So far nothing strange in Adelaide

Greetings from the State Library of South Australia cafe. In Adelaide for the AIIA iAwards. So far nothing odd has happened. Last time I bumped into the now Vice Chancellor of ANU writing a report for the SA government. On a previous visit I bumped into another professor writing a report on tech development for government. 

On the last occasion I was giving a talk on open source software for submarines and before that inspecting a defence company at a tech park. This time I am mentoring students competing in the iAwards.

ANU Calls for Report on the Disappearance of Prime Minister

No,  the current Prime Minister isn't missing. The Australian National University's central library suffered a flood on in February 2018. ANU has launched a flood appeal, asking not only for money, but have listed the books they need. There are thousands of books on the list and make fascinating reading. One which caught my eye was the Report by the Commonwealth and Victoria police on the disappearance of the Prime Minister the Right Honourable Harold Holt, Cheviot Beach, Portsea, Victoria, Sunday 17 December 1967.

Failure of UK Research Open Access Policy

Dr Danny Kingsley, Head of Scholarly Communication at Cambridge University Library has concluded that the UK's policy for free and open access to publicly-funded research has failed: "Manipulation of embargo periods, confusing information, and a graduated charging system for different licenses all work towards ensuring a second income stream. Far from moving to an open access future we seem to be trapped in a worse situation than we started." (Kingsley, 2017).

I was intrigued by Danny's inclusion of "scheduled tweets" to accompany the presentation. 

To answer the question at the end of the presentation "How do we get out of this mess?", I suggest a modestly funded initiative to encourage new Open Access publishers. This could use the start-up infrastructure already established around universities, such as Cambridge. 

Academic staff and students could be trained and funded to set up new companies to provide OA publishing in competition with existing closed-access ones. These new companies would aim to be profitable, in the long term, while providing publications without a fee to the subscriber. The main question to be answered by any such start-up would not be publishing infrastructure (which there is plenty of free-open-access software for), or revenue streams (which are feasible), but what incentives could be provided to induce academics to choose a new, unproven publisher.

Reference

Kingsley, D. (2017). So did it work? Considering the impact of Finch 5 years on [Presentation file]. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/269913

Quickly developing online versions of learning materials for graduate students at Cambridge University

I will be discussing "Quickly developing online versions of learning materials for graduate students" at Cambridge University, 2pm, 22 July 2015. The talk was arranged by Dr Danny Kingsley, Head of the University of Cambridge Office of Scholarly Communication, is free and open to all, but you need to reserve a seat.

The University of Cambridge has been using the same Australian developed "Moodle" Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) as ANU since 2014. Tom will provide some lessons learned from teaching graduate students using Moodle at the ANU since 2009. He suggests shortcuts for moving learning materials on-line using e-books. Tom will also outline new work at ANU to integrate the "synchronous" features of products such as Adobe Connect, with the "asynchronous" features of Moodle.

Event link: 

Roundtable discussion: Quickly developing online versions of learning materials for graduate students

ps: Happy to give a version of the talk in Australia (or Hong Kong, if there is interest. I will be at  Fitzwilliam College Cambridge (UK) 21 to 25 July for the 10th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2015). On the way I am stopping off in Hong Kong 16 to 18 July for the Second International Conference on Open and Flexible Education (ICOFE 2015) at Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK).

Public Library as a Learning Center

Greetings from the reading room of the

State Library of NSW. The library is a good indication of the future of higher education "learning spaces". Most books have been moved into basement stacks and replaced with desks for students. About one third of the desks are equipped with computers. I am at one of the tables without. This bench is abut 1200 mm x 3600 mm, seating eight students (two rows of four facing each other). There is a row of six double power-points down the middle of the table and desk lamps (which are not really needed).  Each student gets 900 x 600 mm of space, which is sufficient for a laptop computer (using the library's free WiFi) and a couple of books. The library also has some glass walled study rooms, which can be booked.

Students Want a Library Not a Learning Commons

A study by Nicole Kay Peterson at Iowa State University challenges the idea that students was a lively learning commons for group activities. "Role of the university library as a student learning commons: Implications to the interior spaces within" (2013), suggests students want the attributes of a traditional university library, with quiet individual study spaces, but with power points to charge their gadgets.

The study gives a useful way to think about developing student spaces and has examples of new room layouts and furniture. However, the study concentrated on residential university undergraduates and the findings may not apply to students who live off campus. On-campus students presumably have other places they can meet with fellow students. Part-time and postgraduate students may have more need for group meeting places, as they may not see fellow students outside class and also may feel more need (and be better equipped) to work in groups. Also the study asked students what they wanted, which may not necessarily be the same as what students need.