific. They leverage a deal with a third party (Abbott Labs) to make
a $72/share offer. Guidant, smelling opportunity, uses the presence of two eager
bidders to ignite a bidding war. On January 11, 2006, J&J goes to $68/share —
and even though it's $4 under Boston's bid, Guidant sticks with J&J. Provoked,
Boston bids $73 on January 12. J&J comes back with $71. On January 17, Boston
Scientific makes a "bid to end this" of $80/share, a total of $27 billion. To
his credit, J&J's Weldon says that they "won't chase this deal to a price that
doesn't make sense for the company" and J&J makes no further offer.
The acquisition of
Guidant is widely regarded as a winners' curse situation for Boston Scientific;
yes, they won the prize, but their stock has shown a steady downward trend since
the time of the
merger and they bought a host of quality and
other problems along with the high-flying group.
Smells a bit like the
Hershey-Cadbury-Ferrero-Kraft recipe, no? What do you think? Is this another war
of attrition in the making? It certainly has all the necessary ingredients.
Bob Jensen's Threads on Return on Business
Valuation, Business Combinations, Investment (ROI), and Pro Forma Financial
Reporting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm
"Home Energy Storage Enters a New
Era," by Richard Martin, MIT's Technology Review, September 17, 2015
---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541336/home-energy-storage-enters-a-new-era/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150917
Jensen Comment
This emerging technology must be scaring the beejeebers out of power companies.
The real problem is that lithium reserves
are limited in terms of emerging huge demand spikes combined with increasing
dependence on foreign suppliers. It's ironic that just when the USA became self
sufficient in carbon-based energy resources it's becoming increasingly dependent
upon just a few countries for energy resources outside of carbon fuels ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Production
And why are we spending billions in towers
and underground lines to bring Quebec hydro power into Connecticut,
Massachusetts, and New York if there will be no need for power companies in the
future?
"Justice Department Sets Sights on Wall Street Executives," by Matt
Apuzzo and Ben Protess, The New York Times, September 9, 2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/us/politics/new-justice-dept-rules-aimed-at-prosecuting-corporate-executives.html?_r=0
. . .
Under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the
Justice Department faced repeated criticism from Congress and consumer
advocates that it treated corporate executives leniently. After the 2008
financial crisis, no top Wall Street executives went to prison, highlighting
a disparity in how prosecutors treat corporate leaders and typical
criminals. Although prosecutors did collect billions of dollars in fines
from big banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, critics dismissed those
cases as hollow victories.
Justice Department officials have defended their
record fighting corporate crime, saying that it can be nearly impossible to
charge top executives who insulate themselves from direct involvement in
wrongdoing. Ms. Yates’s memo acknowledges “substantial challenges unique to
pursuing individuals for corporate misdeeds,” but it says that the
difficulty in targeting high-level officials is precisely why the Justice
Department needs a stronger plan for investigating them.
The new rules take effect immediately, but they are
not likely to apply to investigations that are far along, such as one into
General Motors over defects. Prosecutors in New York are struggling to
charge company employees over problems linked to the deaths of more than 100
people, partly because the laws governing car companies require that
prosecutors show that the employees intended to break the law, a higher
standard than in other industries like pharmaceuticals and food.
Ms. Yates, a career prosecutor, has established
herself in the first months of her tenure as the department’s most vocal
advocate for tackling white-collar crime. She foreshadowed plans for the new
policy in a February speech to state attorneys general, in which she
declared that “even imposing unprecedented financial penalties on the
institutions whose conduct led to the financial crisis is not a substitute
for holding individuals within those institutions personally accountable.”
A criminal case last year against BNP Paribas,
France’s biggest bank, demonstrated the gap between charging a bank and its
employees. Even as officials extracted a record $8.9 billion penalty and
made the company one of the first giant banks to plead guilty to a crime, no
BNP employees faced charges. The Justice Department said the bank insulated
its employees by withholding records until after a deadline had passed to
file individual charges.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
This is easier said than done given the power and money of corporate executives.
