[Air-l] Academic traditions

Tue May 22 09:21:23 PDT 2007

Caroline:

I concur! I am amazed at how many professors in the academic game do not
understand the history and research behind this technology that was
ironically created in large part and tested on the campuses of research
institutions under federal and corporate grants. Your assessment is
correct because the Ivy league schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc),
major private institutions (Duke, Johns Hopkins, Stanford), technology
based schools (Cal-Poly,Georgia Tech, MIT)and many flagship universities
(Cal-Berkeley, Illinois-Champaign,Maryland,Michigan,Ohio State and
Texas-Austin) have already taken their offerings online (Rhodes, 2001)to
match the challenge posed by the University of Phoenix and others.
However, if one were to examine the federal defense based and medical
grants received by these research institutions over the course of
history since WWII, it is clear that the technology is not going away
and new professors will have to get with the program and start looking
at options like online publishing for environmental and financial
reasons (Willinsky, 2006). The key will be the new methods created by
and for learners by professors (Gee, 2005) such as video games.

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Caroline
Haythornthwaite
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:46 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Academic traditions

Suzana, thank you for the clarification. I find academic transformations
are both amazingly fast and staggeringly slow depending on the field. My
perceptions... 

In teaching, the fast part is the rapid changes pushed by new
technologies and expectations of use by (some) incoming students. The
laptop in classes discussion is an example of a push from such students
as far as media goes, but new technologies include far more than just
media. We're also pulled to be up to date with the skills we provide
students as they go out to employers. My perceptions of the latter is
that the academic tradition of widening people's view of the world still
very much holds. 

For those of us who are involved in online education, the changes are
dramatic and swift, with what one might call a 'revolution' in teaching
and learning practices accompanying e-learning. For many of us this
drives significant changes in our overall teaching practice (there's
lots of references on this, including some of my own :) ). Some of the
other recent AoIR discussion has touched on this topic and there's lots
in the online learning/asynchronous learning/e-learning/collaborative
learning/computer-supported collaborative learning literature on new
ways to approach teachiing. Unfortunately, I am always tremendously
surprised to hear vehement anti-online teaching stances I encounter
regularly. Some have no clue about what it really means to teach and/ or
learn online, and the change in learning practices the combination of
new media and online teaching bring. My perception is that the real
'revolution' in online learning is the new way of teaching and learning,
not so much that it is done through new technology.

But teaching is only part of the academic game ... I mean tradition.
Tenure holds a lock on what we do, and the tenure evaluation system is
very slow to change. I have colleagues even now (not at my university)
who say an online publication in an online refereed journal will not
'count' to tenure for them. The online/offline nature of this will, I
believe, change, but the reputation system associated with publication
venues will not. Everyday we make a judgement of where to send papers
for publication. In shifting traditions -- where online gets more
exposure, but offline/reputation gets you tenure -- the decision is not
straightforward.

You asked originally "What is it in shifting traditions that affects you
as an academic in your daily work?" For me, the changes are bringing
online education approaches to teaching in general, and making balancing
decisions about where and how I disseminate my work and ideas.

/Caroline

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 10:56:45 +1000
>From: Suzana Sukovic <suzana.sukovic at uts.edu.au>
>Subject: Re: [Air-l] Academic traditions
>To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
>
>Caroline, my doctoral study into the roles of e-texts in the humanities

>investigated some of these issues. I finished data-gathering and 
>analysis,  but this aspect of findings hasn't been published yet. I am 
>still very curious about issues of academic tradition and change. My 
>question for the list is a matter of interest and curiosity, not formal

>data-gathering. I hope that the list participants could provide a 
>variety of answers and insights because Internet researchers may have 
>different experiences from people who study religion and conduct part 
>of their studies online, for example.
>
>I am coming to Urbana-Champaign to present some of my findings at 
>Digital Humanities 07. Hopefully, we'll have a chance to continue this
conversation.
>Cheers,
>Suzana
>
>At 11:34 PM 21/05/2007, Caroline Haythornthwaite wrote:
>>An interesting question. Can you give us some context -- more that 
>>general curiosity -- for the questions. Do you have a particular 
>>incident that generates you question, or a research project? Is this 
>>information for a research study or for academic practice?
>
>
>Suzana Sukovic
>PhD Candidate
>_________________________________________
>Information & Knowledge Management
>Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Technology, 
>Sydney
>
>PO Box 123
>Broadway NSW 2007, Australia
>www.hss.uts.edu.au/research/research_students/suzana_sukovic.html
>_______________________________________________
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----------------------------------------
Caroline Haythornthwaite
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
501 East Daniel St., Champaign IL 61820

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