Tidbits on November 12, 2015
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Wes Lavin's Foliage Season in 2015
This is repeated because I screwed up the link in the previous edition of Tidbits

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Foliage/Set19/FoliageSet10.htm 

 

 

 

Tidbits on November 12, 2015
Bob Jensen

Bob Jensen's Tidbits ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

For earlier editions of Fraud Updates go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Bookmarks for the World's Library --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm 

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




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio

This 18-year-old just won a $400,000 prize for creating a video on Einstein’s theory of relativity ---
Promo:  http://www.businessinsider.com/ryan-chester-won-science-prize-breakthrough-ceremony-relativity-2015-11
Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYv5GsXEf1o
Jensen Comment
I still don't understand this theory well enough to teach it.

Video:  Gravity Visualized by High School Teacher in an Amazingly Elegant & Simple Way ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/gravity-visualized-by-high-school-teacher-in-an-elegantly-simple-way.html

See Galileo’s Famous Gravity Experiment Performed in the World’s Largest Vacuum Chamber, and on the Moon ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/10/see-galileos-famous-gravity-experiment-performed-in-the-worlds-largest-vacuum-chamber-and-on-the-moon.html

Crash Course Kids (YouTube video series for science education) --- https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcoursekids

Animated map shows how railroads spread across America ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/history-map-railroads-spreading-across-united-states-train-2015-11

"YouTube Creates New Section to Highlight College Content," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2009 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3684&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

TeacherTube (all topics for teachers to use and share) --- http://www.teachertube.com/

There are now nearly 7,000 accounting education videos on YouTube, most of which are in very basic accounting.
But there are nearly 150 videos in advanced accounting.
There are nearly 70 videos on XBRL

YouTube Education Channels --- http://www.youtube.com/education?b=400

Teaching Channel --- https://www.teachingchannel.org/

MIT Video (150 channels and over 12,000 videos) --- http://video.mit.edu/

"10 Faculty Perspectives on What Works in Lecture Capture," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 4, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/10-Faculty-Perspectives-on/129268/


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 

A Great Rendition of "You Raise Me Up" --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxDXnM1Jd6Q

A Tale Of Two Sergeys: Boston Symphony Orchestra At Carnegie Hall ---
http://www.npr.org/event/music/451116807/a-tale-of-two-sergeys-boston-symphony-orchestra-at-carnegie-hall

The New York Philharmonic At Carnegie Hall ---
http://www.npr.org/event/music/442287960/new-york-philharmonic-live-at-carnegie-hall-wednesday

Download 10,000 of the First Recordings of Music Ever Made, Courtesy of the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/download-10000-of-the-first-recordings-of-music-ever-made-courtesy-of-the-ucsb-cylinder-audio-archive.html

My Bubba is the duo of Sweden's My and Iceland's Bubba, women whose quirky, delicate, sweetly sung folk songs ---
http://www.npr.org/event/music/454889833/my-bubba-tiny-desk-concert

Studio 360 (pop culture and the arts) --- http://www.studio360.org/

Musician Plays Signature Drum Parts of 71 Beatles Songs in 5 Minutes: A Whirlwind Tribute ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/10/musician-plays-signature-drum-parts-of-71-beatles-songs-in-5-minutes.html

My Favorite Boogie Woogie
For Boogie Woogie Piano Dancers (GREAT!)
--- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QQzbCmlZM4
More free Boogie Woogie by Sylvan Zingg (in concert) --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDJv9FnaQys
Others --- Search for "Sylvan Zingg" on YouTube --- https://www.youtube.com/
Other Boogie Woogie Sites (including free lesson sites) --- http://www.boogiewoogiepiano.net/piano-jukebox/other-web-sites/other-websites.html

Boogie Woogie  on Three Grand Pianos --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-piBl48SFio

Tommy Johnson  the Boogie Woogie Man --- Search for him on YouTube

Jo Ann Castle from the Lawrence Welk Show --- Search for her on YouTube

Big Tiny Little from the Lawrence Welk Show --- Search for him on YouTube

Bring Back the 50s (Carolyn) --- http://carolynspreciousmemories.com/50s/sitemap.html

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

The 23 most beautiful Google Street View pictures on Earth --- http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-beautiful-google-street-views-on-earth-2015-10

Awesome Pictures of the Grand Canyon --- http://www.humfer.net/gcanyon/index.html

Hand-Colored 1860s Photographs Reveal the Last Days of Samurai Japan ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/hand-colored-1860s-photographs-reveal-the-last-days-of-samurai-japan.html

Historic rains transform the driest place on Earth into a floral oasis ---
http://www.techinsider.io/rain-transforms-atacama-driest-desert-into-flowering-oasis-2015-10

31 beautiful vintage photos that show what New York City looked like in the 1940s ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/beautiful-vintage-photos-of-manhattan-in-the-1940s-2013-10

A Walk Around the White House
http://hawthornephoto.com/walk.htm   

The Interior of the Hindenburg Revealed in 1930s Color Photos: Inside the Ill-Fated Airship ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/the-interior-of-the-hindenburg-revealed-in-1930s-color-photos.html

Happy birthday Marine Corps! Here are 37 powerful pictures of the Marine Corps through history ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/marines-birthday

The Japanese created stealthy submarine aircraft carriers during WWII ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-japanese-created-stealthy-submarine-aircraft-carriers-during-wwii-2015-11

The Japanese created stealthy submarine aircraft carriers during WWII ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-japanese-created-stealthy-submarine-aircraft-carriers-during-wwii-2015-11

Before-and-after pictures show how climate change is destroying the Earth ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-before-and-after-pictures-of-earth-2015-2

30,000 Works of Art by Edvard Munch & Other Artists Put Online by Norway’s National Museum of Art ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/10/30000-works-of-art-put-online-by-norways-national-museum-of-art.html

300+ Etchings by Rembrandt Now Free Online, Thanks to the Morgan Library & Museum ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/300-etchings-by-rembrandt-now-free-online-thanks-to-the-morgan-library-museum.html

Indianapolis Museum of Art | ArtBabble --- http://artbabble.org/partner/indianapolis-museum-art

A drought in Mexico has revealed something incredible ---
http://www.techinsider.io/photos-inside-temple-of-quechula-2015-11

Photos: New York City sends old subway cars to a watery grave in the Atlantic Ocean ---
http://qz.com/534675/photos-new-york-city-sends-old-subway-cars-to-a-watery-grave-in-the-atlantic-ocean/

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

Bob Jensen's threads on libraries --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#---Libraries

W.B. Yeats’ Poem “When You Are Old” Adapted into Japanese Manga Comic ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/w-b-yeats-poem-when-you-are-old-adapted-into-japanese-manga-comic.html

Rare 1930s Audio: W.B. Yeats Reads Four of His Poems --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/06/rare_1930s_audio_wb_yeats_reads_four_of_his_poems.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Read Work From 2015 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Svetlana Alexievich ---
http://daily.jstor.org/read-work-2015-nobel-prize-winner-literature-svetlana-alexievich/

Global Oneness Project (multicultural advocacy stories) --- http://www.globalonenessproject.org/

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 November 12, 2015
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2015/TidbitsQuotations111215.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




We are witnessing the shift of power to athletes on college campuses. The University of Missouri football team is the main force that toppled the president plus the chancellor of the university.
On the other hand the University of North Carolina top administers who provided fake courses and A grades to athletes were protected for 20 years by the athletes.

Bob Jensen

To some observers, the resignations demonstrated that athletes have outsize collective power, even absent formal bargaining rights. John Paul (Sonny) Vaccaro, a retired Adidas and Nike executive, described the events at Missouri as watershed. "This is what I’ve believed could happen for 30 years and what I think is the deepest fear for the NCAA — athletes control what happens on campus," Mr. Vaccaro told Yahoo Sports. "This is an unbelievable step forward for athletes."
Jack Stripling , Chronicle of Higher Education

http://chronicle.com/article/Thrust-Into-a-National-Debate/234131?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=5d9ac63b9cd0452986769a3ffcb21aca&elqCampaignId=1797&elqaid=6828&elqat=1&elqTrackId=a2c66509e54f4a98a8f670bb1c084c8e


. . . behind back of professor who assigned the grades
"Damning Report on Grade Changing," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, November 11, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/11/texas-tech-finds-dean-inappropriately-put-place-process-change-grades-some-students?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=5cf93c1075-DNU20151111&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-5cf93c1075-197565045

Texas Tech dean quits after university panel finds he inappropriately set up system that raised several students' grades -- in violation of university procedures and behind back of professor who assigned the grades.

Continued in article


When should universities discourage leaves of absence?

Most universities discourage non-tenured faculty on tenure track from taking unpaid leaves, if they can afford to do so, since this almost certainly can become an advantage for added time to do research and get research journal publication hits relative to proletariat non-tenured peers who cannot afford to take the time off.

The question I have is how to keep paid paternity and maternity leaves from creating the same unfairness relative to peers who do not get added time for publish or perish time deadlines?

Of course the counter argument is that having children creates disadvantages in in the time-to-tenure deadlines.

Any thoughts on this?
Clearly it's not such an issue when leaves are short such as less than six months. However, leaves for 1-4 years are more controversial.

In terms of game playing I know of one instance where the newly-minted Ph.D. just did not enter the job market until her children were school aged and her journal hits mounted up before entering the job market.

The recent sex scandal of Stanford's business dean reveals that Stanford University has a policy that discourages tenured and untenured faculty for taking very long unpaid leaves. Presumably the reason is that it's too hard to keep a tenure slot open for a professor who is gone for a relatively long time (and may indeed not even return).

Some universities like Harvard relax this policy when the leaves are for public service such as when Larry Summers became the top economic advisor to the president of the USA. In the Stanford incident mentioned above I think the woman's husband took extended leaves to work for a Silicon Valley company (Apple?) I think he now has a lawsuit pending against Stanford for firing him due to talking too many unpaid leaves (not because his wife had the extramarital liaisons with the dean during his absence from Stanford where she is still a business professor).

What made me think about this is a link provided this morning by the Harvard Business Review Blog:
"The Impact of Paternity Leave on Fathers' Future Earnings" ---
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/258055635_The_Impact_of_Paternity_Leave_on_Fathers%27_Future_Earnings


How to Make Traveling More Efficient. Comfortable, and Less Costly ---
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/newsletters/2015/oct/save-money-and-time-when-traveling.html


2014: The Year in Interactive Storytelling, Graphics, and Multimedia --- http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/29/us/year-in-interactive-storytelling.html

Bob Jensen's threads on tools and tricks of the trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm


With New Funding, Udacity Valued At $1 Billion ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/11/12/new-funding-udacity-valued-1-billion?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=d6b04e7ae8-DNU20151112&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-d6b04e7ae8-197565045

Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs with credit options ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
This is a "trade deal" being actively pushed by President Obama but opposed by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump

. . .

In December 2014 Senator (I-VT) Bernie Sanders denounced the TPP,:
"Let’s be clear: the TPP is much more than a “free trade” agreement. It is part of a global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations and Wall Street by outsourcing jobs; undercutting worker rights; dismantling labor, environmental, health, food safety and financial laws; and allowing corporations to challenge our laws in international tribunals rather than our own court system. If TPP was such a good deal for America, the administration should have the courage to show the American people exactly what is in this deal, instead of keeping the content of the TPP a secret.[91]"

Jensen Comment
In class discussions we've all experienced students who talk so much that they reveal not having done their assigned homework
 

The GOP on Economics: The good, the bad, and the ugly at the fourth presidential debate ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gop-on-economics-1447224376?mod=djemMER

. . .

Mr. Trump called it a “terrible deal,” though it wasn’t obvious that he has any idea what’s in it. His one specific criticism was its failure to deal with Chinese currency manipulation. But it took Rand Paul to point out that China isn’t part of the deal and would be happy if the agreement collapsed so the U.S. would have less economic influence in Asia.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Contrary to what he claims I don't think Donald Trump knows a whole lot about economics or management having thrown four of his biggest corporations into bankruptcy.


CORRECT THE SYNTAX ERRORS
"How to debug Excel spreadsheets," Rayman Meservy and Marshall Romney, Journal of Accountancy, November 1, 2015 ---
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2015/nov/how-to-debug-excel-spreadsheets.html

"How to Maximize Excel's Recent Items Menu," AccountingWeb, August 2013 (registration required) ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/article/how-maximize-excels-recent-items-menu/222214?source=technology

Excel guru David Ringstrom is back with another informative article about how to streamline the process of accessing recent spreadsheets. He explains the process not for just one version of Excel, but for Excel 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2013. Also in today's news is coverage of the 2013 Family Office Exchange's recent survey – Benchmarking: Technology in the Family Office. Single and multifamily offices were surveyed on their technology practices, including their software selections, security, budgeting, staffing, and use of Cloud computing.


"The First 8 Excel Tricks You Have To Learn On The Way To Becoming A Master," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, July 10, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/excel-countif-sum-functions-if-sumproduct-dollar-sign-2013-7

"How To Use Index/Match, The One Microsoft Excel Trick That Separates The Gurus From The Interns," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, July 11, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/excel-index-match-2013-7 

We've been writing a lot about Microsoft Excel formulas.

The program is the gold standard of programs. It's elegant, ubiquitous, and outstandingly powerful.

American business lives and dies by the spreadsheet, and everyone is always looking to hone their skills.

There's one trick, though, that separates the quants from the interns.

That trick is Index/Match, a function that can find any value in any spreadsheet.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/excel-index-match-2013-7?op=1#ixzz2Ypc1HDwB

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's Excel helpers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm


"The Risk of Using Spreadsheets for Statistical Analysis," CFO.com Whitepaper, 2012 ---
http://www.cfo.com/whitepapers/index.cfm/displaywhitepaper/14668959?mid=107705&rid=107705.59400.30390

Abstract:
While spreadsheets are widely used for statistical analysis, they are useful only to a certain point. When used for a task they?re not designed to perform, or for a task beyond the limit of their capabilities, using spreadsheets can be risky. Read this paper to learn about more powerful yet easy-to-use analytics alternatives that may be more suitable.

Gov't bans e-cigarettes in airline passengers' checked bags ---
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b7a9890d65614363ad08b69501e89ef7/govt-bans-e-cigarettes-airline-passengers-checked-bags

Jensen Comment
There are parts of the world where e-cigarettes are difficult to replace after landing. We recently had a houseguest who I would describe as an e-cigarette chain smoker. I don't know that she is an addict, because she never revealed if she could easily quit cold turkey. My guess is that she would go back to real cigarettes if forced to give up e-cigarettes.


