28 juillet 2013
Un curso de Excel para disparar competencias!
By Jorge E. Borrero A.Wedubox publicó el primer curso de Excel® enfocado a profesionales y estudiantes buscando dotarlos con una herramienta dirigida a sobresalir!. “Es sorprendente, pero encontramos que gran cantidad de estudiantes universitarios carecen de el manejo básico de Excel” asegura Andrea Parra, directora de comunicaciones en wedubox.co; “también encontramos quejas persistentes de empleadores sobre sus practicantes (becarios) universitarios” continua. Més...Publishing Your Dissertation Online: What’s a New Ph.D. to Do?
By Adeline Koh. Early this week, the American Historical Association (AHA) released a controversial statement that strongly advised graduate programs and libraries to adopt a policy allowing the embargoing of the publication of completed dissertations online for up to six years. The statement has generated much praise and much criticism. Supporters of the statement argue that it protects junior authors, given that in the current academic climate a completed, published, single-authored monograph continues to be the standard for tenure and promotion in fields like history. Read more...How Google Rediscovered the 19th Century
By Paula Findlen. Around 2008, I began to notice an interesting fact: Google Books was reshaping the way I did research. I was on sabbatical and had more time than usual to pursue various projects. Like most historians, I went to libraries and archives in search of paper evidence, but I also delighted in digital discoveries, happily downloading my best finds. At the end of that year, I left my sabbatical office carrying a computer filled with the virtual books that are rapidly becoming the bread and butter of teaching and scholarship. Read more...‘Area of Specialization’ Makes No Sense in Philosophy
By István Aranyosi. Job advertisements in philosophy invariably use the phrases “Area of Specialization” and/or “Area of Competence,” or sometimes “Open Area,” meaning, respectively, that the recruiter is looking for candidates who specialize in particular areas and/or are competent in those, or who specialize in some area or other. It is so standard that in our CVs we just write “AOS: …” and “AOC …” at the very top, after our contact details. Read more...What to Do About ‘Impactful’?
By Anne Curzan. I notice the word impactful. Sitting in various kinds of meetings throughout the week, I hear a whole range of things described as impactful: NCAA legislation, court decisions, online college courses, powerful people, climate change, and much more. Read more...Grading Congressmen, Grading Students
By Lucy Ferriss. Every now and then, in academic departments where I’ve worked, faculty members have exchanged graded papers and met to compare and contrast approaches to marking and grading student prose. There’s always an element of anxiety to this otherwise useful exercise: am I missing important points? injecting my own prejudices? failing to grade according to my own rubric? missing or overemphasizing mechanical errors? grading too harshly or not harshly enough? All credit, then, to Representative Mark Takano (Democrat of California, henceforth known as “the Teacher”) for making public his markup and grading of Representative Bill Cassidy’s (Republican of Louisiana, henceforth known as “the Student”) circulated letter opposing the U.S. Senate’s immigration bill. Read more...Too Late to Learn? Helping the Reluctant With Technology
By Carol Saller. Everyone has at least one friend, relative, or colleague who is not yet competent in even the most basic computer tasks: creating a document, e-mailing, browsing online. It’s hard to imagine an academic with poor computer skills. And yet, they aren’t that rare. I know, because I work with them. One correspondent doesn’t know how to open an attachment to an e-mail. Another asks me to convert the edited chapters of his book to an old version of Microsoft Word. Read more...Blowing in the Political Wind
By Geoffrey Pullum. The Economist has a weekly commentary page, under the pseudonym “Lexington,” about events in the U.S.A. The July 13 Lexington column entitled “The War of the Words” is about politics and language. Predictably, therefore, it begins by quoting you-know-who: Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind. Read more...Why Disciplines Are Becoming Less Important
By Nigel Thrift. Are disciplines becoming less important? I think they are. Universities are gradually changing how they operate as disciplines become less central to the construction of knowledge. Historically there are several universities that have tried different ways to organize their academics. In Britain, they include the University of Sussex, which for a long time divided itself into “Schools of Study,” so that students could benefit from a multidisciplinary teaching environment. In the United States, Arizona State University has done something similar with its degree programs. Read more...Agencies Say Lenders Need to Work With Student Borrowers
By . Three federal agencies that regulate banks have issued a joint statement telling lenders they should “work constructively” with borrowers who are having trouble paying back private student loans. The agencies—the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—say that “prudent workout arrangements” are usually in the best interests of both borrowers and lenders, “even if the restructured loans result in adverse credit classifications or troubled debt restructurings in accordance with accounting requirements under generally accepted accounting principles.” Read more...