"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
"Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail: How HSBC
hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it," by
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, February 14, 2013 ---
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214
Question How profitable is insider trading?
Answer Insanely profitable ---
http://fortune.com/2014/10/20/insider-trading-profits/
Bob Jensen's threads on white collar crime leniency and how prison sentences
are so light that executive crime is good business ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays
"U. of Georgia Bets
$4.4 Million That Small Classes Can Bolster Learning," by Dan Barrett,
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 8, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-Georgia-Bets-44/232889/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The University of Georgia,
seeking to improve the classroom experience of its
undergraduates, has begun a faculty hiring spree to
reduce enrollments in hundreds of courses.
The university will hire 56
full-time, teaching-focused lecturers and professors
over this academic year. It is one of several recent
efforts at the research-focused institution to
improve its educational environment. Others include
the creation of a series of
freshman seminars and the
requirement that incoming students
participate in a hands-on learning experience.
"It’s a piece in a larger
puzzle," said Rahul Shrivastav, vice president for
instruction.
The addition of
instructional faculty represents only a 3-percent
increase to the university’s full-time teaching
staff, but it is notable for its focus. Other
institutions have announced large, multiyear
hiring campaigns
in recent years, but they typically aim to
bolster research capacity.
In cutting down class
sizes, Georgia took a strategic approach, Mr.
Shrivastav said. Administrators examined data to
find the courses that students most frequently
dropped out of, withdrew from, and failed.
Consulting with deans and department heads, the
academic leaders further zeroed in on courses with
the worst bottlenecks that stymied student progress.
A slate emerged of 319
courses across 81 majors, including introductory
courses in business, chemistry, mathematics, and
political science. "There could have been 100 more,"
Mr. Shrivastav said.
Students this semester are
enrolled in 120 new, smaller sections of nine
courses. Some sections, like "Legal and Regulatory
Environment of Business," were halved, going from
140 to about 70. Others experienced comparatively
modest trims, like "Calculus I for Science and
Engineering," from an average of 39 students to 29.
Most of the new sections across departments now have
between 23 and 30 students.
There was no ideal
class-size target, just the governing principle that
smaller is better. The goal, Mr. Shrivastav said,
was, "Let’s try for really small courses where it
will be a more personalized, more interactive
experience."
Size or Quality?
Evidence about the
importance of class size to educational quality is
ambiguous, and sometimes even contradictory.
Joseph B. Cuseo, a
professor emeritus of psychology at Marymount
California University, has argued that
smaller is better.
Students in classes of 46 or more tended to exhibit
shallower levels of thought compared with those in
smaller courses, especially classes with 15 or
fewer, he wrote in a synthesis of previous research.
Continued in article
"California's school test scores reveal gaping
racial achievement gap," by Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News,
September 9, 2015 ---
http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_28782503/califs-test-scores-reveal-yawning-achievement-gap
The first results of a new test on
student performance in California schools revealed a majority of students
failed to meet state standards in math and English -- with a stark racial
achievement gap despite decades of efforts to close it.
Of more than 3.1 million public school
students tested in English statewide, only 44 percent met or exceeded
standards; in math, only 33 percent met that threshold, according to the
state Department of Education, which released the new scores. Scores at Bay
Area schools generally mirrored the statewide results, as performance
correlated with family and community wealth, language ability and ethnicity.
Continued in article
Artificial Intelligence ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
OKay Class, Start Your Engines
"IBM Wants Watson to Teach Robots Some Social Skills," by Will Knight,
MIT's Technology Review, September 24, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541691/ibm-wants-watson-to-teach-robots-some-social-skills/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150925
Robots Serving Healthy, Cheap Fast Food At This
New San Francisco Restaurant ---
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/08/31/robots-serving-healthy-cheap-fast-food-at-new-san-francisco-restaurant/
"Deep Learning Machine Teaches Itself Chess
in 72 Hours, Plays at International Master Level," MIT's Technology
Review, September 14, 2015 ---
Click
Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541276/deep-learning-machine-teaches-itself-chess-in-72-hours-plays-at-international-master/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150915
In a world first, an
artificial intelligence machine plays chess by evaluating the board rather
than using brute force to work out every possible move.