Secret IRS policy hides identity theft from victims ---
http://www.wthr.com/story/30389540/secret-irs-policy-hides-identity-theft-from-victims-illegal-immigration

Jensen Comment
I agree. When I tried to file my 2014 tax return the IRS refused to accept it and indicated that my return had already been filed. However, out of fear I mailed in a paper copy of my return that had all the important 1099 forms attached. The IRS accepted this paper return and doubled my refund. Never once, however, did the IRS inform me that I was a victim of identity theft. Who knows for sure? I think an ID thief did steal my SS Number and IRS Pin in the big breach of 2013 Turbo Tax users who filed electronically via TurboTax in 2014.


See if you can score better than your kids|
Pew Research Center: Science Knowledge Quiz --- http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/science-knowledge/


An Oldie but Goodie
"The 12 Most Controversial Facts In Mathematics," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, March 25, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-controversial-math-problems-2013-3


"Are Elite College Courses Better?" by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, November 9, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/09/study-questions-whether-elite-college-courses-are-higher-quality-others?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=6bb53edc04-DNU20151109&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-6bb53edc04-197565045

Study's preliminary findings suggest that teaching quality and academic rigor are not necessarily stronger at prestigious institutions.

The public -- and heck, many people in higher education -- widely assume prestigious colleges and universities provide the best quality education. That's why employers often want to hire their graduates and why many parents want their children to attend them.

And the assumption partially explains the fascination from the media and others in recent years with massive open online courses from Harvard and Stanford and other elite universities: the courses were believed, rightly or wrongly, to be of higher quality than all other online courses precisely because they came from name-brand institutions.

But what if the richest and best-known colleges and universities don't provide the highest-quality education? Would the perceived value of degrees from those institutions decline, and would colleges that were shown in fact to provide higher-quality courses be held in more esteem than they are now?

The push to measure student learning outcomes and other attempts to gauge which institutions, programs and courses most help students learn have been motivated, in part, by skepticism about the assumption that the most famous and selective institutions deliver the highest-quality learning. But the quest for proof to the contrary has at times seemed quixotic.

Continued in article

This is the comment sent in by Bob Jensen to Inside Higher Ed

The teacher is only one part of what makes up a "course."
The Ivy League has an edge on admitting the most qualified students in the lower two quartiles. This actually makes a difference, in my viewpoint, in some courses where class discussion is a major learning element in the course such as in Socratic method courses, case discussion courses, and problem-solving courses.

Also the rich universities can often afford smaller classes and more specialized courses that cannot be afforded by colleges with heavy budget pressures.

Also the Ivy League schools tend to have tighter rules on such things as teacher availability outside of class and teacher presence in class. In three-day academic conferences we almost never find a Harvard Business School professor being present for more than a half day because Harvard's rules are so tight about time allowances for being off campus for faculty who are teaching during the term.

As Joe Louis said: "I been rich and I been poor --- rich is better."


Ultimate Guide to Copyright for Students ---
http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/student-copyright/

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


"Most Students And Faculty Simply Do Not Work Very Hard," by Richard Vedder, Forbes via TaxProf Blog, November 4, 2015 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/11/lazy-rivers-and-lazy-campuses-most-students-and-faculty-simply-do-not-work-very-hard.html

. . .

[T]he average student spends 3.2 hours each weekday on educational activities – attending classes, writing papers, reading assignments, studying for exams, or group projects. That is 16 hours over the week. Add in perhaps nine hours on the weekend (maybe three hours on Saturday, six on Sunday – generous estimates, I suspect), you have 25 hours per week. Assume students spend 32 weeks annually (two semesters) on academics, students work 800 hours a year. ...

What about faculty workloads? While the U.S. Department of Education can probably tell you how many female Hispanic anthropology professors there are in Mississippi, they cannot tell you the average teaching load of U.S. professors – that is a state secret – a dirty little secret the academic establishment does not want discussed. ...

There is some spotty historical data and a good bit of anecdotal evidence. Unquestionably faculty teaching loads have fallen over time – probably, like with the students, by one-third or more since 1960. In my department, teaching loads in 1950 were typically 12 hours a week – four three hour courses. By 1965, when I started teaching, they were nine hours – three courses. Today, they are 6 hours – two courses. At top-flight research institutions, the three hour load is increasingly common. ...

It is true that published research has grown over time. Yet the typical professor is not a world-class scholar, perhaps publishing one article a year, typically in journals very few academics read. My guess is that the typical full-time professor in the 20 or so offices surrounding mine is in his/her office maybe 10 hours weekly, in class another six, and maybe spending 8-10 hours a week on academic pursuits at home, the library or academic meetings. The total work load is about equal that of students, although faculty sometimes work in the summer. ...

One reason students are learning relatively little in college, and that employers often feel they are unprepared for the workplace, is that people don’t work hard enough in the academy. The universities have monopolies on credentialing people for professional level work, and like most monopolists, abuse that power by paying themselves well, not in “profits”, but in “dividends” or perks in the form of light workloads and high job security.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Although I tend to agree that many faculty and students do not work very hard, I find this a terrible article in terms of lack of evidence for its conclusions.

I think students in the era of grade inflation find it easier to get high grades on reduced effort as median grades of a college have risen to A- minus in most colleges. Since the 1980s students have considerable power in determining the tenure and performance rewards of their teachers. This along with other factors led to steep grad inflation in virtually all USA colleges and universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#RateMyProfessor
Having said this there are always some students who work so hard that they are almost continually stressed out and continually in need of more sleep. Much depends on the major. Students facing added hurdles such as the MCAT exam for medical school, the CPA examination, a pharmacy licensing examination, or other licensing examination face more pressures than just the pressures of course grades.

Non-tenured faculty tend to work night and day trying to get high teaching evaluations, complete research projects, and do battle with journal referees trying to get articles published in research journals. After obtaining tenure most of them carry on the same way, and some actually work even harder tying to maintain their reputations while tending to long-delayed rearing of tiny children.

Sadly a few, even ones without children, fall into automatic pilot on teaching and lose much of their drive for research. For them the problem compounds if they are not appointed to full professor within 5-10 years after obtaining tenure.

After relatively long delays in being promoted to full professorships, some tenured associate professors become lifetime associate professors. Some are on campus minimal amounts of time required for teaching and office hours. They often pursue other means of earning income such as writing books (e.g., fiction), starting small businesses (like organic farms), and devoting huge amounts of time to sports (like golf and tennis) and hobbies (like making furniture and musical instruments).

Faculty facing publish or perish pressures cope in many ways. One way is increase the odds of journal acceptance with joint authorships of two or four or even higher numbers of co-authors. For example, rather than submitting one article a year as a sole author a joint author can have his or her name on an average of four or more submissions a year. This greatly increases the odds of getting hits on transcripts.

Promotion and tenure committees tend to count the publishing hits no matter how many co-authors appear on the publications. Another way of coping is to resubmit rejections to the exploding number of academic journals. Prestigious journal hits are more highly valued on transcripts but any hit beats no hit.

In my field of academic accountancy, unlike engineering and medicine, the huge problem is that accounting faculty tend not to focus on the most interesting topics of the practicing profession. Accordingly the practicing profession mostly ignores the academic accounting research journals and vice versa. Even the faculty themselves are more interested in reading about the methodology than the findings that are seldom of great interest to other researchers. Evidence here is the absence of replication of academic accounting research papers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theoryTar.htm


"A Conversation With Leonard Cassuto on ‘The Graduate School Mess’:  We are perpetuating a culture that mistreats graduate students" by Rebecca Schuman, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 8, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Conversation-With-Leonard/234101?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en&elq=11997da5033448f4af5cbeb0a4d3fb6f&elqCampaignId=1789&elqaid=6820&elqat=1&elqTrackId=3555181cd10d49cd83d0558a2745573a 

Leonard Cassuto is mad as hell about the state of graduate study in the United States, and he’s not going to take it anymore. Or, all right, he’s passionately concerned, and he hopes that his new book, The Graduate School Mess, will inspire directors of American Ph.D. programs to stop and think about what is and isn’t working.

Hint: Treating the tenure-track market as if the very brief postwar hiring boom is the norm isn’t working. Privileging graduate students who aspire to become clones of their advisers isn’t working. Coursework that focuses too much on the professors’ hyperspecialized scholarly interests, and not enough on the breadth of knowledge that students need, isn’t working. And pleading ignorance about how to prepare students for a multitude of careers? That definitely isn’t working.

I recently spoke with Cassuto over email about the "mess" he so eloquently describes, about the long-entrenched contributors to it, and about how best to grab a broom and start cleaning. (Our conversation has been edited here for length and clarity.)

The book’s excellent history of graduate admissions points to one of the largest and most all-encompassing problems in doctoral programs today: They’re trapped in the 1950s, in more ways than one. (A few examples: the inherent conservatism that favors admission and cultivation of normative students, the elevation of the research professorship, etc.) What are some of the best ways out of the Eisenhower era?

Cassuto: There’s a phrase that I like called "holistic admissions." It means looking at the whole candidate, and then assessing that candidate in relation to his or her own goals, not the professor’s. Holistic admissions takes more time — for one thing, you can’t begin with the GRE score to see if it makes a cutoff. I tell a story in The Graduate School Mess of how I admitted a student without realizing that I was responding to the way I thought she resembled me. When she was about to finish, she told me that her career goal from the beginning had been to teach at a community college. I thought back to when I first read her folder and had to admit the uncomfortable truth that I might have been prejudiced against her if she had stated that goal when she was applying.

Your layout of a better way to structure graduate programs (e.g., coursework that works with students and not against them; comprehensives that work for them in addition to the other way around) sounds eerily familiar. My own program at the University of California at Irvine was restructured to do exactly this shortly after I came aboard. I was actually the first student to do the "new" comprehensives, which consisted of a portfolio of four "sample syllabi" for German language and literature courses. I used almost every single one of those sample syllabi (watered down for undergrads) in the four years I taught. And I loved the way my program was structured. And yet — very few of my colleagues have gotten ladder-level jobs since 2007 (that’s going on nine years), and most of us left the field after many years of heartbreak on the market. Now my program’s in danger of being closed down entirely.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
One problem of this article is that it tends to make too many generalizations and extrapolations. Not all graduate programs are broken, especially when you back off and take a view of all such programs across all disciplines. If German languages and literature doctoral programs are broken this does not mean that all science, medical research, and mathematics programs are broken. In some fields becoming clones of advisors is not always a failure, especially when the advisors really are on the leading edge of research and are giving students an opening to follow along on that leading edge.

Are there potential abuses? Most certainly when the students become more like data-gathering slaves serving a master. Another abuse is when the master established a reputation somewhere along the way, but is no longer quite so hot on the leading edge and does not encourage the student to pursue research where the master is uninterested and/or inadequate.

There are economies of scale in a doctoral program. Larger programs have more researchers and give students a menu of choices as to advisors and lines of research. But size alone is not enough. For example, in my field of accounting research there are very few programs that have tracks in accounting history or specialized tracks in information systems such as ERP tracks Even in the larger programs all available advisors think that if the dissertation does not have equations its not leading edge research. Beginning in the 1960s having equations in a dissertation became a necessary but not sufficient condition for graduation.

Hopefully most disciplines have a commission or study group charged with taking a critical look at what is wrong with higher education and academic research in that discipline. In my field of accountancy, the current commission is called the Pathways Commission that found enormous things wrong with accounting education and research ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm

One of the major findings of the Pathways Commission is that academic research takes little interest in the profession and the profession takes little interest in the published papers in academic accounting research.

"Accounting for Innovation," by Elise Young, Inside Higher Ed, July 31, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/07/31/updating-accounting-curriculums-expanding-and-diversifying-field

Accounting programs should promote curricular flexibility to capture a new generation of students who are more technologically savvy, less patient with traditional teaching methods, and more wary of the career opportunities in accounting, according to a report released today by the Pathways Commission, which studies the future of higher education for accounting.

In 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department's  Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession recommended that the American Accounting Association and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants form a commission to study the future structure and content of accounting education, and the Pathways Commission was formed to fulfill this recommendation and establish a national higher education strategy for accounting.

In the report, the commission acknowledges that some sporadic changes have been adopted, but it seeks to put in place a structure for much more regular and ambitious changes.

The report includes seven recommendations:

According to the report, its two sponsoring organizations -- the American Accounting Association and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants -- will support the effort to carry out the report's recommendations, and they are finalizing a strategy for conducting this effort.

But don't hold your breath for much progress in changing academic accounting research. Without a monumental shift in the reward structure of academic researchers and complete re-designs of Ph.D. programs it will be same old, same old for generations to come.


Plenary Session Video:
Building Bridges from the Academy to the Business Community
Stanford University Professor Charles M. C. Lee
American Accounting Association 2015 Annual Meetings
http://commons.aaahq.org/posts/79da0665ee
I suspect this video is available only to subscribers to the AAA Commons that is free only to members of the American Accounting Association

Jensen Comment
Actually this video is quite good about how academic accounting researchers should get closer to the real-world profession, a profession that he defines more broadly than the accounting profession. Much of the video is focused on the the profession of finance and its real world decision makers.

The best quote in the video is a borrowed quote from Mark Wolfson.
"Risky research is doing research that everybody else is doing."
To this I might add "using tools, like some variation of regression research, that everybody else is using."|
To this I might add is "using purchased databases that everybody else is doing." My limited study of this is that over 90% of the recent research in The Accounting Review entails using purchased databases that enable the accounting researcher to avoid having to creatively invent ways of collecting data. ---
"A Scrapbook on What's Wrong with the Past, Present and Future of Accountics Science"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsWorkingPaper450.06.pdf
 

In his presentation Professor Lee shows a hilarious clip of accounting workers from the Broadway Play The Producers ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Producers_(musical)

In the presentation reference is made to the book Escape from the Ivory Tower by Nancy Baron ---
http://www.escapefromtheivorytower.com/

One thing that Professor Lee failed to stress is that replication is a necessary condition for relevancy of scientific research findings. In the case of accountics science replication is such a rare event that we have to question the relevancy of nearly all the research findings ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTar.htm


"Why Free Markets Make Fools of Us," by Cass R. Sunstein, nybooks.com, October 22, 2015 ---
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/oct/22/why-free-markets-make-fools-us/

This is a very positive review of the following book by two Nobel economists:

Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deceptionhttp://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thneyoreofbo-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0691168318

by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller

Princeton University Press, 272 pp., $24.95

Jensen Comment
The book is a cheerleading book for government regulation. In this regard the following negative review I found on Amazon seems somewhat relevant:

This book consumed five hours of my life that I’ll never get back. I think these two respected academics are reputation-mining with this mediocre offering. I’ve just been Phished for a Phool! I found the basic concept interesting and potentially entertaining—that the free market incentivizes cheating in unique ways. But the execution made an inherently entertaining story boring and obvious. Some of the examples which are discussed in detail are painfully obvious and without nuance—Advertising isn’t always true (Say it isn’t so!!), transaction costs in real estate deals are more than they should be (Whaaaaaaatt?!?!), and car salesman are shysters (NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!). As one of the other reviews pointed out, this book functions more as an advertisement for a certain political position than a convincing argument or an entertaining read. There are good arguments to be made in favor of financial reform, and the book touches briefly on some of these—chief among them the idea that information asymmetry and conflicts of interest in the markets for complex securities make informed choice impossible. But the authors constantly return to the supposition that people don’t know what is really good for them and need someone else to coerce them into doing what is “best.” That’s going to be a tough sell, and I doubt that many people are buying.

