By Scott Jaschik. Chicago State University has agreed to pay $650,000 to settle a lawsuit by two professors who charged the university was violating their rights to free speech by trying to shut down a blog, the Chicago Tribune reported. More...

By Alex Usher. The term is coming to a close, and so it’s time for me to – as usual – thank all of you so much for having continued to read these jumbled, fevered ramblings for another 12 months.  If you have any comments or suggestions or even requests – just send them my way at info@higheredstrategy.com: I’m always looking for ideas.

Happy holidays to you all and best wishes for the new year.  Be excellent to each other and all that.

The blog will return on January 7^th. More...

Seminars via Blog
Could you conduct an academic seminar using only blogs? Some of the writers from Crooked Timber thought so and have put together this work, based on a series of related posts. The genre - literary criticism - and the subject - China Miéville's Iron Council - doesn't fare much better. More...

The Blogosphere as a Tuple Space
Nice description of tuples, which will be useful if you ever decide to learn Python. Nice description of Lazyweb, which these days doesn't seem to be living up to its promise. More...

When Blogging Goes Bad: A Cautionary Tale About Blogs, Email Lists, Discussion, and Interaction
James Farmer notes that an article such as this that points out the downside of educational blogging "is as valuable as 10 papers on why blogging is great. More...