Academic Controversy Spreadsheet

Week 6 -- end of the course -- or just the beginning?

Reflect on what you have learned in the class and how you will use it professionally as both a lifelong learner and an instructional systems professional (or whatever field you’re in).

Well, here we are in the final throes of EME 6635 Web 2.0. Is the end, or just the beginning. Lots of pithy quotes are swirling: "For it must end as it began, and then start again" (Uriah Heep); "Today is the first day of the rest of your life, (start it write with Total) [ad jingle]; "Death is birth is fear and dread of some terrible renewal" (Hermann Hesse, Demian).

One more, "More responsibility, fewer excuses."

I am hoping to archive the posts, blogs, and projects from this course from the buffet meal that I have only meagerly tasted. I am hoping to sample incrementally over time and thoroughly digest the offerings.

I plan to incorporate tools into my daily walk and over time incorporate more and more into my courses and training. I plan to nurture relationship seeds planted in this course and hope to enjoy the bounty of community using tools developed here.

Thank you to all who assisted me in this journey. I look to many shared paths ahead.

Week 6 -- wrap up -- lifelong learner

Reflect on what you have learned in the class and how you will use it professionally as both a lifelong learner and an instructional systems professional (or whatever field you’re in).

I am constantly admonishing my discussion board students that there is more, there is always more. That is, it is impossible for us to exhaust a given topic in a week and students should avoid signing out or cutting off discussion with a quipped, "Thanks, that's great!" Instead, threads should be continually extended until time runs out and we turn our attention to another topic. More, always, more, dig deeper, broaden the topic, chase tangents, clarify, verify, rectify -- it is a never ending process.

Similarly, one of my favorite quotes is "Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance" (Will Durant). That is, the more I know, the more I am aware of what I don't know. Anyone who thinks he knows it all is ignorant -- or very young.

In the Web 2.0 environment the pace of change is relentless. Anyone who thinks he is master of all web 2.0 tools is probably unaware of the diversity and persistent proliferation of available tools. That said, however, the more you know the easier it is to acquire more knowledge. Even in the Web 2.0 environment, despite a significant learning curve, the more you know, the more knowledge transfers to a new environment and the easier it is to acquire new knowledge and skills.

This course alone provides a life time of learning -- if I were to tackle on skill or tool per month, I would be busy for the rest of my days. Another favorite quote, "The Lord put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things -- Right now, I'm so far behind I'll never die!"

Ah, so. The secret to eternal life. And yet, it is a secret to a quality of life. Recent studies demonstrate that cognitive activity prevents cognitive decline.

So, keep learning. Keep your mind active and limber. Lord knows, there is more to learn, more to know, more to practice. More always more.

Live long and prosper.

Week 6 -- wrap up -- choices

Reflect on what you have learned in the class and how you will use it professionally as both a lifelong learner and an instructional systems professional (or whatever field you’re in).

So many lessons, so little time.

In the end this, to me really is the take-home message. Life is ultimately about choices. From this class alone, I have acquired a long term commitment to two websites -- OSSA and emslastcall. I am the sole administrator of the emslastcall site and to successfully lauch, I will need to be quite visible and provide several models for sharing lessons learned. I am a mere contributor to OSSA, but am deeply committed to a successful forum and anticipate a substantial investment of time until it assumes a life of its own. My professional commitment to GWU entails commitment to a minimum of two online courses. As instructor, my contributions are significantly front loaded. So far, I have substantive commitments to four distinct forums. If that were not enough, I am a full time doctoral student. Each online course entails another site/forum/discussion board commitment. Another site to monitor, another forum to read and respond, and other discussion board commitment. I could have six extensive commitments online.

These are merely sites -- if you throw in Facebook, Twitter, Diigo, Twine -- there is more, much more to juggle in my collective web 2.0 persona.

I'd love to blog -- but my, oh, my -- what I'd really like to do is keep an online journal. This would have to be a personal , for my eyes only diary to be opened upon my death for my children. There are just so many different aspects to my life -- personal, professional, clinical, educational. There are love stories, work stories, past, present, future stories. There are the many occupational hats I wear -- clinical research practitioner, instructor/trainer, paramedic, student, social science researcher, mother, sister, daughter, friend... Who is the audience? What are the repercussions?

So, back to the original question -- I've learned, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" (Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167).

There is more, there is always more. More tools, more toys, more references, more information than I had dreamt of and perhaps more than I can ever master and employ effectively. There are certainly more opportunities than there is time.

In the end, it's all about choices -- what tools meet my needs and my current technological prowess, where I choose to spend my time, how my choices reflect my philosophy and finally what my priorities are. We all have the same number of hours in a day, days in a week and weeks in a year. What captures our attention and devours our time?

Choices. Choices.

Week 5 -- ownership, authorship & copyright -- oh my!

How do issues such as authorship, copyright and open access impact your desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage, both personally and professionally?