I will probably buy it, skim it, and use it as an aid if I have trouble sleeping. Apparently the book has many illustrations --- I think I will like that aspect of it to help me stay awake while reading the book.

Bob Jensen


Training versus Education
Novelist Marilynne Robinson warns Stanford audience against utilitarian trends in higher education ---
http://lisnews.org/node/43835/

In the 2015 Presidential Lecture in the Arts and Humanities, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson argued that if the American higher education system continues to shift priorities towards training instead of educating, students will be ill-equipped to participate as citizens of a democratic society.

From Novelist warns Stanford audience against utilitarian trends in higher education ---
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/november/robinson-humanities-lecture-110315.html

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/higHerEdControversies.htm


Question
What does the scholarly magazine called The Economist claim is the top career choice on average in terms of salaries ten years down the road?

Answer
http://www.businessinsider.com/highest-salaries-10-years-after-entering-college-2015-10

Jensen Comment
Personally I'm still in favor of accounting for a career choice because of the varied opportunities down the road. Entry-level jobs with great training and experience are readily available. The reason I prefer accounting is that there are so many varied career tracks in public accounting, business, and government. Also accounting is one of the best tracks toward top management and highest paying professorships ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers
There is such a dire shortage of accounting professors, accounting Ph.D. programs are free in terms of tuition, living expenses, and other perks.

Of course the world needs more of a lot of specialists including teachers, doctors, nurses, many types of scientists, engineers, etc. There are usually advantages and disadvantages to any type of career.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education
Search for Job Openings in Higher Education ---
https://chroniclevitae.com/job_search/new


JSTOR Daily (a free source for new and old published research and scholarship) --- http://daily.jstor.org/

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Kleptomania --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptomania

Kleptomania: The History of Shoplifting ---
http://daily.jstor.org/kleptomania-history-shoplifting/


Intuition --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition 

Daniel Kahneman --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

Kahneman on Intuition and the Outside View
by Elliot Turner, October 20, 2015 ---
http://compoundingmyinterests.com/compounding-the-blog/2015/10/20/daniel-kahneman-on-intuition-and-the-outside-view
 

I had the privilege of attending another Santa Fe Institute “Risk Conference” at Morgan Stanley. There was a stellar lineup of accomplished speakers focusing on Old Wine in New Bottles: Big Data in Markets and Finance. The grand finale was “A Conversation with Daniel Kahneman” led by Michael Mauboussin. These two gentlemen are amongst the finest thinkers in finance and two of the most important influences in my effort to compound knowledge while remaining cognizant of my limitations. As Mauboussin is intimately familiar with the subject matter, he was the perfect person to elicit the deepest insights from Kahneman on the most important topics. Below are my notes, which are reproduced here in the form of a dialogue. When I started jotting these down in real-time, I had no visions of writing the conversation up in this form; however, I found myself writing an awful lot with the output resembling an actual transcript. I attempted to be as thorough as possible in keeping the language as consistent with the spirit of the spoken dialogue as possible, though this is hardly perfect. I apologize in advance for the lack of completeness and the tense shifts, but nonetheless I am delighted to share the following in hope that others will be able to learn as much from this conversation as I did.

Michael Mauboussin: When does intuition work or fail?

Daniel Kahneman: Intuition works less often than we think. There is no such thing as professional “expertise.” The Intuitions in chess masters develop with “big data” comes from experience. For people, the immediacy of feedback is especially important to learn the basis of expertise. When feedback comes closer in time to the decision, intuition tends to be a lot stronger. Gary Klein, author of The Sources of Power is hostile to Kahneman’s view. Together they studied the boundary between trustworthy and untrustworthy sources of intuition. Confidence of intuition is NOT a good guide of intuition. If you want to explore intuition, you have to ask “not how happy the individual is” but what domain they are working in. There are some domains where intuition works, and some domains where it does not.  You need to ask “did the individual have an opportunity to learn irregularities on the way to building intuition? In domains where a lot of people have equal degrees of high confidence, they often do not know the limits of their expertise. 

Mauboussin: People blend quantitative and qualitative intuition, but what about disciplined intuition? Is there a better structure to decision-making?

Kahneman: When you put human judgment against simple models, after reading Paul Meehl’s book which showed where the human has access to all of the data behind the model, the model still wins in making decisions. There are no confirmed counter-examples. Studied an interviewing system for combat units. Asked multiple interviewers to speak with each candidate with a focus on one topic only per subject. Previously the interviewers had experienced a looser system without restriction—one interviewer per subject, with a broad focus. Unfortunately the previous system had zero predictive value on subsequent performance. At first, when the interviewers were instructed on a “disciplined” focus/topical breakdown, they were furious. People like using their broad intuitions. The interviewers were given a rating scale of 1 to 5 in each area they were assigned to cover. Eventually we got the data on how performance turned out based on the revised interview process. It turned out that interviews done in this way had much better predictive value for subsequent performance.

The problem with intuitions is how they come too fast. They are subject to confirmation biases. If you look at just one thing independent of all else and reserve judgment until the very end, what ultimately comes to mind will be more valid than if you don’t have discipline. It’s important to stress the independence (focus on 1 topic) to resist and overcome associative coherence—aka the halo effect.

Mauboussin: Define regression to the mean and the problems with it (causality, feedback)? 

Kahneman: Regression is a familiar concept, but not well understood. We see articles like “Why do smart women marry men less smart than they are?” That is an effect without a cause. We can reformulate that question to say that “the distribution of intelligence in men and women is the same” but the sound/implication of the two statements is not equivalent. You have to rid yourself of causation in making such statements. There was a study of the incidence of kidney cancer which described it as mostly rural, Republican districts in the center and south of the USA. Why? Everyone has a theory. But, if you look at the areas where incidence is small, it’s the same answer—mostly rural, Republican districts in the center and south of the USA.  This is so because the rural counties have smaller samples (a lower “n”) so incidences of high and low are more pronounced.

Mauboussin: Talk about the inside vs outside view, and base rates…

Kahneman: Was involved in writing a textbook on decision-making without math for a high school curriculum. Asked the team: “when will we finish the book?” Everyone answered somewhere between 18 and 30 months. Asked another colleague how long it took to write other textbooks in similar situations. This colleague’s answer had been somewhere in the 18 to 30 month range. The answer: 1) not all textbooks ever finished, with somewhere around 40% of them having given up; and, 2) those that were completed all took more than 7 years.

There are two different ways to look at a problem: 1) make an estimate based on a plan and reasonable extrapolation of progress—the inside view. 2) Abstract to the category of the case and ask “what are its characteristics”—the outside view. Intuition prefers the inside view, while the outside view is non-causal and statistical. If you start your analysis from the outside view, with a known base rate, it gives you a fair anchor and  ballpark from which to work

Continued in article


Question
Does anybody else see the irony of this article on Day 911 of the IRS Scandal --- I mean the number 911 that is the universal emergency help phone number in the USA?

"The IRS Scandal, Day 911," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog, November 6, 2015 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/11/the-irs-scandal-day-911.html

Washington Post op-ed:  The Supreme Court’s Opportunity to Tackle Sinister Trends, by George Will:

The IRS scandal the denial of essential tax-exempt status to conservative advocacy groups, thereby effectively suppressing the groups’ activities — demonstrates this: When government is empowered to regulate advocacy, it will be tempted to suppress some of it. And sometimes government will think like Oscar Wilde: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

These truths should be on the Supreme Court’s nine fine minds on Friday when they consider whether to hear a challenge to a lower court’s decision that disregards some clear Supreme Court pronouncements pertaining to the First Amendment. The amendment says there shall be no laws abridging freedom of speech, but various governments are persistently trying to regulate, and perhaps chill, advocacy. The most recent wrinkle in this disreputable project comes from California.

Continued in article


There should not be protests on this campus since administrators have heavier loads
Ryerson U students reveal that administrators' bathrooms feature two-ply, while everyone else has one-ply
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/02/student-newspaper-reveals-inequitable-toilet-paper-distribution?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=a93b96438a-DNU20151102&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-a93b96438a-197565045
Jensen Question
Did one of the administrators leak this?

But these are grounds for a class action lawsuit
Tort lawyers prosper by rounding up potentially injured plaintiffs in class actions, and sometimes the plaintiffs don’t even have to be injured to qualify. On Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether the trial bar can put together class actions seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages without showing that anyone was harmed.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/inventing-class-actions-1446416470?mod=djemMER

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot


 Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management Accused of Letting Students Cheat
"Northwestern's business school is being rocked by cheating allegations," by Abbie Jackson, Business Insider, November 6, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/cheating-scandal-at-northwesterns-kellogg-school-2015-11

Students at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management have claimed that six peers blatantly cheated on a final and that the administration is trying to cover it up, according to a detailed article by Ethan Baron of Poets and Quants, which covers business schools.

Six male students in the MS in Management Studies program engaged in blatant cheating while taking their account and statistics finals, Baron reported, citing three students who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The anonymous sources claimed that the students were passing notes, drawing charts in the air, and sharing answers on their exams when proctors left the room.

The three anonymous students claim the administration is complicit in the cheating because it doesn't want the school's reputation ruined.

"Everybody in the class knows what is happening and everyone in the class knows that the sole goal of the administration is to silence the witnesses," one source told Baron.

The students also say that they fear retribution from the school over discussing the cheating allegations because the honor code forbids students from discussing possible violations of the honor code.

The witnesses also claim that they have been threatened over the phone with physical harm by the cheaters, Baron reports.

"The day I come to know who reported me, I will f------ kill him or her,” one of the cheaters pledged, according to a witness.

Of the six students accused of cheating, two told Poets and Quants that they did not cheat, two would not address the allegations against them, and two did not speak to the news publication.

Poets and Quants got an email response from Kellogg saying that it takes any cheating allegations seriously and "all Honor Code issues that are reported are investigated thoroughly and, if necessary and appropriate, include hearings and sanctions."

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on professors who let students cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#RebeccaHoward


TurnItIn --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnitin

"My Love-Hate Relationship With TurnItIn," by Marcattilio-McCracken, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 8, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/My-Love-Hate-Relationship-With/232887?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en&elq=cca0be2e8e9f422b8d0fef0b6b59ade2&elqCampaignId=1688&elqaid=6679&elqat=1&elqTrackId=aa1feb0121b04d14aea0071dff824358

Jensen Comment
TurnItIn is a lot like medications that are essential for some ailments even though the side effects are troublesome. I say "essential" because in this era of cut-and-paste technology plagiarism is rampant at all levels of academe, even in commencement speeches by college presidents. Hoping for a wonder medication with no side effects is wishful thinking. Either you accept the risks and take the medication or you suffer greater risks of the ailment itself. For example, if you had a heart attack you can either take a low-cost aspirin tablet daily with some increased risk of internal bleeding or you can accept greater risk of having a second heart attack.

Some of the comments following this article absurdly paranoid in my opinion. Having been a victim of plagiarized submissions in my courses I'm all for plagiarism detection technology. Before the days of TurnItIn I detected plagiarism in an inefficient manner by searching for phrases in Google searchers. This worked because some of my plagiarist students used Google searchers while searching for articles they could plagiarize. I think plagiarism declined in my courses after students learned that I really did use tools to detect plagiarism. Of course Google searches are not nearly as powerful as TurnItIn.

Note that most top research journals are using some form of plagiarism detection --- mostly with the intent of discouraging plagiarism in submissions. For example, it becomes harder for professors to lift from the writings of their students.

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


MIT:  Recommended from Around the Web (Week ending October 31, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543016/recommended-from-around-the-web-week-ending-october-31-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151030

MIT:  Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending October 24, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542681/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-october-24-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-weekly-business&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151030

MIT:  Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending October 31, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543026/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-october-31-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151102

MIT:  Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending November 7, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543206/recommended-from-around-the-web-week-ending-november-7-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151109

MIT:  Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending November 7, 2015) ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543211/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-november-7-2015/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151109

MIT:  Recommended Robot and AI Reads for the Week Ended November 5, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543176/recommended-robot-and-ai-reads-this-week/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151104  ---

MIT:  Recommended Computing Reads for the Week Ended November 11. 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543366/recommended-computing-reads-this-week/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151111

MIT:  Recommended Robot and AI Reads for the Week Ended November 11. 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543371/recommended-robot-and-ai-reads-this-week/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151111


"Don’t Blame Encryption for ISIS Attacks," by Tom Simonite, MIT's Technology Review, November 16, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543566/dont-blame-encryption-for-isis-attacks/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151117


This Building Acts as Its Own Air Conditioner (a hotel that generates all of its own electricity) ---
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-building-acts-as-its-own-air-conditioner/ar-BBmHhR1?ocid=spartandhp

Jensen Comment
It's not clear how efficient this building is in the dark of windless night or whether it has to be connected to the grid for supplemental power.


Ubiquitous computing --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

MIT:  The Power of Ubiquitous Computing
"Humans and Computers Are Getting Even More Connected." by Brian Bergstein, MIT's Technology Review, November 2, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543106/humans-and-computers-are-getting-even-more-connected/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151103

The implications of pervasive or ubiquitous computing are still only beginning to be apparent.

What do we want from the smart machines pervading our world—and what do they want from us?

That question framed this morning’s opening of the EmTech conference at MIT, and it’s a useful way to think about where computing is heading.

As MIT Technology Review’s editor-in-chief, Jason Pontin, said in beginning the show, breakthroughs in computer science have made it possible for machines to understand more of the data that our devices and sensors collect “in ways that elude human perception.” As we become ever more reliant on these devices and their software, the companies that capture our data develop a competitive advantage over those that don’t. And in turn, the companies’ need for data collection and the ability of machines to influence our behavior “creates a kind of intimacy between the human and the digital” that makes automated systems even more powerful.