MIT:
MIT: Seven Must-Read Stories (Week
ending September 19, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541436/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-september-19-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150921
MIT: Recommended from Around the Web (Week
ending September 19, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541376/recommended-from-around-the-web-week-ending-september-19-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150921
MIT: Recommended from Around the Web (Week ending September 12, 2015)
---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541016/recommended-from-around-the-web-week-ending-september-12-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150911
MIT:
Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending September 12, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541026/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-september-12-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-business&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150918
MIT: Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending September 5, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541021/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-september-5-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-business&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150911
Colvin, G. 2015. Humans Are Underrated: What
High Achievers Know that Brilliant Machines Never Will. Portfolio/Penguin.
Thanks to Jim Martin for the heads up on MAAW's Blog ---
http://maaw.blogspot.com/2015/09/humans-are-underrated.html
Geoff Colvin provides a
summary of this book in the August 2015 issue of Fortune. What he describes
should be of interest to everyone, and it is particularly relevant to young
people who aspire to become the leaders of the future.
Colvin, G. 2015. Humans are
underrated:
As technology keeps wiping out jobs, here are the skills you need to thrive
in the workplace. They're probably not what you think. Fortune (August):
100-113.
Colvin includes a self-test
to determine what you are worth in the coming economy and argues that as
technology advances, the economy increasingly values the most deeply human
interpersonal abilities including empathy, social sensitivity,
collaboration, storytelling, leading, and relationship building.
He also points out that
women are better at many of these increasingly valuable skills than men are.
Women score higher on test of empathy and social sensitivity than men. Some
research shows that groups consisting entirely of women are more effective
than groups that include even one man.
Continued in article
Robots Serving Healthy, Cheap Fast Food At
This New San Francisco Restaurant ---
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/08/31/robots-serving-healthy-cheap-fast-food-at-new-san-francisco-restaurant/
There’s no one at this new San Francisco vegetarian
restaurant to take your lunch order or tell you when its ready.
Instead, you’ll depend on machines for a fully
automated dining experience straight out of an episode of The Jetsons.
Welcome to Eatsa, a new futuristic fast food chain
opening Monday in the Embarcadero (121 Spear Street) offering quick, healthy
food for about $7 — a deal compared to other lunch time options in San
Francisco.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
I predict that one day it will come down to two types of restaurants --- Hooters
versus Robots
In a more serious light, humans that got the
jump on robots will probably always stay ahead of robots, thereby making robots
henceforth their gifted servants. That is not to say that there are not millions
of tasks that robots will do better than servants --- including playing chess
and contract bridge as well as preparing and analyzing financial statements.
Robots are already driving about the surface of Mars in our quest for seeking
better places for the future of mankind.
Ten States Burning the Most Coal ---
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/09/14/10-states-burning-the-most-coal/2/
Jensen Comment
It would be better to rank the states in terms of dependency on coal both
directly and indirectly. For example, some states like California and Vermont
now outsource much of there energy needs to the outside power grid that's being
fed elsewhere by power plants in other states or in Canada, especially Quebec.
Is a state really being green just because it relies on the grid for power
rather than having coal and gas plants within the state?
From the Scout Report on September 11,
2015
Instapaper ---
https://www.instapaper.com/
The advantage of
Instapaper, one of a number of read-later solutions currently available on
the market, is that it is designed to be read. The visual field is
streamlined and text-based. There are no frills, ads, or distractions. So,
for readers who want a system to store articles for later reading, and who
don't want the complications of some of the other read-later options,
Instapaper is a good find. It is also free. Sign up requires no more than an
email and password. Next, readers will receive an email with links to
download a browser extension for either Google Chrome or Safari, as well as
links to download the free app for iOS or Android devices. From there,
simply tap a button to save articles and then read later.