Yes -- access! Copyright -- yes -- honor the work of others.

Now, authorship. Sigh. As a writer, I am sensitive to receiving credit for my own work. I have often given my work away and allowed others to take credit for it (with permission). Sometimes, this is done to gain access to opportunities that would otherwise not have been available to me. But increasingly, I want to be acknowledged for my contribution.

So -- enough confessional -- how does this affect my desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage personally and professionally? Well, when I am riding the shoulders of giants, I would be happy to collaborate, add my two cents worth, and be thrilled to be numbered among (or associated with) this talented group. When others are riding my shoulders, I am more protective and more concerned about others developing my ideas and products for their own ends -- especially without attribution. Copyright, then, becomes my only protection.

Reminds me of growing up and playing with my brothers: My older brother was always eager for a tennis partner and I was often eager to play. Unfortunately, he only wanted to play with better player so that he could improve his game. He was not interested in play for play's sake if it meant tolerating a lesser player -- that'd be me. This was a catch-22 -- if other players adopted his perspective, he too, could only play with players of equal ability; superior players would not want to play with an "inferior" -- him.

So, in the world of produsage, we're perhaps all willing to play with the stronger players and less willing to tolerate the weaker players. How do we develop a community spirit that mixes it up and makes everyone stronger?

Putting it all together -- access, authorship and ownership -- is this a case of "what's yours is mine" (access & copyright) and "what's mine is mine"(authorship)?

Next week: wrap up

Week 5 -- ownership, authorship & copyright -- oh my!

How do issues such as authorship, copyright and open access impact your desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage, both personally and professionally?

So, I love open access! Now, what about copyright?

I'm actually old school here, or as Charl suggests, a "digital immigrant."

I still recognize the works of others as their work and do not feel free to approximate the works of others as my own. Do I use the works of others? Sho-enuf-do! A good friend once suggested if you want "steal" from others, "steal from the best" and then say where you "stole it." Of course, his view of stealing is taking what you want AND acknowledging the source.

I stand on the shoulders of giants and freely acknowledge what I have freely received. This seems so simple to me.

However, it is increasingly a foreign concept to my student. Each term over the last three years of teaching graduate school, we have seen an increase in the incidence of plagiarism and a corresponding increase in recalcitrance. There is a decreasing willingness to check for plagiarism and to jump the hoops to report or call attention to it. Even with tools such as Turn-it-in or SafeAssign, instructors are loathe to deal with plagiarism.

There are a handful of us who tackle it consistently. One persistent reply from the students is that they have been "doing this all along and no one else had a problem with it." They also complain that they have been straight A students and have consistently used a cut-and-paste approach to research papers.

Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur. It wasn't until we started studying "produsage" that I began to suspect that I may be peering into the mindset of the "digital native." Information is free and readily available. Students may feel that it is their "task" to assemble information into new montage -- kind of like taking various puzzle pieces and reassembling to make a new picture. Is their work not a new creation? Are the individual pieces perceived as communal property -- free to the user to use as s/he pleases?

When dealing with students, they often wonder why it is such a "big deal." On paper, we have a strict code of academic integrity which they all affirm. In practice, they really don't understand. I'm not convinced that it's stealing in their mind. I think they honestly don't get it.

I'm thinking we need to approach this differently. We need to raise issues of authorship and ownership and copyright. We need to discuss access and freedom and academic honesty. We need to get into the mind of the digital native and understand music downloads, fresh mixes, and produsage.

Next: ownership

Week 5 -- ownership, authorship & copyright -- oh my!

How do issues such as authorship, copyright and open access impact your desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage, both personally and professionally?

Reverse order: Access first, then copyright and authorship.

Access. I love access! I love being able to go on the web and find anything I want! I love doing research on the web and finding professional journal articles and immediately link to other references listed. I love the one stop shopping and not having the hassle of driving to the library or dealing with inter-library loans.

I love access when I am preparing a lesson plan and have at my fingertips similar lessons prepared by others including NIH bioethics courses, Harvard offerings -- even the course syllabi are a goldmine of information.

I do find it slightly frustrating when my access is limited to a teaser blurb or abstract and full access is limited to subscription only or fee for service. I am fortunate that I have access to two full academic libraries with subscription services. If I find a resource that is restricted, I am just a few keystrokes away from full access through GWU or FSU libraries. If I am unable to find a resource through the subscription services, I usually do without. There is just so much readily available, that I rarely go the extra mile to dig up something that requires a physical library visit or payment.

I make exceptions for exceptional works -- usually from Harvard Business School. Here I pay fee for service and pay to download -- usually a nominal fee.

So, access -- yes! Hooray! I love unlimited access, convenience, and one-stop (or two key-stroke) shopping. And when I can't get what I want, I either settle for what I can get or decide to pay for quality.

Next up: copyright