“We know that there is enormous utility in embracing machines that are smart and powerful enough to become part of who we are,” Pontin said. “They have extended our capabilities and enlarged our sense of what it means to be human. But we need to be conscious of what we want from these smart machines, our new intimates. Because sometimes, they are not solely loyal to our interests.”

We’ll explore these issues through Wednesday at EmTech. For more on these ideas and the technologies driving them forward, see “Teaching Machines to Understand Us,” “How Technology Is Destroying Jobs,” and “The Real Privacy Problem.”

 Bob Jensen's sadly neglected threads on ubiquitous computing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm


Exterminating the Campus of Those Dreaded Conservatives
"Academia’s Rejection of Diversity," by Arthur C. Brooks, The New York Times, October 30, 2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/opinion/academias-rejection-of-diversity.html?_r=1

ONE of the great intellectual and moral epiphanies of our time is the realization that human diversity is a blessing. It has become conventional wisdom that being around those unlike ourselves makes us better people — and more productive to boot.

Unfortunately, new research also shows that academia has itself stopped short in both the understanding and practice of true diversity — the diversity of ideas — and that the problem is taking a toll on the quality and accuracy of scholarly work. This year, a team of scholars from six universities studying ideological diversity in the behavioral sciences published a paper in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences that details a shocking level of political groupthink in academia. The authors show that for every politically conservative social psychologist in academia there are about 14 liberal social psychologists.

This has consequences well beyond fairness. It damages accuracy and quality. As the authors write, “Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking.”

One of the study’s authors, Philip E. Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania, put it to me more bluntly. Expecting trustworthy results on politically charged topics from an “ideologically incestuous community,” he explained, is “downright delusional.”

Are untrustworthy academic findings really a problem? In a few high-profile cases, most definitely. Take, for example, Prof. Diederik Stapel of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, who in 2011 faked experiments to show, among other things, that eating meat made people selfish. (He later said that his work was “a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth”).

Continued in article

 

Jensen Comment
One of the things I note after extensive reading of student comments on www.RateMyProfessors.com  is that liberal faculty are more apt to bring some topics inappropriately into the classroom. For example, it is extremely common to bring feminist activism into courses like mathematics and science where there are dubious justifications for feminist activism. But across the board it seems that faculty tend not to hide their political biases in most any disciplines. However, it also seems that more often than not students shrug off these biases. Their political leanings were mostly determined before going to college and were probably more heavily influenced by parents and peers.

  • "Moving Further to the Left," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, October 24, 2012 ---
    http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/24/survey-finds-professors-already-liberal-have-moved-further-left

    Academics, on average, lean to the left. A survey being released today suggests that they are moving even more in that direction.


     

    Among full-time faculty members at four-year colleges and universities, the percentage identifying as "far left" or liberal has increased notably in the last three years, while the percentage identifying in three other political categories has declined. The data come from the University of California at Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute, which surveys faculty members nationwide every three years on a range of attitudes.


     

    Here are the data for the new survey and the prior survey:

      2010-11 2007-8
    Far left 12.4% 8.8%
    Liberal 50.3% 47.0%
    Middle of the road 25.4% 28.4%
    Conservative 11.5% 15.2%
    Far right 0.4% 0.7%


     

    Gauging how gradual or abrupt this shift is complicated because of changes in the UCLA survey's methodology; before 2007-8, the survey included community college faculty members, who have been excluded since. But for those years, examining only four-year college and university faculty members, the numbers are similar to those of 2007-8. Going back further, one can see an evolution away from the center.


     

    In the 1998-9 survey, more than 35 percent of faculty members identified themselves as middle of the road, and less than half (47.5 percent) identified as liberal or far left. In the new data, 62.7 percent identify as liberal or far left. (Most surveys that have included community college faculty members have found them to inhabit political space to the right of faculty members at four-year institutions.)


     

    The new data differ from some recent studies by groups other than the UCLA center that have found that professors (while more likely to lean left than right) in fact were doing so from more of a centrist position. A major study in 2007, for example, found that professors were more likely to be centrist than liberal, and that many on the left identified themselves as "slightly liberal." (That study and the new one use different scales, making exact comparisons impossible.)


     

    In looking at the new data, there is notable variation by sector. Private research universities are the most left-leaning, with 16.2 percent of faculty members identifying as far left, and 0.1 percent as far right. (If one combines far left and liberal, however, private, four-year, non-religious colleges top private universities, 58.6 percent to 57.7 percent.) The largest conservative contingent can be found at religious, non-Roman Catholic four-year colleges, where 23.0 percent identify as conservative and another 0.6 percent say that they are far right.


     

    Professors' Political Identification, 2010-11, by Sector

      Far left Liberal Middle of the Road Conservative Far right
    Public universities 13.3% 52.4% 24.7% 9.2% 0.3%
    Private universities 16.2% 51.5% 22.3% 9.8% 0.1%
    Public, 4-year colleges 8.8% 47.1% 28.7% 14.7% 0.7%
    Private, 4-year, nonsectarian 14.0% 54.6% 22.6% 8.6% 0.3%
    Private, 4-year, Catholic 7.8% 48.0% 30.7% 13.3% 0.3%
    Private, 4-year, other religious 7.4% 40.0% 29.1% 23.0% 0.6%


     

    The study found some differences by gender, with women further to the left than men. Among women, 12.6 percent identified as far left and 54.9 percent as liberal. Among men, the figures were 12.2 percent and 47.2 percent, respectively.


     

    When it comes to the three tenure-track ranks, assistant professors were the most likely to be far left, but full professors were more likely than others to be liberal.


     

    Professors' Political Identification, 2010-11, by Tenure Rank

      Far left Liberal Middle of the Road Conservative Far right
    Full professors 11.8% 54.9% 23.4% 9.7% 0.2%
    Associate professors 13.8% 50.4% 24.0% 11.5% 0.4%
    Assistant professors 13.9% 48.7% 25.9% 11.2% 0.4%


     

    So what do these data mean?


     

    Sylvia Hurtado, professor of education at UCLA and director of the Higher Education Research Institute, said that she didn't know what to make of the surge to the left by faculty members. She said that she suspects age may be a factor, as the full-time professoriate is aging, but said that this is just a theory. Hurtado said that these figures always attract a lot of attention, but she thinks that the emphasis may be misplaced because of a series of studies showing no evidence that left-leaning faculty members are somehow shifting the views of their students or enforcing any kind of political requirement.

    Continued in article

    "Noam Chomsky Spells Out the Purpose of Education," by Josh Jones, Open Culture, November 2012 ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/noam_chomsky_spells_out_the_purpose_of_education.html

    Jensen Comment


  •  

    Actually the conservatives left on campus are the quants (in accounting we call them accountics scientists) who devoted their lives to conducting research on the capital markets, especially stocks, bonds, commodities, and derivatives. They are among the highest paid faculty and write in equations the rest of the faculty and students on campus cannot comprehend.

     

     

    Some quants are critical of capital markets but most are simply trying to better understand markets and justify what they do as trying to make markets more efficient in allocation of capital and other resources to enterprises.

     

     

    I will leave it up to Jagdish to tabulate the results, but conservative economists have probably had more than their fair share of Nobel prizes in economics. Only ignorant academics accuse conservatives on campus of being ignorant.

     

     

    I have not looked for proof, but I suspect that conservatives almost totally dominate the doctoral programs in accountancy. They are usually arrogant and make virtually no effort to communicate with anybody but themselves and their quant students. The reason they make little effort to enter into conservatism versus liberalism debates is that these few remaining conservatives are so badly outnumbered.

     

    Bob Jensen

     

  • Bob Jensen's threads on the liberal biases of higher education ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/higHerEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias


    "Court: Harris-Stowe State U Owes $4.85 Million to White Former Professor," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 4, 2015 ---
    https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/11/04/court-harris-stowe-state-u-owes-485-million-white-former-professor?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=413ea4fde2-DNU20151103&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-413ea4fde2-197565045

    Harris-Stowe State University must pay a former full-time education instructor $4.85 million in damages related to her racial bias claims, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. A St. Louis circuit court ruled that the historically black university discriminated against Beverly Wilkins, who is white, when it fired her in 2010.

    Wilkins said one administrator in particular, Latisha Smith, a former dean and department head, failed to follow a reduction in force policy in pegging her for termination over several other black faculty members. The lawsuit alleges that Smith purged the department of all white faculty members, except one protected by tenure, and that she covered up her bias by deleting incriminating emails. Smith blamed budget cuts for Wilkins’s termination, but continued to hire additional faculty members -- including two to cover Wilkins’s classes, who together were paid more than her salary -- Michael Meyers, her lawyer, told the Dispatch.

    Continued in article


    University --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

    By the 18th century, universities published their own research journals and by the 19th century, the German and the French university models had arisen. The German, or Humboldtian model, was conceived by Wilhelm von Humboldt and based on Friedrich Schleiermacher's liberal ideas pertaining to the importance of freedom, seminars, and laboratories in universities. The French university model involved strict discipline and control over every aspect of the university.

    Continued in article

    The Emergence of the American University (University of Chicago Press, 1965, 520 pages) --- http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo3615297.html

    "Meet the Man Who Wrote the Greatest (History) Book About American Higher Ed," by Kevin Carey, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 29, 2015 ---
    http://chronicle.com/article/Meet-the-Man-Who-Wrote-the/233966?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=a0819acdf0b24115b1da20506a78ccb0&elqCampaignId=1724&elqaid=6726&elqat=1&elqTrackId=c10085c3b2d24f50b232170e8b843bbf

    The old man sat naked and alone, the Pacific Ocean a few feet away. His skin was nut-brown, covered with diamond-shaped tattoos running down his left arm, shoulder, and torso. His nipples were pierced, long white beard a tangle, legs and feet caked with dirt. At the moment the camera shutter snapped, he smiled and remembered a Thomas Eakins portrait of Walt Whitman, another American wild and unafraid.

    He owned a single piece of clothing, a filthy pair of denim shorts, which he wore reluctantly when he did his shopping at the Safeway or stopped at a roadside stand for rum-raisin ice cream. He would occasionally walk to the Instant Printing Company to send other train enthusiasts copies of a long, meticulously detailed catalog he had compiled of VHS videotapes featuring vintage streetcars. Most days he could be found on a flat pile of rocks a short hike from town, among the sugar-cane fields at the foot of the West Maui Forest Reserve, reading Victorian novels and baking nude in the sun.

    To the locals in the Hawaiian town of Lahaina, Larry Veysey was just another eccentric washed up in paradise, good for a smile and nod but not much conversation. Visitors came occasionally to his condominium by the beach, fellow nudists mostly, or a few friends from another time. Nobody knew that this resting place was the end of a journey that had begun with death and tragedy in a different sort of utopia, gone east to rare heights of scholarship in the Ivy League, and returned to the redwood forests of California, where he was liberated, or driven mad, or both, by the cultural convulsions of the 20th century.

    Or that 50 years ago, he produced what is arguably the greatest book ever written about the American university.

    Continued in article

    Jensen Comment
    When I was invited to do a 2001 gig at Humboldt University in Berlin it was claimed that this was the first university on earth. Whereas older institutions like Oxford were collections of autonomous colleges the concept of a university evolved with integrated curricula and integrated administration.


    ‘Do You Miss Being a Professor?’
    https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1179-do-you-miss-being-a-professor?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=a0819acdf0b24115b1da20506a78ccb0&elqCampaignId=1724&elqaid=6726&elqat=1&elqTrackId=13ee97e464d54cdda455c5184f35981f

    Jensen Comment
    When asked this question I say yes, although I miss being a professor in the 1970s more than being a professor in the early part of the 21st Century.  I retired in 2006 after 40 years of being a faculty member at four universities. What I liked less and less over the years was students'  increasing obsession with grades. In the 1970s a C was an average grade for undergraduates, and students tended not to fight tooth and nail about their grades with their instructors. Over the ensuing decades grades increasingly became keys to the kingdom for students in terms of both employment and admission to graduate school. In 1970 a student with a 2.9 gpa could interview with a large accounting firm and obtain a job offer. By 1990 the big accounting firms were not willing to interview most students with less than 3.25 gpa records.

    American Universities experienced highly dysfunctional grade inflation that commenced for various reasons in the latter part of the 20th Century. However, studies point to the main reason for grade inflation as the power given to teaching evaluations of students who commenced to heavily determine the tenure and performance evaluation prospects of their teachers. In the 1940s the average grade at Harvard was a C. By 1990 the average grade at Harvard was an A with over 80% of the students graduating cum laude. A C grade became a failing grade at Harvard and virtually every other American University. A famous professor at Harvard gives out two grades at Harvard. One is the A grade for the transcript. The other is a secret grade given to the student in an envelope revealing what the student actually earned in the judgment of the professor who taught the course ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#RateMyProfessor

    With the student power over tenure and performance evaluations came a watering down of courses. Note how the top 25 professors on RateMyProfessors score on easiness of their courses ---
    http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/blog/toplist/top-professors-of-2014-2015
    Also read the student evaluations regarding difficulty of their courses.


    While the lawsuits mount
    Across 20 Years of Fake Courses and Athlete Grade Changing Scandals at the University of North Carolina

    "What Was Jan Boxill Thinking? 3 Gems From Her Inbox," by Andy Thomason, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 27, 2015 ---
    http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/what-was-jan-boxill-thinking-3-gems-from-her-inbox/106098?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en&elq=54903d1d11d04fcbb1d0fd5284e039f4&elqCampaignId=1707&elqaid=6699&elqat=1&elqTrackId=4f6244591d494ee4b72c694f930fe1b9

    To many in academe, the most intriguing question following last year’s bombshell report of widespread academic fraud at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was not “How could this happen?” but, instead, “What was Jan Boxill thinking?”

    Ms. Boxill, an ethicist and former chair of the Chapel Hill faculty, was found to have been a willing participant in the fake-classes scheme, conspiring to manufacture grades in order to keep athletes eligible to compete when she was an academic counselor for the players. Here’s a now-infamous example of Ms. Boxill trading emails with the mastermind of the scheme, the former manager of the department of African and Afro-American studies, Deborah Crowder:

    Continued in article

    Bob Jensen's threads on 20 Years of Fake Courses and Athlete Grade Changing Scandal and UNC ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#RebeccaHoward


    "NY Times: A Majority Of Law Schools Are Scamming Students And Taxpayers," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog, October 255, 2015 ---
    http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/10/ny-times-a-majority-of-law-schools-admit-unqualified-students-charge-outrageously-high-tuition-and-s.html

    American law schools are increasingly charging outrageously high tuition and sticking taxpayers with the tab for loan defaults when students fail to become lawyers.