Bing Translator ---
http://www.bing.com/translator/
Microsoft's online Bing
translator is free, easy, and getting better all the time. The service
translates between 57 languages, including two varieties of Klingon (for the
truly obsessed Trekkies out there), Yucatec Maya, and the more commonly used
languages like Spanish, French, Russian, English, or Portuguese. To
translate simply copy and paste a text into the left hand box. For instance,
pasting the French phrase "Cette dame paie pour tout" into the text box
returns the English translation "This lady pays for everything." One might
also like to have that phrase in Arabic, Russian, or Hmong Daw, and all of
this can be accomplished simply by changing the target language in the text
box on the right. While debates have long continued on whether Bing
Translator or Google Translates works better, most experts agree that the
two are more or less equivalent. Readers might like to try both and simply
see which one they like better.
Will the Discovery of 'Super-henge' Change
the Way We Think About the World's Most Popular Neolithic Monument?
Move over, Stonehenge: Scientists just found a 'superhenge' next door
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/08/move-over-stonehenge-scientists-just-found-a-superhenge-next-door/
Will we ever actually get to see the 5,000-year-old Superhenge?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2015/sep/07/superhenge-standing-stones-near-stonehenge
Romancing the Stones
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/21/romancing-the-stones
Before Stonehenge
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/08/neolithic-orkney/smith-text
The Neolithic Revolution
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/prehistoric-art/neolithic-art/a/the-neolithic-revolution
Neolithic Period of Prehistoric Art
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/hi_prehis6.htm
How to Mislead
With Statistics
The Gun Control Leaning Media Would Have Us Believe the USA Murder Rate is
Soaring When in Fact It's Not Soaring (albeit highly variable by city)
"Scare Headlines Exaggerated The U.S. Crime Wave: A full list of the top 60
cities gives a more nuanced picture." by Carl Bialik, Nate's Silver's
5:38 Blog, September 11, 2015 ---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/scare-headlines-exaggerated-the-u-s-crime-wave/
From the Scout Report on September 18, 2015
draw.io ---https://www.draw.io
For readers who would like a basic, very
easy-to-use online diagram application, draw.io could be the answer. The
service utilizes simple drag-and-drop techniques to arrange images for
non-professional users. First select a system to which you will save your
diagrams (possibilities include Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, your
computer, and your browser). Then select Create new diagram. From there,
select images from the dozen or so categories on the left hand side of the
screen and drag them to the workspace, where you can change their color,
increase or decrease line widths, and generally edit the style to suit your
needs. There is also a helpful Quick start video that readers can watch to
help them understand the program. The application is free and does not
require a sign up or any other commitment.
Google Hangouts ---
https://plus.google.com/hangouts
Google Hangouts was launched in 2013 to bring
together several similar but technologically distinct messaging and
communication platforms. While the service has faced some criticism
(especially concerning privacy issues), it features useful capabilities.
Hangouts can be used for video or chat conversations between up to ten
people at a time, which is a significant improvement over other free video
and chat services. In addition, the platform can be used across devices, so
whatever chat conversations users perform on their computers will transfer
to their other devices, and vice versa. Users must subscribe to a free
Google account to use Hangouts, or download a free app to use on Android or
iOS devices.
What Can Birds Tell Us About Love?