    In 2013, the median LSAT score of students admitted to Florida Coastal School of Law was in the bottom quarter of all test-takers nationwide. According to the test’s administrators, students with scores this low are unlikely to ever pass the bar exam.

    Despite this bleak outlook, Florida Coastal charges nearly $45,000 a year in tuition, which, with living expenses, can lead to crushing amounts of debt for its students. Ninety-three percent of the school’s 2014 graduating class of 484 had debts and the average was almost $163,000 — a higher average than all but three law schools in the country. In short, most of Florida Coastal’s students are leaving law school with a degree they can’t use, bought with a debt they can’t repay.

    If this sounds like a scam, that’s because it is. Florida Coastal, in Jacksonville, is one of six for-profit law schools in the country that have been vacuuming up hordes of young people, charging them outrageously high tuition and, after many of the students fail to become lawyers, sticking taxpayers with the tab for their loan defaults.

    Yet for-profit schools are not the only offenders. A majority of American law schools, which have nonprofit status, are increasingly engaging in such behavior, and in the process threatening the future of legal education.

    Why? The most significant explanation is also the simplest — free money.

    In 2006, Congress extended the federal Direct PLUS Loan program to allow a graduate or professional student to borrow the full amount of tuition, no matter how high, and living expenses. The idea was to give more people access to higher education and thus, in theory, higher lifetime earnings. But broader access doesn’t mean much if degrees lead not to well-paying jobs but to heavy debt burdens. That is all too often the result with PLUS loans.

    The consequences of this free flow of federal loans have been entirely predictable: Law schools jacked up tuition and accepted more students, even after the legal job market stalled and shrank in the wake of the recession. For years, law schools were able to obscure the poor market by refusing to publish meaningful employment information about their graduates. But in response to pressure from skeptical lawmakers and unhappy graduates, the schools began sharing the data — and it wasn’t a pretty picture. Forty-three percent of all 2013 law school graduates did not have long-term full-time legal jobs nine months after graduation, and the numbers are only getting worse. In 2012, the average law graduate’s debt was $140,000, 59 percent higher than eight years earlier.

    This reality has contributed to the drastic drop in law school applications since 2011, which has in turn exacerbated the problemto maintain enrollment numbers, law schools have had to lower their admissions standards and take even more unqualified students. These students then fail to pass the bar in alarmingly high numbers — in 2014, the average score on the common portion of the test was the lowest in more than 25 years.

    How can this death spiral be stopped? For starters, the government must require accountability from the law schools that live off student loans. This year, the Obama administration extended the so-called gainful employment rule, which ties a school’s eligibility to receive federal student loans to its success in preparing graduates for jobs that will enable them to repay their debt. The rule currently applies only to for-profit law schools, all of which, given their track records, would fail to qualify for federal loans

    Continued in article

    Bob Jensen's threads on the laments of law schools and their students in the USA ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools

    Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


    This one event in World Cup history perfectly encapsulates the mass corruption of FIFA ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-2018-and-qatar-2022-world-cups-2015-10

    Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


    IRS Reveals USC Athletic Director Pat Haden's daughter paid $1,308 per hour from the Foundation
    Sun Times --- http://national.suntimes.com/national-sports/7/72/2008165/pat-haden-daughter

    An investigation into USC Athletic Director Pat Haden found the Trojans’ top athletic figurehead collects roughly half a million dollars annually for his roles outside of the athletic department.The monetary benefits also extend to his daughter, Natalie Haden O’Connor, who is on the George Henry Mayr Foundation board with Haden.IRS filings obtained by the Los Angeles Times found O’Connor was paid roughly $68,000 last year, with the foundation reporting she worked an average of one hour a week.Haden was also listed as working an average of one hour a week. He made $72,725 from the nonprofit last year.

    Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


    "Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test." "Study delivers bleak verdict on validity of psychology experiment results." "Psychology is a discipline in crisis."
    "How to Fix Psychology’s Replication Crisis," by Brian D. Earp and Jim A.C. Everett, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 25, 2015 ---
    http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Fix-Psychology-s/233857?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=ffdd5e32cd6c4add86ab025b68705a00&elqCampaignId=1697&elqaid=6688&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ffd568b276aa4a30804c90824e34b8d9

    These and other similar headlines followed the results of a large-scale initiative called the Reproducibility Project, recently published in Science magazine, which appeared to show that a majority of findings from a sample of 100 psychology studies did not hold up when independent labs attempted to replicate them. (A similar initiative is underway in cancer biology and other fields: Challenges with replication are not unique to psychology.)

    Headlines tend to run a little hot. So the media’s dramatic response to the Science paper was not entirely surprising given the way these stories typically go. As it stands, though, it is not at all clear what these replications mean. What the experiments actually yielded in most cases was a different statistical value or a smaller effect-size estimate compared with the original studies, rather than positive evidence against the existence of the underlying phenomenon.

    This is an important distinction. Although it would be nice if it were otherwise, the data points we collect in psychology don’t just hold up signs saying, "there’s an effect here" or "there isn’t one." Instead, we have to make inferences based on statistical estimates, and we should expect those estimates to vary over time. In the typical scenario, an initial estimate turns out to be on the high end (that’s why it ends up getting published in the first place — it looks impressive), and then subsequent estimates are a bit more down to earth.

    . . .

    To make the point a slightly different way: While it is in everyone’s interest that high-quality, direct replications of key studies in the field are conducted (so that we can know what degree of confidence to place in previous findings), it is not typically in any particular researcher’s interest to spend her time conducting such replications.

    As Huw Green, a Ph.D. student at the City University of New York, recently put it, the "real crisis in psychology isn’t that studies don’t replicate, but that we usually don’t even try."

    What is needed is a "structural solution" — something that has the power to resolve collective-action problems like the one we’re describing. In simplest terms, if everyone is forced to cooperate (by some kind of regulation), then no single individual will be at a disadvantage compared to her peers for doing the right thing.

    There are lots of ways of pulling this off — and we don’t claim to have a perfect solution. But here is one idea. As we proposed in a recent paper, graduate students in psychology should be required to conduct, write up, and submit for publication a high-quality replication attempt of at least one key finding from the literature (ideally focusing on the area of their doctoral research), as a condition of receiving their Ph.D.s.

    Of course, editors would need to agree to publish these kinds of submissions, and fortunately there are a growing number — led by journals like PLoS ONE — that are willing to do just that.

    . . .

    Since our paper was featured several weeks ago in Nature, we’ve begun to get some constructive feedback. As one psychologist wrote to us in an email (paraphrased):

    Your proposed solution would only apply to some fields of psychology. It’s not a big deal to ask students to do cheap replication studies involving, say, pen-and-paper surveys — as is common in social psychology. But to replicate an experiment involving sensitive populations (babies, for instance, or people with clinical disorders) or fancy equipment like an fMRI machine, you would need a dedicated lab, a team of experimenters, and several months of hard work — not to mention the money to pay for all of this!

    That much is undoubtedly true. Expensive, time-consuming studies with hard-to-recruit participants would not be replicated very much if our proposal were taken up.

    But that is exactly the way things are now — so the problem would not be made any worse. On the other hand, there are literally thousands of studies that can be tested relatively cheaply, at a skill level commensurate with a graduate student’s training, which would benefit from being replicated. In other words, having students perform replications as part of their graduate work is very unlikely to make the problem of not having enough replications any worse, but it has great potential to help make it better.

    Beyond this, there is a pedagogical benefit. As Michael C. Frank and Rebecca Saxe have written: In their own courses, they have found "that replicating cutting-edge results is exciting and fun; it gives students the opportunity to make real scientific contributions (provided supervision is appropriate); and it provides object lessons about the scientific process, the importance of reporting standards, and the value of openness."

    At the end of the day, replication is indispensable. It is a key part of the scientific enterprise; it helps us determine how much confidence to place in published findings; and it will advance our knowledge in the long run.

    Continued in article

    Jensen Comments

    Accountics is the mathematical science of values.
    Charles Sprague [1887] as quoted by McMillan [1998, p. 1][NH1] 
    Accountics science publications are any publications that feature mathematics and/or statistical inference.

    In accountics science I'm not aware of a single exacting replication of the type discussed above of a published behavioral accounting research study. Whether those findings constitute "truth" really does not matter much because the practicing profession ignores accountics science behavior studies as irrelevant and academics are only interested in the research methodologies rather than the findings.

    For example, years ago the FASB engaged Tom Dyckman and Bob Jensen to work with the academic FASB member Bob Sprouse in evaluating research proposals to study (with FASB funding) the post hoc impact of FAS 13 on the practicing profession. In doing so the FASB said that both capital markets empiricism and analytical research papers were acceptable but that the FASB had no interest in behavioral studies. The implication was that behavioral studies were of little interest too the FASB for various reasons, the main reason is that the tasks in behavioral research were too artificial and removed from decision making in real-world settings.

    Interestingly both Tom and Bob had written doctoral theses that entailed behavioral experiments in artificial settings. Tom used students as subjects, and Bob used financial analysts doing, admittedly, artificial tasks. However, neither Dyckman nor Jensen had much interest in subsequently conducting behavioral experiments when they were professors. Of course in this FAS 13 engagement Dyckman and Jensen were only screening proposals submitted by other researchers.

    Accountics science research journals to my knowledge still will not publish replications of behavioral experiments that only replicate and do not extend the findings. Most like The Accounting Review, will not publish replications of any kind. Accountics scientists have never considered replication is indispensable at the end of the day.

    "The Results of the Reproducibility Project Are In. They’re Not Good," by Tom Bartlett, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 28, 2015 ---
    http://chronicle.com/article/The-Results-of-the/232695/?cid=at

    A decade ago, John P.A. Ioannidis published a provocative and much-discussed paper arguing that most published research findings are false. It’s starting to look like he was right.

    The results of the Reproducibility Project are in, and the news is not good. The goal of the project was to attempt to replicate findings in 100 studies from three leading psychology journals published in the year 2008. The very ambitious endeavor, led by Brian Nosek, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and executive director of the Center for Open Science, brought together more than 270 researchers who tried to follow the same methods as the original researchers — in essence, double-checking their work by painstakingly re-creating it.

    Turns out, only 39 percent of the studies withstood that scrutiny.

    Even Mr. Nosek, a self-described congenital optimist, doesn’t try to put a happy spin on that number. He’s pleased that the replicators were able to pull off the project, which began in 2011 and involved innumerable software issues, language differences, logistical challenges, and other assorted headaches. Now it’s done! That’s the upside.

    Continued in article

    Bob Jensen's threads on the lack of replication in accountics science in general ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTar.htm


    "Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test." "Study delivers bleak verdict on validity of psychology experiment results." "Psychology is a discipline in crisis."
    "How to Fix Psychology’s Replication Crisis," by Brian D. Earp and Jim A.C. Everett, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 25, 2015 ---

    http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Fix-Psychology-s/233857?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=ffdd5e32cd6c4add86ab025b68705a00&elqCampaignId=1697&elqaid=6688&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ffd568b276aa4a30804c90824e34b8d9

    Journalism Should Also Be More Concerned About Replication Issues
    "The New York Times’ Nail Salons Series Was Filled with Misquotes and Factual Errors. Here’s Why That Matters:  Reporter Sarah Maslin Nir's investigative series violated the standards of responsible journalism," by Jim Epstein, Reason Magazine, October 27, 2015 ---
    https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/27/new-york-times-nail-salon-unvarnished

    Hollywood Should Also Be More Concerned About Replication Issues
    "The Atlantic:  Truth: A Terrible, Terrible Movie About Journalism:  James Vanderbilt's directorial debut gets almost everything wrong about its putative subject." Christopher Orr, The Atlantic, October 23, 2015 ---
    http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/truth-a-terrible-terrible-movie-about-journalism/412036/

    Late in the movie Truth, the former 60 Minutes Wednesday producer Mary Mapes (played by Cate Blanchett) offers a Big Speech about the state of journalism, decrying the fact that all that people want to read or watch on television these days is “conspiracy theories.” The irony apparently lost on her (or at least on the writer-director James Vanderbilt) is that she makes this charge while she herself is in the midst of presenting a conspiracy theory.

    The film concerns 60 Minutes’s 2004 pre-election reporting on George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. Two documents central to the news program’s contention that Bush was granted preferential treatment were subsequently revealed to be almost certainly fraudulent. This error ultimately resulted in the retirement from CBS of Dan Rather (played here with likable understatement by Robert Redford) and the firing of Mapes and others. It’s in the midst of her “conspiracy theory” speech that Mapes suggests that the fraudulent documents were a cunning ploy by pro-Bush forces—immaculately sophisticated in some respects, but childishly certain to be recognized as fake in others—intended to discredit further reporting into his military record. Could this be true? Stranger things have happened, I suppose. But it’s pretty much the definition of a conspiracy theory.

    This is, alas, of a piece with Truth, one of the worst films about journalism (and there have been plenty of bad ones) to come down the pike in a long while. The movie loudly, hectoringly stresses the importance of always “asking questions”—my notes include, among others, the lines “Questions help us get to the truth,” “You stop asking questions, that’s when the American people lose,” and “You’re supposed to question everything, that’s your job”—and yet the very quality it celebrates in its protagonist is that she never questions whether or not her reporting might have been wrong. This is a film in which acknowledging error is treated as some terrible surrender and betrayal of trust; in actual journalism, it’s considered a moral obligation—one that, sadly, most people in the field have had some experience with, in one capacity or another.

    Continued in article

    Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


    Kickback (bribery) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickback

    "U.S. Sen. Warren: ‘Kickbacks’ Create Conflicts for Annuity Sales Agents," by Leslie Scism, The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2015 ---
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-sen-warren-kickbacks-create-conflicts-for-annuity-sales-agents-1445961871?mod=djemCFO_h

    Jensen Comment
    I always thought that "kickback" was a form of bribery to non-employees such as kickbacks to customers and government agents such as bribing a government agent or paying or paying a customer's purchasing agent under the table to agree to make a purchase. Kickbacks are common, albeit often illegal, when vendors pay under-the-table to sell such things as military equipment and supplies to the Pentagon. A common and illegal or unethical type of kickback arises when pharmaceutical companies off free cruises and condos as incentives for physicians to prescribe branded merchandise that is usually overpriced relative to generic alternatives.

    In this context, what Sen. Warren calls "kickbacks" to employees really are just other forms of compensation such as giving out prizes in lieu of cash bonuses to sales employees for outstanding performances. Such prizes are taxable to employees and must be reported at fair values to the IRS. There are some advantages to paying non-cash prizes such as vacation hotel rooms. Employers can often negotiate lower prices for such prizes due to such deals as volume discounts from hotel chains and block purchases of cruise liner tickets. By "lower price" I mean less that an employee would pay for such a prize if purchased separately out of a cash bonus. It'sis quite traditional to give non-cash prizes to sales staff in most industries.

    As long as this non-cash compensation is all above board and satisfies IRS requirements I see nothing unethical or illegal about it.
    The risk lies more with incentives the employees have to act unethically when selling products and services that are overpriced and/or inferior. However, such risk is perhaps even greater if the compensation is in the form of cash bonuses rather than non-cash prizes to employees.

    Sometimes non-cash prizes become hedonistic with lavish parties in luxury hotels where premium whiskey and wine encourages inebriation while very expensive bands and singers perform, Sometimes things get out of hand with added alternatives for prostitutes that are not likely to be reported on W-2 forms. Perhaps Sen. Warren is being influenced by reported hedonism of non-cash prizes to annuity sales agents.

    When I bought various lifetime annuities from TIAA I was not even offered a free lunch, and the TIAA representative was a young mother who did not seem likely to be wanting  lavish parties and prostitutes.


    "How a 40-Year-Old Idea Became Higher Education’s Next Big Thing," by Dan Barrett, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 28, 2015 ---
    http://chronicle.com/article/How-a-40-Year-Old-Idea-Became/233976

    . . .

    These pressures are intersecting with another mounting concern: educational quality. Together, these forces are feeding an unusual bipartisan consensus, and they are prompting higher-education leaders to take a fresh look at an old idea: competency-based education. It allows students to make progress at their own pace by demonstrating what they know and can do instead of hewing to the timeline of the semester. While this model has long been used to expand access and lower costs, particularly for adult students, it is now attracting attention as a way to shore up academic rigor.

    But this surge in interest has also sparked questions. How effective a method is it for students with varying levels of preparedness, or is it really only suited for the academically talented who can learn on their own? Can it assure educational quality, or is it just being offered to the disadvantaged as a cut-rate version of the full college experience?

    The story of how competency-based education has become the latest Next Big Thing after being around for four decades is a tale of timing, of money and politics, and of shifting academic norms.

    Advocates for competency-based learning have seen Big Things get hyped in the past, only to flame out. Still, they hope that this model of learning can ultimately achieve a grand goal: staking a claim to, defining, and substantiating quality in higher education.

    Just maybe, the new stage of development that Mr. Jessup envisioned decades ago may finally be arriving.

    A generation or two after Mr. Jessup’s prediction, a different sort of challenge confronted higher education. The end of the Vietnam War and broadening opportunities for women meant that adults who were older than the core demographic of 18- to 21-year-olds were flocking to college. But with jobs and families, they did not have the luxury of spending hours each week in a classroom.

    Competency-based education as a concept began in that era, the 1970s, with programs emerging to serve those older students. Places like Excelsior College (then Regents College), Thomas Edison State College, DePaul University’s School for New Learning, and the State University of New York’s Empire State College were among the first to offer such programs. They wanted to expand access.

    Then, as state support for higher education dropped and tuition and student-loan debt rose, so did concerns about cost.

    Those two goals, access and cost, have dominated years of efforts to remake higher education. Now, a third goal — educational quality — is driving change.

    Competency-based learning may be able to achieve all three goals, say its supporters. And, they add, it is quality that matters most. "Its potential is for a much higher level of quality and a greater attention to rigor," says Alison Kadlec, senior vice president of Public Agenda, a nonprofit organization that is playing a leading role in the growth of this model.

    "The worst possible outcome," she said, "would be that competency-based education becomes a subprime form of learning."

    Continued in article

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


    "What Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Understand About Germany’s Free College:  Why does America have higher attendance and graduation rates?" by Scott Shackford|, Reason Magazine, October 22, 2015 ---
    https://reason.com/blog/2015/10/22/what-bernie-sanders-doesnt-understand-ab

    . . .

    Instead, Sanders points to other, smaller countries that have "free" college tuition (scare quotes because obviously somebody's paying for it): Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Mexico. He takes special note of Germany, because even Americans can access their college system:

    For a token fee of about $200 per year, an American can earn a degree in math or engineering from one of the premier universities in Europe. Governments in these countries understand what an important investment they are making, not just in the individuals who are able to acquire knowledge and skills but for the societies these students will serve as teachers, architects, scientists, entrepreneurs and more.

    Since Sanders left out any analysis of why college is so expensive, it's worth exploring what exactly Sanders has left out when he invokes Germany's college system. Note that Sanders has said "A college degree is the new high school diploma"? That attitude is exactly backwards from how Germany approaches higher education. Germany does not have a work environment that demands a college degree for every well-paying career. The apprenticeship program that Sanders bemoans having lost in America is well intact in Germany. Many careers that require college degrees in America do not require college degrees in Germany.

    Even with the free tuition, Germany actually has a lower college enrollment rate than many other Western countries, including the United States (check out World Bank data here). Actually, America has a higher rate of college enrollment than all of the countries Sanders lists except for Finland.

    Oh, also: America has a higher college graduation rate than Germany, too. And a greater percentage of young Americans have college degrees compared to every country on Sanders' list except for Norway and Ireland.

    Instead, Germany has a very robust vocational education track that partners businesses and the government to provide apprenticeships, so the government (and citizenry) is not paying the full burden for the students' training, though Germany is still covering classroom costs.

    It is also a highly regulated, centrally controlled, and very inflexible system that probably won't fly in the United States. Tamar Jacoby noted at The Atlantic when exploring Germany's apprenticeship program a year ago:

    What makes dual training work, every manager told us, are the standardized occupational profiles, or curricula, developed by the federal government in collaboration with employers, educators, and union representatives. Every young machinist training anywhere in Germany learns the same skills in the same order on the same timetable as every other machinist. This is good for apprentices: It guarantees high-quality programs where trainees learn more than one company's methods, making it possible for those who wish to switch jobs later on. But it's hard to imagine this level of state control or business-labor cooperation in the U.S.

    It's certainly easy to see how a guy who thinks we have too many types of deodorant would not grasp that flexibility and innovation could be lost as a result of standardizing college the way we have public education. It's also possible Sanders wouldn't even grasp that this is a problem.

    Continued in article

    Jensen Comment
    Hillary Clinton's strong suit has never been economics. In her struggles to take the far left vote from Sanders in 2016 primary election she's making the same mistakes by offering free college to all but the very wealthy.

    What neither Sanders nor Clinton want to admit is that nations like Germany with free college are only providing free college to an elite percentage of high aptitude students. In Germany more the 70% of the "high school" graduates are even allowed to go to college.


    "SAT's Racial Impact," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, October 27, 2015 ---
    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/27/study-finds-race-growing-explanatory-factor-sat-scores-california?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=9100c271bb-DNU201510027&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-9100c271bb-197565045

    Large and growing gaps in SAT scores, by race and ethnicity, are nothing new. The College Board and educators alike have acknowledged these gaps and offered a variety of explanations, with a focus on the gaps in family income (on average) and the resources at high schools that many minority students attend. And indeed there is also a consistent pattern year after year on SAT scores in that the higher the family income, on average, the higher the scores.

    But a new, long-term analysis of SAT scores has found that, among applicants to the University of California's campuses, race and ethnicity have become stronger predictors of SAT scores than family income and parental education levels.

    . . .

    The solution, for Geiser, is to go back to what the University of California did when it adopted the SAT, but which the state's voters have barred it from doing today: considering race in admissions. He writes that if public universities are going to consider SAT scores in a serious way, they should also consider race and ethnicity.

    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

    Jensen Comment
    Asians now outscore whites on SAT and ACT examinations. Also there are now more Hispanics in California than whites among the younger generations. There is also a very large and growing Asian population all along the Pacific-bounded states. Times are changing in terms of white dominance on most anything with Californians leading the way.  Affirmative action based on racial quotas may eventually benefit whites in California, Oregon, and Washington.

    Vancouver is now the most expensive city in all of North America mainly due to wealthy Chinese buying up of real estate. San Francisco is right behind. More Chinese wealth is pouring into Canada, however, due to the Canadian policy of selling citizenship.

    Bob Jensen's threads on affirmative action ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HIGHerEdControversies2.htm#AcademicStandards




    From the Scout Report on October 30, 2015

    Wikispaces Classroom --- https://www.wikispaces.com/content/classroom 

    As the site notes, Wikispaces Classroom is "a social writing platform" where teachers and students can use the latest technology to seamlessly communicate and collaborate. This virtual workspace allows teachers to create a safe, private network where students may work on writing projects, either independently or in teams. Creating a classroom is relatively easy, but does require a free account. Once an account is created, users can build a space of their own by creating new pages, uploading files, starting discussions, and adding projects and tags. For educators looking for ways to make homework more interactive and dynamic, Wikispaces Classroom is a big step forward.  


    LeechBlock ---  http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock/ 

    Since it first appeared in 2007, LeechBlock has provided Internet users with a simple tool intended to increase productivity by blocking "those time-wasting sites that can suck the life out of your working day." With many customizable options, this Firefox browser extension allows users to select specific sites to block while leaving access to those that may be needed for school or work. It also tracks the total amount of time spent browsing websites within a specific block of time, a helpful feature for staying on top of your good and bad browsing habits. Interested users will want to explore this website before installing, which features Examples of various uses of the different settings, as well as a comprehensive FAQ section, and four-step Installation guide


    Consensus on Dietary Guidelines May Be Long In Coming
    Processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes - WHO
    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/26/bacon-ham-sausages-processed-meats-cancer-risk-smoking-says-who

    Q&A on the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed
    meat
    http://www.who.int/features/q, a/cancer-red-meat/en/

    What the New Dietary Guidelines Mean for You
    http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/03/04/what-the-new-dietary-guidelines-mean-for-you

    How strong is the science behind the U.S. Dietary Guidelines?
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/24/health/dietary-guidelines-science/

    Why the new, proposed U.S. dietary guidelines are provoking controversy and
    ire
    http://fortune.com/2015/10/07/dietary-guidelines-usda/

    Health.gov: Dietary Guidelines
    http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/qanda.asp

     


    From the Scout Report on November 6, 2015
     

  • Tweet Shot --- http://www.tweetshot.com 

    For readers who spend time on Twitter following worldwide trends for business, education, marketing, or any other purpose, TweetShot provides a useful service. The app has two modes: TweetShot Trend Mode and TweetShot Tag Mode. TweetShot Trend Mode monitors the top ten trends in any country around the world in realtime. Readers may simply select the nation they wish to monitor, and TweetShot will provide up-to-date snapshots of what is trending. TweetShot Tag Mode allows readers to find out what hashtags particular users are tweeting about. Simply enter a user's Twitter handle and TweetShot will retrieve the top four hashtags that the user tweets about. In all, TweetShot is a useful tool for readers who are tracking trends on the Internet and is available for both Android (3.0+) and Apple (iOS 7.0 or later) devices.


    Identifont --- http://www.identifont.com/ 

    Identifont is for readers who love the visual presentation of letters and alphabets, and want to understand more. The site helps users identify fonts by certain clues, and works in five possible categories: Fonts by Appearance, Fonts by Name, Fonts by Similarity, Fonts by Picture, and Fonts by Designer/Publisher. For example, if you have found a font that you love, but don't know the name, Identifont will have you answer a series of questions to identify the font, such as "Do the characters have serifs?" "What style is the upper-case 'Q'tail?" and others. A similar process can be engaged for the other four categories, as well. Typeface lovers will find much to love on Identifont.


    15 Year Anniversary of International Space Station
    International Space Station Celebrates 15 Years of Occupancy
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/international-space-station-celebrates-15-years-occupancy/story?id=34912700

    15 Years of the International Space Station by numbers
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11961496/15-years-of-the-International-Space-Station-by-numbers.html

    Orbiting bacteria: Space Station may need some tidying up
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/28/health/space-station-surprise-bacteria/

    International Space Station
    https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

    International Space Station: Facts, History, & Tracking
    http://www.space.com/16748-international-space-station.html

    International Space Station
    http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/international_space_station/index.html
     




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


    Education Tutorials

    TeacherTube (all topics for teachers to use and share) --- http://www.teachertube.com/

    Smithsonian Libraries: Fantastic Worlds --- http://library.si.edu/digital-library/collection/fantastic-worlds/all

    Video:  Gravity Visualized by High School Teacher in an Amazingly Elegant & Simple Way ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/gravity-visualized-by-high-school-teacher-in-an-elegantly-simple-way.html

    Cybersecurity Curriculum Resources --- https://niccs.us-cert.gov/education/curriculum-resources

    Web English Teacher: AP & IB Resources (literature and writing) --- http://www.webenglishteacher.com/ap.html

    NSTA: Freebies for Science Teachers --- http://www.nsta.org/publications/freebies.aspx

    On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research --- http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12192/on-being-a-scientist-a-guide-to-responsible-conduct-in

    Nano: For K-12 Teachers (nanotechnology) --- http://www.nano.gov/education-training/teacher-resources

    Crash Course Kids (YouTube video series for science education) --- https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcoursekids

    Citizen Maths: A Free Online Course That Teaches Adults the Math They Missed in High School ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/citizen-maths-a-free-online-course-that-teaches-adults-the-math-they-missed-in-high-school.html

    Nuffield Mathematics (math teaching resources from the United Kingdom)  --- http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-mathematics

    Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum: Teacher Resources --- http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/education/resources.phtml

    Global Oneness Project (multicultural advocacy stories) --- http://www.globalonenessproject.org/

    Teaching the Food System --- http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/teaching-the-food-system/curriculum/index.html

    JSTOR Daily (a free source for new,  and old published research and scholarship) --- http://daily.jstor.org/

    Interactive Architecture Lab --- http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/

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

    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

    More than 100 colleges have set up channels on YouTube --- http://www.youtube.com/edu
    Many universities offer over 100 videos, whereas Stanford offers a whopping 583
    Search for words like “accounting”

    "YouTube Creates New Section to Highlight College Content," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2009 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3684&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

    TeacherTube (all topics for teachers to use and share) --- http://www.teachertube.com/

    There are now nearly 7,000 accounting education videos on YouTube, most of which are in very basic accounting.
    But there are nearly 150 videos in advanced accounting.
    There are nearly 70 videos on XBRL

    YouTube Education Channels --- http://www.youtube.com/education?b=400

    Teaching Channel --- https://www.teachingchannel.org/

    MIT Video (150 channels and over 12,000 videos) --- http://video.mit.edu/

    "10 Faculty Perspectives on What Works in Lecture Capture," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 4, 2011 ---
    http://chronicle.com/article/10-Faculty-Perspectives-on/129268/

     


    Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

    See if you can score better than your kids|
    Pew Research Center: Science Knowledge Quiz --- http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/science-knowledge/

    2014: The Year in Interactive Storytelling, Graphics, and Multimedia --- http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/29/us/year-in-interactive-storytelling.html

    TeacherTube (all topics for teachers to use and share) --- http://www.teachertube.com/

    This 18-year-old just won a $400,000 prize for creating a video on Einstein’s theory of relativity ---
    Promo:  http://www.businessinsider.com/ryan-chester-won-science-prize-breakthrough-ceremony-relativity-2015-11
    Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYv5GsXEf1o
    Jensen Comment
    I still don't understand this theory well enough to teach it.