New study asks why birds fall in love
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/14/new-study-asks-why-birds-fall-in-love/
Birds Fall in Love Too, Speed Dating Experiment Shows
http://news.discovery.com/animals/birds-fall-in-love-too-speed-dating-experiment-shows-150914.htm
Fitness Benefits of Mate Choice for Compatibility in a Socially Monogamous
Species
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002248
Discovering the Secrets of Long-Term Love
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/discovering-secrets-long-term-love/
The Gottman Relationship Blog
http://www.gottmanblog.com/archives/
Journal of Marriage and Family
https://www.ncfr.org/jmf
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
Authentic Assessment Toolbox (critical thinking assessments) ---
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/index.htm
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Tech Rocket (introductory coding and app development) ---
https://www.techrocket.com/
CS For All: Introduction to Computer Science and Python Programming ---
https://www.edx.org/course/cs-all-introduction-computer-science-harveymuddx-cs005x
Code.org (computer science education and learning) ---
http://code.org/
Free Computer Tutorials at GCFLearnFree ---
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computers
From Google: Made with Code ---
https://www.madewithcode.com/
National Education Association: Teaching with
Maps ---
http://www.nea.org/tools/teaching-with-maps.html
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Penguin Books: Teacher Guides ---
http://www.penguin.com/services-shared/teachersguides/
Get Graphic: The World in Words and Pictures ---
http://www.getgraphic.org/teachers.php
Codecademy School Computer Science Curriculum
---
https://www.codecademy.com/schools/curriculum/resources#1
Free Code Camp ---
http://www.freecodecamp.com/
Institute of Physics: Education ---
http://www.iop.org/education/index.html
Typing Lessons ---
https://www.typing.com/student/start
Answers (to nontrivial trivia) ---
http://www.answers.com/
Good conversation starters
Lifehacker (such as how to pack a suitcase) ---
http://lifehacker.com/
Barking Up The Wrong Tree (self help health and leadership guides, not
financial banking) ---
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/
Adequacy, Litigation, and Student Achievement (adequacy litigation financing
and achievement performance) ---
http://www.oercommons.org/courses/adequacy-litigation-and-student-achievement/view
Bob Jensen's bookmarks for multiple disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
RAND: Academic Achievement ---
http://www.rand.org/topics/academic-achievement.html
National Science Foundation: Chemistry Now ---
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/chemistrynow/
Institute of Physics: Education ---
http://www.iop.org/education/index.html .
Physics Girl ---
http://physicsgirl.org/
IUCN: Multimedia (environment and energy) ---
http://www.iucn.org/knowledge/multimedia/
Bob Jensen's threads on free online science,
engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Difference Between (about variations in science,
economics, politics, etc.) ---
http://www.differencebetween.net/
The HistoryMakers (African Americans) ---
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/
The Center for Genomic Gastronomy ---
http://genomicgastronomy.com/
A giant ocean observatory has captured thousands of hours of video revealing
some crazy natural phenomena ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/about-the-oceanic-neptune-project-2015-9
The apocalypse is still
on, apparently — at least in a galaxy about 3.5 billion light-years from here.
Last winter, a team of Caltech astronomers reported that two supermassive black
holes appeared to be spiraling together toward a cataclysmic collision that
could bring down the curtains in that galaxy. The evidence was a rhythmic
flickering from the galaxy’s nucleus, a quasar known as PG 1302-102, which
Matthew Graham and his colleagues interpreted as the fatal mating dance of a
pair of black holes with a total mass of more than a billion suns. Their merger,
the astronomers calculated, could release...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/space/more-evidence-for-coming-black-hole-collision.html?action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=1&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&gwh=
Jensen Comment
Makes climate change on the planet Earth seem rather insignificant in astronomy.
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Social Science and Economics Tutorials
RAND: Academic Achievement ---
http://www.rand.org/topics/academic-achievement.html
Macro and Other Market Musings (conservative
economics blog) ---
http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.pt
NCDD Resource Center (innovation in politics and
conflict resolurion) ---
http://ncdd.org/rc/
A.J. Jacobs (books, articles, and TED talk on
our changing times) ---
http://ajjacobs.com/
Difference Between (about variations in science,
economics, politics, etc.) ---
http://www.differencebetween.net/
Understanding September 11 ---
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/collection/understanding-september-11
How Sybil Turned Multiple Personality Disorder
into a Psychological Phenomenon in America