    Video:  Gravity Visualized by High School Teacher in an Amazingly Elegant & Simple Way ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/gravity-visualized-by-high-school-teacher-in-an-elegantly-simple-way.html

    Essential Science for Teachers: Earth & Space Science --- https://www.learner.org/courses/essential/earthspace/index.htm

    NSTA: Freebies for Science Teachers --- http://www.nsta.org/publications/freebies.aspx

    Physics: Teacher Resources --- http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/science/gcse/physics-4403/teaching-and-learning-resources

    On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research --- http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12192/on-being-a-scientist-a-guide-to-responsible-conduct-in

    Smithsonian Libraries: Fantastic Worlds --- http://library.si.edu/digital-library/collection/fantastic-worlds/all

    Indianapolis Museum of Art | ArtBabble --- http://artbabble.org/partner/indianapolis-museum-art

    See Galileo’s Famous Gravity Experiment Performed in the World’s Largest Vacuum Chamber, and on the Moon ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/10/see-galileos-famous-gravity-experiment-performed-in-the-worlds-largest-vacuum-chamber-and-on-the-moon.html

    Nano: For K-12 Teachers (nanotechnology) --- http://www.nano.gov/education-training/teacher-resources

    Crash Course Kids (YouTube video series for science education) --- https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcoursekids

    Norris Geyser Basin Tour --- http://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/norris-geyser-basin-tour.htm

    Interactive Architecture Lab --- http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/

    Vanderbilt University: Law and Neuroscience Blog --- http://lawneuro.org/blog/

    MedlinePlus: Drugs, Herbs, and Supplements --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginformation.html

    Eye Resources on the Internet: The University of Iowa, Ophthalmology --- http://webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu/eye-health/

    Teaching the Food System --- http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/teaching-the-food-system/curriculum/index.html

    National Center for Home Food Preservation: How Do I Pickle? --- http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can6b_pickle.html

    Nuffield Mathematics (math teaching resources from the United Kingdom)  --- http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-mathematics

    Cybersecurity Curriculum Resources --- https://niccs.us-cert.gov/education/curriculum-resources

    From the Scout Report on November 6, 2015

  • 15 Year Anniversary of International Space Station
    International Space Station Celebrates 15 Years of Occupancy
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/international-space-station-celebrates-15-years-occupancy/story?id=34912700

    15 Years of the International Space Station by numbers
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11961496/15-years-of-the-International-Space-Station-by-numbers.html

    Orbiting bacteria: Space Station may need some tidying up
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/28/health/space-station-surprise-bacteria/

    International Space Station
    https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

    International Space Station: Facts, History, & Tracking
    http://www.space.com/16748-international-space-station.html

    International Space Station
    http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/international_space_station/index.html
     

     

    Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine 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

     


    Social Science and Economics Tutorials

    Brookings Institution: Metropolitan Areas --- http://www.brookings.edu/research/topics/metropolitan-areas

    The Walrus Podcast (news commentaries from Canada) --- http://thewalrus.ca/category/podcast/

    NORC: Criminal Justice (University of Chicago archives) --- http://www.norc.org/Research/Topics/Pages/criminal-justice.aspx

    Global Oneness Project (multicultural advocacy stories) --- http://www.globalonenessproject.org/

    Multiracial in America: Proud, Diverse and Growing in Numbers --- http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/multiracial-in-america/

    The Knotted Line (slavery versus confinement) --- http://knottedline.com/

    The TSA Blog (travel security) --- http://blog.tsa.gov/

    Illuminating Reno's Divorce Industry --- http://renodivorcehistory.

    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

    Vanderbilt University: Law and Neuroscience Blog --- http://lawneuro.org/blog/

    Illuminating Reno's Divorce Industry --- http://renodivorcehistory.

    NORC: Criminal Justice (University of Chicago archives) --- http://www.norc.org/Research/Topics/Pages/criminal-justice.aspx

    Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

     


    Math Tutorials

    Citizen Maths: A Free Online Course That Teaches Adults the Math They Missed in High School ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/citizen-maths-a-free-online-course-that-teaches-adults-the-math-they-missed-in-high-school.html

    Nuffield Mathematics (math teaching resources from the United Kingdom)  --- http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-mathematics

    An Oldie but Goodie
    "The 12 Most Controversial Facts In Mathematics," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, March 25, 2013 ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-controversial-math-problems-2013-3

    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

    TeacherTube (all topics for teachers to use and share) --- http://www.teachertube.com/

    Smithsonian Libraries: Fantastic Worlds --- http://library.si.edu/digital-library/collection/fantastic-worlds/all

    300+ Etchings by Rembrandt Now Free Online, Thanks to the Morgan Library & Museum ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/300-etchings-by-rembrandt-now-free-online-thanks-to-the-morgan-library-museum.html

    W.B. Yeats’ Poem “When You Are Old” Adapted into Japanese Manga Comic ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/w-b-yeats-poem-when-you-are-old-adapted-into-japanese-manga-comic.html

    Rare 1930s Audio: W.B. Yeats Reads Four of His Poems --- Click Here
    http://www.openculture.com/2012/06/rare_1930s_audio_wb_yeats_reads_four_of_his_poems.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

    Web English Teacher: AP & IB Resources (literature and writing) --- http://www.webenglishteacher.com/ap.html

    NORC: Criminal Justice (University of Chicago archives) --- http://www.norc.org/Research/Topics/Pages/criminal-justice.aspx

    A digital portrait of Colonial life --- http://lisnews.org/node/43841/

    Journal of the American Revolution --- http://allthingsliberty.com/

    Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum: Teacher Resources --- http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/education/resources.phtml

    Read Work From 2015 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Svetlana Alexievich ---
    http://daily.jstor.org/read-work-2015-nobel-prize-winner-literature-svetlana-alexievich/

    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  

    Happy birthday Marine Corps! Here are 37 powerful pictures of the Marine Corps through history ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/marines-birthday

    JSTOR Daily (a free source for new and old published research and scholarship) --- http://daily.jstor.org/

    "Mourning the Death of the American Railway," by Lorraine Boissoneault,  JSTPR Daily, October , 2015 ---
    http://daily.jstor.org/mourning-the-american-railway/

    31 beautiful vintage photos that show what New York City looked like in the 1940s ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/beautiful-vintage-photos-of-manhattan-in-the-1940s-2013-10

    A drought in Mexico has revealed something incredible ---
    http://www.techinsider.io/photos-inside-temple-of-quechula-2015-11

    30,000 Works of Art by Edvard Munch & Other Artists Put Online by Norway’s National Museum of Art ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/10/30000-works-of-art-put-online-by-norways-national-museum-of-art.html

    Hand-Colored 1860s Photographs Reveal the Last Days of Samurai Japan ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/hand-colored-1860s-photographs-reveal-the-last-days-of-samurai-japan.html

    Colorado State Archives --- https://www.colorado.gov/archives

    Illuminating Reno's Divorce Industry --- http://renodivorcehistory.

    "Licoricia of Winchester, Jewish Widow and Medieval Financier," by Hillary Waterman, JSTPR Daily, October 27, 2015 ---
    http://daily.jstor.org/licoricia-jewish-medieval-women-moneylenders/

    William the Conqueror first brought Jews to England from Rouen (now the north of France) shortly after 1066. Hugely ambitious but chronically short of cash, Norman kings desperately needed the Jews’ renowned financial resources and networks to stimulate economic development as well as to finance their personal campaigns and pet building projects.

    At the time, Jews were considered chattels of the king, under his control but also entitled to royal protection. They were not allowed to leave the country without permission, but they could travel freely and settle in English towns of their choosing. By 1200 there were approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Jews in England. Marginalized in both the Norman and Saxon worlds, Jews settled together and lived in close communities of 50 to 200 people, usually close to an urban center with a castle, such as Winchester or Oxford. To Jews, the castles served as refuges during times of persecutions, administrative centers, seasonal residences for powerful clients, and even prisons.

    History chronicles that Jews of medieval and Renaissance Europe were relegated to moneylending because of Christian prohibitions on the practice of usury—lending money at interest. Our collective imagination has been shaped largely by Shakespeare’s iconic Shylock, the male antagonist in The Merchant of Venice, who embodies the noxious stereotype of the Jewish moneylender. What few probably know is that as many as 10 percent of loans recorded in the English king’s rolls of the time were made by Jewish women, many of whom became well-known moneylenders in their own right, and not mere adjuncts of their husbands.

    Often Jewish women were the sole supporters of their households (as they still are in some ultra-Orthodox families today), enabling men to study the Torah and pray, necessary activities in Orthodox Jewish life. Unlike ladies of the ruling Norman class, who under English common law had no legal status apart from their husbands, even married Jewish women conducted business and represented themselves in the courts. A Jewish bride received a dowry, which often remained under her personal control, and in many instances, may have constituted seed money for starting a business.

    Notable female lenders included Avigay of London, Chera of Winchester, Mirabel of Gloucester, Belaset of Bristol, Comitissa of Cambridge, and Licoricia of Winchester—one of the most successful and glamorous female Jewish lenders of her time.

    Licoricia—Her Life and Times

    The story of Licoricia of Winchester illustrates just how much wealth and influence a Jewish woman could accumulate. She made friends in high places and was frequently received at the court of King Henry III (son of King John of Magna Carta fame). Licoricia and her ilk traveled widely on horseback or in carts, richly clothed, and accompanied by armed escorts. She lent money to individuals in all strata of society, bankrolling illustrious nobles like the king’s brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, before his downfall. She also did small financing for farmers and lesser barons, informal pawn broking, and household lending to local gentile women.

    Continued in article

    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

    TeacherTube (all topics for teachers to use and share) --- http://www.teachertube.com/

    Download 10,000 of the First Recordings of Music Ever Made, Courtesy of the UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive ---
    http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/download-10000-of-the-first-recordings-of-music-ever-made-courtesy-of-the-ucsb-cylinder-audio-archive.html

    Studio 360 (pop culture and the arts) --- http://www.studio360.org/

    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

    Run these up the flag pole
    Ten management-speak phrases we love to hate ---
    https://www.icas.com/ca-today-news/ten-management-speak-phrases-we-love-to-hate

  • 1. Touching base

    A recent study found that “touching base” is one of the most overused pieces of office jargon. It means you want to make contact with someone or meet up, as in: “I just wanted to touch base with you so we can discuss that proposal."

    2. Look under the bonnet

    This example of office speak is used to communicate the need to uncover facts or find out more information. Used in sentences such as, “It could be a great funding opportunity, so let’s look under the bonnet and see what we discover”. It’s a close cousin of: “We need to peel back the onion."

    3. Don’t let the grass grow too long

    Used to politely tell people to work faster, get on with things, or take advantage of an opportunity. An example might be: “We’d better not let the grass too long on that project.”

    4. Low hanging fruit

    Meaning to take the easy or ‘quick wins’ at work. “Grabbing the low hanging fruit” is about doing the simple stuff first. While this can be all well and good, it’s important not to forget about the more complicated things, too.

    5. Idea shower

    The new term for having a brainstorming session and sharing ideas, but it is likely to get a few raised eyebrows if actually used in your morning catch-up.

    6. Eating your own dogfood

    Office speak that means to try something out that you have made yourself, such as using your own product to test it before you sell it. “We should be eating our own dogfood before we launch in September.”

    7. Solutionise

    ‘Solutionise’ is business-speak for solving problems, as in: “Let’s solutionise this problem over lunch.” Although it is a word, it actually refers to the heating of metal to form a homogeneous solid solution. We recommend you substitute this jargon for the perfectly adequate word “solve”.

    8. Give it to me in big handfuls

    Used to ask for a high-level summary of information, rather than the details, as in: “I don’t need to know the specifics, just give it to me in big handfuls.”

    9. Paradigm shift

    An overused phrase used to describe a change in business operations, such as: “Our business is going through a paradigm shift.” A word of caution with this one, as it has the potential to sound like you don’t really know what’s going on or what the future holds for your business.

    10. Run it up the flagpole

    This one means to try something out and see what the result is. As in, “Why don’t you run it up the flagpole and see what happens?” Similar to this lovely example of office jargon: “Put a record on and see who dances.”

    Jensen Comment
    These aren't so bad as the ones we use in the Academy that only small subsets of faculty and students can define.
    For example, "accountics scientists are in a cargo cult"
    The trouble is that most academics and nearly all the people in the world don't know what constitutes a "cargo cult."
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm#CargoCult

    Web English Teacher: AP & IB Resources (literature and writing) --- http://www.webenglishteacher.com/ap.html

    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/

    November 12, 2015

     

     

     

     

     

    October 28, 2015

    October 29, 2015

    October 30, 2015

    October 31, 2015

    November 2, 2015

    November 3, 2015

    November 5, 2015

    November 6, 2015

    November 7, 2015

    November 9, 2015

    November 10, 2015


    "You're Waking Up Wrong:  Getting into a healthy morning routine can be a struggle:  Here are some scientifically backed tips for fixing yours," by Seth Porges, Bloomberg, October 29, 2015 ---
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/you-re-waking-up-wrong?cmpid=BBD102915_BIZ

    Jensen Comment
    To awaken early feed a family (called a murder in the case of crow families) of crows. This does not work well very long before earliest daylight, but since Erika started feeding a "murder" of crows the squawking and roof pacing commences in the dim morning light quite a while before the sun wakes up (and long before Erika awakens). Erika feeds our many crows on the theory that the crows are less likely to kill our nesting songbirds and friendly chipmunks. Let me tell you that her theory is definitely flawed.