---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/how-sybil-turned-multiple-personality-disorder-into-a-psychological-phenomenon-in-america.html
The HistoryMakers (African Americans) ---
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/
Barking Up The Wrong Tree (self help health and leadership guides, not
financial banking) ---
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and
Philosophy tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Law and Legal Studies
Adequacy, Litigation, and Student Achievement (adequacy litigation financing
and achievement performance) ---
http://www.oercommons.org/courses/adequacy-litigation-and-student-achievement/view
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Math Tutorials
John Heeley's Masterclass (mathematics in seven
short videos)---
http://archive.teachfind.com/ttv/www.teachers.tv/series/jonny-heeleys-masterclass.html
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
History Tutorials
Maps Are Territories (cross-cultural study of
history and philosophy) ---
http://territories.indigenousknowledge.org/
History As Big Data: 500 Years Of Book Images
And Mapping Millions Of Books ---
http://lisnews.org/history_as_big_data_500_years_of_book_images_and_mapping_millions_of_books
"Below Ground Zero," by John Ward, by John Ward,
The Rivard Report, September 9, 2015 ---
http://www.therivardreport.com/below-ground-zero/ The HistoryMakers
(African Americans) ---
http://www.thehistorymakers.com/
47 Animated Videos Explain the History of Ideas:
From Aristotle to Sartre ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/47-animated-videos-explain-the-history-of-ideas-from-aristotle-to-sartre.html
A British farmer is auctioning off his £2
million collection of 230 vintage tractors ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/british-farmer-auctioning-collection-of-230-tractors-2015-9
Columbia U. Launches a Free Multimedia Glossary
for Studying Cinema & Filmmaking ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/columbia-u-launches-a-free-multimedia-glossary-for-studying-cinema-filmmaking.html
2 coders used old photographs to make a mesmerizing Google Street View map of
San Francisco in the 1800s ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/old-san-francisco-photos-turned-into-google-street-view-map-2015-9
Classics Stories by Edgar Allan Poe Narrated by
James Mason in a 1953 Oscar-Nominated Animation & 1958 Decca Album ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/classics-stories-by-edgar-allan-poe-narrated-by-james-mason-in-a-1953-oscar-nominated-animation-1958-decca-album.html
Thomas Edison’s Recordings of Leo Tolstoy: Hear
the Voice of Russia’s Greatest Novelist ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/hear-thomas-edisons-recordings-of-leo-tolstoy.html
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Galleries ---
http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/museum-map/galleries
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: (MoMa) In Circulation
http://www.metmuseum.org/research/libraries-and-study-centers/in-circulation
MHS Museum: Online Collections (Montana) ---
http://mhsmuseum.pastperfectonline.com/
100,000+ Wonderful Pieces of Theater Ephemera Digitized by
The New York Public Library ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/100000-wonderful-pieces-of-theater-ephemera-digitized-by-the-new-york-public-library.html
Nelson Mandela Foundation ---
https://www.nelsonmandela.org/
18-Year-Old James Joyce Writes a Fan Letter to His Hero Henrik Ibsen (1901)
---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/18-year-old-james-joyce-writes-a-fan-letter-to-his-hero-henrik-ibsen-1901.html
A Wealth of Free Documentaries on All Things
Japanese: From Bento Boxes to Tea Gardens, Ramen & Bullet Trains ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/a-wealth-of-free-documentaries-on-all-things-japanese.html
Behold the Largest Atlas in the World: The
Six-Foot Tall Klencke Atlas from 1660 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/behold-the-largest-atlas-in-the-world-the-six-foot-tall-klencke-atlas-from-1660.html
Difference Between (about variations in science,
economics, politics, etc.) ---
http://www.differencebetween.net/
Understanding September 11 ---
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/collection/understanding-september-11
A.J. Jacobs (books, articles, and TED talk on
our changing times) ---
http://ajjacobs.com/
The Song Dynasty in China ---
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/
Watch 1915 Video of Monet, Renoir & Rodin
Creating Art, and Edgar Degas Taking a Stroll ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/watch-1915-video-of-monet-renoir-rodin-creating-art-and-edgar-degas-taking-a-stroll.html
Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Language Tutorials
Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Languages
Music Tutorials
Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Writing Tutorials
Get Graphic: The World in Words and Pictures ---
http://www.getgraphic.org/teachers.php
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Bob Jensen's threads on medicine ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
September 9, 2015
September 10, 2015
September 11, 2015
September 12, 2015
September 13, 2015
September 14, 2015
September 15, 2015
September 16, 2015
September 17, 2015
September 18. 2015
September 19, 2015
September 21, 2015
September 23, 2015
September 24, 2015
A new drug cut 32% of deaths in heart-risk patients, and it could
revolutionize the way we treat type 2 diabetes ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-lilly-diabetes-drug-slashes-deaths-32-pct-in-heart-risk-patients-2015-9
How Sybil Turned Multiple Personality
Disorder into a Psychological Phenomenon in America
---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/how-sybil-turned-multiple-personality-disorder-into-a-psychological-phenomenon-in-america.html
Humor September 1-11, 2015
Steve Martin & Robin Williams Riff on Math,
Physics, Einstein & Picasso in a Heady Comedy Routine (2002) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/steve-martin-robin-williams-do-intellectual-comedy.html
Actual Newspaper Headline Forwarded by Paula
"Missippi's Literacy Program Shows Improvment"
Man Thinks He's Texting His Drug Dealer,
Accidentally Messages Police Captain Instead ---
http://news.yahoo.com/man-thinks-hes-texting-drug-134007127.html
Here are the oddest and most interesting feats
from Guinness World Records' 2016 edition ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/2016-guinness-book-world-records-interest-odd-feats-edition-2015-9
Ignoble Prize Winners of 2015: These
academic studies won this year’s most absurd awards ---
http://www.improbable.com/
Jensen Comments
I really miss Senator Proxmire's infamous Golden Fleece Awards ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award
Yogi Berra ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra
Yogi Berra Quotations ---
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/79014.Yogi_Berra
Forwarded by Paula
MY TRAVEL PLANS FOR 2016
I have been in many places, but I've never been
in Kahoots . Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Kahoots with
someone.
I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one
recognizes you there.
I have, however, been in Sane. They don't have
an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks
to my children, friends, family and work.
I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have
to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.
I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place
to go, and I try not to visit there too often.
I've been in Flexible, but only when it was very
important to stand firm.
Sometimes I'm in Capable, and I go there more
often as I'm getting older.
One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense!
It really gets the adrenaline flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I
need all the stimuli I can get!
I may have been in Continent, but I don't
remember what country I was in. It's an age thing. They tell me it is very wet
and damp there.
Forwarded by Paula
Dorothy and Edna, two "senior" widows, are
talking.
Dorothy: "That nice George Johnson asked me out
for a date. I know you went out with him last week, and I wanted to talk with
you about him before I give him my answer."
Edna: "Well, I'll tell you. He shows up at my
apartment punctually at 7 pm, dressed like such a gentleman in a fine suit, and
he brings me such beautiful flowers! Then he takes me downstairs. And what's
there; a limousine, uniformed chauffeur and all. Then he takes me out for
dinner; a marvelous dinner, lobster, champagne, dessert, and after-dinner
drinks. Then we go see a show. Let me tell you Dorothy, I enjoyed it so much I
could have just died from pleasure! So then we are coming back to my apartment
and he turns into an ANIMAL. Completely crazy, he tears off my expensive new
dress and has his way with me three times!"
Dorothy: "Goodness gracious!... so you are
telling me I shouldn't go?"
Edna: "No, no, no... I'm just saying, wear an
old dress."
Humor August 1-31, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q3.htm#Humor081115
Humor July 1-31, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q3.htm#Humor073115
Humor June 1-30, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q2.htm#Humor043015
Humor May 1-31, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q2.htm#Humor043015
Humor April 1-30, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q2.htm#Humor043015
Humor March 1-31, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q1.htm#Humor033115
Humor February 1-28, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q1.htm#Humor022815
Humor January 1-31, 2015
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q1.htm#Humor013115
Humor December 1-31, 2014
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q4.htm#Humor123114
Humor November 1-30, 2014
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q4.htm#Humor113014
Humor October 1-31, 2014
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q4.htm#Humor103114
Humor September 1-30, 2014
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q3.htm#Humor093014
Humor August 1-31, 2014
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q3.htm#Humor083114
Humor July 1-31, 2014---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q3.htm#Humor073114
Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Update in
2014
20-Year Sugar Hill Master Plan ---
http://www.nccouncil.org/images/NCC/file/wrkgdraftfeb142014.pdf
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. |
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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
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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