    PS
    I thought the movie A Murder of Crows was an excellent mystery.


    MedlinePlus: Drugs, Herbs, and Supplements --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginformation.html


    Headspace Daily (meditation guide) --- https://www.headspace.com/blog


    "Head Transplants: A History," by James MacDonald, JSTOR Daily, October 19, 2015 ---
    http://daily.jstor.org/head-transplants-history/

    Move over Igor, the first human head transplant is tentatively scheduled for 2017. The proposed recipient, a 30 year old computer coder, suffers from muscular atrophy. The donor will be clinically brain dead, but otherwise healthy. There are many questions about whether this plan is even remotely feasible, but, as outlandish as it sounds, head transplants have a surprisingly long history.

    In the 1950s, Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov transplanted the head of one dog onto the body of another, resulting in a two-headed dog. This was replicating an experiment conducted by C.C. Guthrie in 1908. In 1965, Dr. Robert White of Cleveland, Ohio, not to be outdone, transplanted the brain of one dog into another dog. But one brain wasn’t switched for the other; White inserted the donor dog’s brain into a space in the other dog’s neck, surgically giving it two brains. The second brain did not function as a brain, but it did survive—as did the host dog—for up to 5 days before it was removed. The purpose of the experiment was to learn about the brain’s functions once it’s removed from its natural physiological mechanisms.

    Nevertheless, having exhausted the possibility of a two-headed dog, White moved on to transplant monkey heads using an updated version of Demikhov’s procedure. After transplantation, both monkey heads remained alert, able to process sensory information and react to events. It took a large, round-the clock-team and a lot of money to keep each two-headed monkey alive, and out of ten transplants, the longest any of the recipient monkeys lived was 36 hours. As with the dogs, White was very clear that the experiment was not performed with human head transplants in mind.

    The results of these experiments, however, do not naturally assume the successful possibility of a human head transplant. At least not yet. For one thing, the host body has to survive without a head long enough for the new head to be attached, a feat yet to be accomplished. Medical ethicists have also raised concerns, citing the tricky ethics of organ donation and the high risk for the patients involved

    Continued in article


    How to Mislead With Statistics
    Bacon report serves up baloney
    by Tom Shattuck, The Boston Harold, October 27, 2015 ---
    http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/tom_shattuck/2015/10/shattuck_bacon_report_serves_up_baloney


    From the Scout Report on October

    Consensus on Dietary Guidelines May Be Long In Coming
    Processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes - WHO
    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/26/bacon-ham-sausages-processed-meats-cancer-risk-smoking-says-who

    Q&A on the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed
    meat
    http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/

    What the New Dietary Guidelines Mean for You
    http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/03/04/what-the-new-dietary-guidelines-mean-for-you

    How strong is the science behind the U.S. Dietary Guidelines?
    http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/24/health/dietary-guidelines-science/

    Why the new, proposed U.S. dietary guidelines are provoking controversy and
    ire
    http://fortune.com/2015/10/07/dietary-guidelines-usda/

    Health.gov: Dietary Guidelines
    http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/qanda.asp


    How to Mislead With Statistics

    Bacon report serves up baloney
    by Tom Shattuck, The Boston Harold, October 27, 2015 ---
    http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/tom_shattuck/2015/10/shattuck_bacon_report_serves_up_baloney

     


    Humor September 1-11, 2015

    There should not be protests on this campus since administrators have heavier loads
    Ryerson U students reveal that administrators' bathrooms feature two-ply, while everyone else has one-ply
    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/02/student-newspaper-reveals-inequitable-toilet-paper-distribution?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=a93b96438a-DNU20151102&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-a93b96438a-197565045
    Jensen Question
    Did one of the administrators leak this?


    When a middle aged couple named Stake had an unexpected son was the choice of the the name Michael Irwin Stake intentional?
    Bob Jensen


    From the Harvard Business Review
    Strategic Humor: Cartoons from the December 2015 Issue ---
    https://hbr.org/2015/11/strategic-humor-cartoons-from-the-december-2015-issue
     

    The 10 funniest 'Dilbert' comic strips about idiot bosses ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/dilbert-comics-on-bosses-2015-10


    Forwarded by Paula

    Cleaning up English

    The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will become the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

    As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

    In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

    The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

    There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

    In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

    Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

    Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

    By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

    During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

    Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

    Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.


    Forwarded by Paula

    Why did the chicken  cross the road? 

     

    DONALD  TRUMP:    All Mexican chickens who wish to cross this road  must submit to a complete background check, and full body search.  The  criminal and rapist chickens will be sent back.

     

    BARACK OBAMA: Let  me be perfectly clear, if the chickens like their eggs they can keep their  eggs.  No chicken will be required to cross the road to surrender her  eggs.  Period.

     

    JOHN  McCain:   My friends, the chicken crossed the road because  he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the  chickens on the other side of the road.

     

    HILLARY  CLINTON:   What difference at this point does it make why  the chicken crossed the road ?

     

    DICK  CHENEY:   Where's my gun?

     

    COLIN  POWELL:   Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see  the satellite image of the chicken crossing the  road.

     

    BILL  CLINTON:   I did not cross the road with that chicken.

     

    AL  GORE:   I invented the chicken.

     

    JOHN  KERRY:   Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it!  It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled  about the chicken's intentions.  I am not for it now, and will remain  against it.

     

    AL  SHARPTON:   Why are all the chickens white?

     

    DR. PHIL:  The  problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal  with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on  the other side of the road.  What we need to do is help him realize how  stupid he is acting by not taking on his current problems before adding any new  problems.

     

    OPRAH:    Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he  wants to cross the road so badly.  So instead of having the chicken learn  from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give  this chicken a NEW CAR so that he can just drive across the road and not live  his life like the rest of the chickens.

     

    ANDERSON  COOPER:   We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the  road.

     

    NANCY GRACE:   That chicken crossed the road because he's guilty!  You can see it in his  eyes and the way he walks.

     

    MARTHA  STEWART:   No one called me to warn me which way the chicken  was going.  I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level.  No little bird gave me any  insider information.

     

    DR  SEUSS:   Did the chicken cross the road?  Did he cross it with a  toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been  told.

     

    ERNEST  HEMINGWAY:   To die in the rain, alone.

     

    JERRY  FALWELL:   Because the chicken was gay!  Can't you people see  the plain truth?  That's why they call it the 'other side.'  Yes,  my friends, that chicken was gay.  If you eat that chicken, you will become  gay too.  I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination  that the Liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the  other side.'  That chicken should not be crossing the road.  It's as  plain and as simple as that.

     

    GRANDPA:    In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us  the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for  us.

     

    BARBARA  WALTERS:   Isn't that interesting?  In a few moments, we will  be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming  story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

     

    ARISTOTLE:    It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

     

    JOHN  LENNON:   Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing  roads together, in peace.

     

    BILL  GATES:   I have just released e-Chicken 2015, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents and balance your checkbook.  Internet Explorer is an integral part of e-Chicken  2015. This new platform is much more stable and will never  reboot.

     

    ALBERT  EINSTEIN:  Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move  beneath the chicken?

     

    COLONEL  SANDERS:   Did I miss one??????


    Forwarded by Paula

    Riddle for Seniors

    You are on a horse, galloping at a constant speed.

    On your right side is a sharp drop-off.

    On your left side is an elephant traveling at the same speed as you.

    Directly in front of you is a galloping kangaroo and your horse is unable to overtake it.

    Behind you is a lion running at the same speed as you and the kangaroo.

    What must you do to get out of this highly dangerous situation?

    Get off the merry-go-round and go home, you've had enough excitement for one day!

     


    Bob Hope quotations forwarded by James Don Edwards

    ON TURNING 70  
    'I still chase women, but only downhill.' 

    ON TURNING 80  
    'That's the time of your life when even your birthday suit needs pressing.' 

    ON TURNING 90  
    'You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.' 

    ON TURNING 100  
    'I don't feel old. In fact,
          I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.' 

    ON GIVING UP HIS EARLY CAREER, BOXING  
    'I ruined my hands in the ring. The referee kept stepping on them.' 

    ON NEVER WINNING AN OSCAR  
    'Welcome to the Academy Awards, or, as it's called at my home, 'Passover.' 

    ON GOLF  
    'Golf is my profession. Show business is just to pay the green fees.' 

    ON PRESIDENTS  
    'I have performed for 12 presidents but entertained only six.'
         

    ON WHY HE CHOSE SHOWBIZ FOR
    HIS CAREER
     
    'When I was born, the doctor said to my mother,
    Congratulations, you have an eight pound ham.'
         

    ON RECEIVING THE
    CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL
     
    'I feel very humble, but I think I have the strength of character to fight it.' 

    ON HIS FAMILY'S EARLY POVERTY  
    'Four of us slept in the one bed. When it got cold, mother threw on another brother.' 

    ON HIS SIX BROTHERS  
    'That's how I learned to dance. Waiting for the bathroom.' 

    ON HIS EARLY FAILURES  
    'I would not have had anything to eat if it wasn't for the stuff the audience threw at me.' 

    ON GOING TO HEAVEN  
    'I've done benefits for ALL religions.
    I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.'


    Forwarded by Paula

    Ramblings of a Retired Mind

    I found this timely, because today I was in a store that sells sunglasses, and ONLY sunglasses. A young lady walks over to me and asks, "What brings you in today?" I looked at her, and said, "I'm interested in buying a refrigerator". She didn't quite know how to respond. Am I getting to be that age?

    I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell phones that everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse. I can't afford one. So I'm wearing my garage door opener.

    You know, I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized that people didn't like me anyway.

    I was thinking that women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer cans!

    I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is when you still have something on the ball but you are just too tired to bounce it.

    I thought about making a fitness movie for folks my age and call it 'Pumping Rust'.

    When people see a cat's litter box they always say, "Oh, have you got a cat?" Just once I want to say, "No, it's for company!"

    Employment application blanks always ask who is to be called in case of an emergency. I think you should write, "An ambulance."

    I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older. Then it dawned on me: They were cramming for their finals.

    As for me, I'm just hoping God grades on a curve.

    Birds of a feather flock together and then poop on your car.

    The older you get the tougher it is to lose weight because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.

    The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

    Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.

    The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble..

    Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words 'The' and 'IRS' together it spells 'Theirs...'

    Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

    Some people try to turn back their "odometers." Not me. I want people to know 'why' I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

    You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

    Ah! Being young is beautiful but being old is comfortable.

    And finally: "Lord, please keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth."

     




    Humor October 1-31,  2015 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q4.htm#Humor103115

    Humor September 1-30,  2015 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q3.htm#Humor093015

    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

    The Cult of Statistical Significance: How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

    How Accountics Scientists Should Change: 
    "Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review I just don't give a damn"
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
    One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
    http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm 

    What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

    The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

    AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

    Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

    Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So

    Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

     

    World Clock --- http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
    Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/

    Interesting Online Clock and Calendar --- http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
    Time by Time Zones --- http://timeticker.com/
    Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) --- http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
             Also see http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
            
    Facts about population growth (video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
    Projected U.S. Population Growth --- http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
    Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 
    Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons --- http://zipskinny.com/
    Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

    Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

    CPA Examination --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
    Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/

    Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at http://iaed.wordpress.com/

    Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social Networking ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

    Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

    Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
    In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
    I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

    Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials

    Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
    Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting educators.
    Any college may post a news item.

    Accounting  and Taxation News Sites ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

     

    For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for free) go to   http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
    AECM (Educators) http://listserv.aaahq.org/cgi-bin/wa.exe?HOME
    AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc.

    Over the years the AECM has become the worldwide forum for accounting educators on all issues of accountancy and accounting education, including debates on accounting standards, managerial accounting, careers, fraud, forensic accounting, auditing, doctoral programs, and critical debates on academic (accountics) research, publication, replication, and validity testing.

     

    CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/  (Closed Down)
    CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.
    Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
    This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.
    AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1 
    This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.
    Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com 
    This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM
    FEI's Financial Reporting Blog
    Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2008 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2008/smart_stops.htm
    FINANCIAL REPORTING PORTAL
    www.financialexecutives.org/blog

    Find news highlights from the SEC, FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board on this financial reporting blog from Financial Executives International. The site, updated daily, compiles regulatory news, rulings and statements, comment letters on standards, and hot topics from the Web’s largest business and accounting publications and organizations. Look for continuing coverage of SOX requirements, fair value reporting and the Alternative Minimum Tax, plus emerging issues such as the subprime mortgage crisis, international convergence, and rules for tax return preparers.
    The CAlCPA Tax Listserv

    September 4, 2008 message from Scott Bonacker [lister@bonackers.com]
    Scott has been a long-time contributor to the AECM listserv (he's a techie as well as a practicing CPA)

    I found another listserve that is exceptional -

    CalCPA maintains http://groups.yahoo.com/taxtalk/  and they let almost anyone join it.
    Jim Counts, CPA is moderator.

    There are several highly capable people that make frequent answers to tax questions posted there, and the answers are often in depth.

    Scott

    Scott forwarded the following message from Jim Counts

    Yes you may mention info on your listserve about TaxTalk. As part of what you say please say [... any CPA or attorney or a member of the Calif Society of CPAs may join. It is possible to join without having a free Yahoo account but then they will not have access to the files and other items posted.

    Once signed in on their Yahoo account go to http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxTalk/ and I believe in top right corner is Join Group. Click on it and answer the few questions and in the comment box say you are a CPA or attorney, whichever you are and I will get the request to join.

    Be aware that we run on the average 30 or move emails per day. I encourage people to set up a folder for just the emails from this listserve and then via a rule or filter send them to that folder instead of having them be in your inbox. Thus you can read them when you want and it will not fill up the inbox when you are looking for client emails etc.

    We currently have about 830 CPAs and attorneys nationwide but mainly in California.... ]

    Please encourage your members to join our listserve.

    If any questions let me know.

    Jim Counts CPA.CITP CTFA
    Hemet, CA
    Moderator TaxTalk

     

     

     

     

    Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) --- http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm

     

    Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

    Some Accounting History Sites

    Bob Jensen's Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
     

    Accounting History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) --- http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
    The above libraries include international accounting history.
    The above libraries include film and video historical collections.

    MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting --- http://maaw.info/

    Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
    http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/

    Sage Accounting History --- http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269

    A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
    "The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
    Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm 

    A nice timeline of accounting history --- http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING

    From Texas A&M University
    Accounting History Outline --- http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html

    Bob Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

    History of Fraud in America --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
    Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

    Bob Jensen's Threads ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

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

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

     

    Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
    190 Sunset Hill Road
    Sugar Hill, NH 03586
    Phone:  603-823-8482 
    Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu