An irony of scholarly attribution

April 15, 2010 by Brian Hughes

I have been thinking about the academic honesty issues for a while now. So far my best ideas are in my draft essay, Challenges on the Horizon for Scholarly Attribution (another Knol experiment).

My interest in academic honesty came out of my exploration of the copyright wars, and my subsequent considerations of ownership in academic culture. Policies about scholarly attribution (acknowledgements, citation, and so on), for example, are the result of beliefs about the importance of acknowledging ownership of ideas – at once protecting authors’ livelihoods as well as allowing us to trace the history of an idea through multiple author’s works.

I have struggled to untangle these two goals not only to better understand the intention behind academic policies, but also their effects. My purpose is twofold: 1) to suggest that AHPs reveal a conflict between the scholarly and educational goals of academic culture, and 2) to show how limitations conceived by intellectuals under the sway of copyright law have a dramatic negative impact on educational opportunities.

From the abstract of my essay:

This essay explores how new tools demand that educators rethink the goals and effects of policies that prescribe originality in scholarship. The example of appropriation in art, and the conflict between appropriation and copyright law, will not only suggest how new tools can allow individuals to overcome limitations of policy to a productive end, but how we may value originality differently as a result of technological change.

An additional sidenote about my interest: those familiar with copyright law (and especially those who are critical of it) can appreciate the irony that academic honesty applies to ideas themselves – which is not the case with copyright. Thus, academics have seemingly gone one step further than so-called capitalists to protect themselves and their trade at the cost of individuals’ ability to freely “create culture.” This is perhaps my strongest motivation to continue to create an analysis of this urgent matter. I believe that the future of education depends on ending this embargo on unattributed intellectual production. (Which is not to say that attribution doesn’t have a proper role in education.)

Pens as social tools for classrooms

April 14, 2010 by Brian Hughes

Tino Agnitti, the founder of IRPens.com, gave a seminar presentation about his entrepreneurial experiences today at EdLab. I really enjoyed his keen insight into his current work, ideas, and past experiences working on projects. He told his story of starting a business around the “IR Pen,” which is significant for the EdLab since it’s a good example of a technology-inspired educational tool.

For me, his company is in an analogous position to Apple creating the iPad – they are working on refining a computer/human interface. In Tino’s case, he is allowing his customers to engage a more social computing experience: the user will likely stand in front of a projected image and manipulate screen objects in a very direct way than is currently the norm. Plus – and this is where I think the iPad analogy really does some work – there is a great hardware/software combination potential. (For example, Tino showed how one could create OS and software shortcuts by writing text on the wall.)

I wonder how this kind of technology will be used in educational settings in the next 5-10 years… Today, I think the fact that it’s still a novel technology might be it’s biggest draw (I’m reminded of the related Techknowledge series on the “Wii in the Classroom” below). But one can see the innate social nature of technologies like this, and it’s not hard to start imagining this kind of interface working its way into all aspects of work and play.

[brightcove video=”3250891001″ /]

My other favorite ideas from the seminar:

Build a “feedback interface” into any technology (especially for the end-user – in the IRPen’s case it’s part of the software).
Tend carefully to the balance between a product’s price and your future product development cost (Tino: “What’s your value proposition?”).

Tino at work:

Starts the day by reviewing (and working on) problems… tech problems, customer problems, etc.
My question for Tino or anyone else: if one always waits until the afternoon to work on product development (designing the product), are they going to eventually fall behind others who don’t have to worry about problems of all kinds (see above)?

Tino doing project management:

Looks forward 6-10 months.
Puts the necessary steps into order in project management software.
Very important: organic search results and creating a “buzz” campaign.
“Exit strategy is as important as entrance strategy”

More about the product:

IRPen works with Smoothbaoard software
“Wiimote Whiteboard” freeware for macs

Thanks Tino!

Building a better institutional archive

April 7, 2010 by Brian Hughes

“How do you make an institutional archive more social?”

This question was put forth by EdLab in early 2006. It’s kind of a strange question – it makes more sense if you consider how “Web 2.0” had settled in as a useful framework in our collective imagination. We faced the task of creating a digital repository for the first time at Teachers College, and we wanted to do it with style.

We created PocketKnowledge (PK), and launched it later that fall to the College community. Phil the Pocket was born. In theory, PK did everything DSpace did, but better. The community could upload and tag items. A folksonomy could emerge. Uploaders could set different permission levels to control access to their content. And so on. From the project documentation:

[We] formed a multi-disciplinary team of students, designers, software developers and institutional representatives to implement a digital archiving solution for Teachers College, Columbia University. After an analysis of existing archiving tools, our interests pushed us in the direction of developing a custom tool to serve a set of functions that was not possible with existing archiving tools, but which we determined was possible with available technologies.

Existing digital archiving software – such as the widely implemented DSpace – did not offer a “social” solution for arching. DSpace employs “gatekeepers” who oversee the uploading of new material into the archive – often librarians who grant permission to upload materials, organize the materials into established categories, and tag the material with standard keywords.

PK was designed to overturn this librarian-centric model, and put power (and responsibility) in the hands of content creators. It is different from DSpace in many ways, and is successfully social to a discerning eye.

Was PK social enough? Probably not. And the definition of “social” has only steepened in the past four years. Here is a shortlist of ideas about how it could be more social that I’ve been able to collect:

Tag any document on the fly (currently only content owners and admins can do this)
Curate new collections of items (currently only content owners and admins can do this)
Create a personal “profile” page with favorite PK items
See “popular related” items for any item
Simple versioning control for items (to better facilitate group work)
Available email updates when users interact with items and collections

I wonder what ideas others might have now. And, should we continue down this path at all? Is it time to give up on the idea of a social archive? After all, we’re social in many ways… why should my archival materials extend my range of social interactions further? (And aren’t there already better methods for this?)

In spite of these worries and concerns, I think it is still a seductive opportunity. The best answer to the question may be a relatively simple one:

“Give me an extremely lightweight publishing opportunity that supports and is supported by (and is partially obscured by) an educational institution to which I have accepted as a platform and community for intellectual work.”

Linchpin on my mind

April 6, 2010 by Brian Hughes

In his book Linchpin, Seth Godin offers repetitive and often simplistic arguments, and actually makes a difference. By the end I really couldn’t fault him for his mistakes. He crafts his story into a compelling meditation on life and work.

He throws a lot of words and ideas at the problem of how to be indispensable, but I think he nails it here: emotional labor is tough, and the value of this kind of work will increase over time. Well, at least I hope so (I’m not exactly betting on my knowledge of cooking). Expending emotional labor and “giving gifts” is tough. The emotional labor of selling an idea is tough. The emotional labor of working with a group is tough. It’s also fun.

I still remember my experiences in classrooms during my first year in grad school. I remember feeling, for the first time in my life, that I chose education – that I didn’t have to be there. It was such a freeing feeling that for the first time in my life I participated. I raised my hand. I spoke up. I spoke out. I challenged others. I tried to move the conversation.

Those interactions weren’t easy. They probably weren’t perfect either (hey, who hasn’t been snarky about the student who spoke one too many times?). But for the first time in my life I was really attentive to emotional labor as something that was worth doing. I think it came with the territory: if you aren’t going to engage others intellectually and academically in a class in graduate school, when are you planning to do it?

I found undergraduate classrooms more difficult to navigate. It sometimes seemed as if too many people felt they had to be there. At those times, the best I could do was carve out a niche where I could work alone. Maybe the opportunity to engage others was there for me if I worked for it. But I’m not sure. I’m sure it can work at any time – in the classroom and beyond – as it worked for me in grad school.

On unlimited wealth, or the dream of it

March 31, 2010 by Brian Hughes

I have begun reading Linchpin by Seth Godin. One topic I find interesting is Godin’s support of the idea of an “unlimited” market (“Limited or Unlimited,” p. 30). I am always struck by the optimism of this perspective. For on this view, one should not behave as if there is a limited market for goods, but rather as if there is no limit to the money to be made. To me, this seems counterintuitive. I guess I don’t fault Godin’s perspective – that it may be advantageous to act as if a market is unlimited – so much as I am skeptical of the alleged fact itself.

I suspect there are economists out there with some thoughts about this, but I haven’t run into them yet lately. So, let’s run a thought-experiment.

Modernized countries have populations that increasingly rely on the labor of poorer countries. We (my fellow middle-class Americans) buy a lot of stuff, but we’re also thrifty. So, for example, when we’re faced with the choice of expensive paper towels or cheap paper towels, we’ll go out of our way to find the best towel at the best price. (For many of us, this activity takes up a considerably larger amount of our time than we’d like to admit.)

And that’s how we get to the part about American auto-makers shuttering their doors, and whole regions of the U.S. bereft of jobs: production happens in China; consumption happens in America. This seems inherently unsustainable: no sooner do we learn about unions driving jobs oversees than we learn about unionization oversees. (To say that this kind of economic growth is sustainable reminds me of the explanation of how the whole universe rests on the back of a turtle.)

But Godin chimes in and reminds us not to worry – that if we’re good enough, there will be jobs for us. Here’s why I think – even counterintuitively – that he’s right:

There’s lots of wealth in the world. Now you’re thinking, “Of course there’s a lot of wealth in the world, Brian, but the point is that is may not be available to the ever-expanding middle class (especially if the ranks of the lower class grow thin).” But one fact (if true) could turn this worry on its head: that people – especially extremely wealthy people – would be happy to live lives of extreme asceticism if they experienced an equally good kind of social and community life.

Or something like that.

I’m not saying this is the case, but it’s the only way I’ll buy into the vision of “unlimited markets.” On this view, trillions and trillions of dollars that are currently tucked away in capital (of one form or another) could be invested in labor, service, and industry (in the broadest sense). Without interest in widgets and dongles of every kind, that labor could be plied to strengthening good ol’ human interactions… and Godin could claim that his “linchpin” fits nicely within this system.

Perhaps the inner communist in me even hopes it’s true. If so, it certainly casts our obsesssion with material wealth and comfort in a tragic light.

Waiting on moral excellence

March 28, 2010 by Brian Hughes

It’s been a while since I’ve worked on my essay on retirement and moral achievement. Originally, I set out with two goals. Firstly, I wanted to be pragmatic about the purpose of the essay (“It’s for the Baby Boomers”), and write with an appropriate sense of urgency. Secondly, I wanted to settle some philosophical scores by blending normative ethics with meta ethics to arrive at a satisfying kind of self-reflection (on the part of the reader). Unfortunately, this pragmatic aim unravels pretty fast as the reader is left to grapple with the irony that the unfinishedness of life is perhaps only surpassed by the inability of philosophy (language itself?) to surmount it.

I still think it’s a worthwhile project. To make progress, perhaps I need a better focus: either I should work on a more tractable philosophical problem or go more boldly into the charlatanry of “self-help” literature. Alas, these are equally tempting options!

A short overview of the essay:

From a great array of possible lives, we have so far, for better or worse, each arrived at one life. But despite a Romantic (if thin) conception of self, the kind of ethics we live by are likely best described as diverse, fragmented, and incomplete. Why is this the case? And, more to the point, what does it—let’s call it fragmentedness—mean for us? Does it mean we will not be able to be happy, successful, or wise? Or does it mean we may be all those things but that we may be unable to escape the doubt that we are not so? To better understand the experience of retirement, we must first develop a kind of “double vision” of ethics—seeing at once that fragmentedness may be necessary, as well as coming to believe that it is essentially untenable. We will also encounter the deep-seated philosophical problem of whether or not there are such things as “moral facts.”

Pressible is ready for your content

February 1, 2010 by Brian Hughes

We are excited to announce the release of Pressible today! This is a very experimental release, though we are hoping you (the lab) and others hop on board and give it a try! Please see our features page for more details, but in a nutshell:

Pressible is highly “templated” — meaning that users can’t change much about the design of their site. Is this a good or bad idea? (Is it good or bad for Facebook?) In any case, it allows us to try some things out that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Watch for more visual elements in the future.
We think Pressible is a reinvention of blogging as a vehicle for publishing your ideas and work to the web in a fast, intuitive, and powerful way. Will you? Let us know!

Also, here are some things we think are cool about the project as a whole:

It’s hosted entirely in the cloud — a new experiment for an EdLab application.
It’s built on the back of WordPress. We did kung fu on the data WordPress throws around to create cool results now, and even cooler results in the future.
Right now it’s experimental, but we are hoping it can mature into a fully-fledged software project hosted by the Gottesman Libraries. We think it can become a way to not only serve the TC community (and alumni), but also individuals and organizations around the world.
We hope you break it. Really… we’re ready to learn from our mistakes. So if you do, let us know!

We hope this is the beginning of a new stage in the lab’s exploration of the future of publishing (hey, it may also be the end of the road!), and are excited to invite the lab to join us moving forward. We envision a lot of other features and functionality that did not make this release, and there are probably things we haven’t even considered yet.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for Pressible today and begin your next big publishing project!

Update on March 15th: Only someone with a Columbia University email address can sign up for Pressible without a special invitation.

A Disney-related setback for e-learning?

October 25, 2009 by Brian Hughes

“If you’ve spent money on an e-learning course in the last five years, you’re entitled to a full refund. We now admit that our courses don’t make you any smarter.”

OK, no one has said that yet, but if you’ve seen the recent news, then you know that Walt Disney has taken the bold step of responding to the threat of a class action lawsuit by offering refunds for “educational” materials sold in recent years – Baby Einstein videos.

“The Walt Disney Company’s entire Baby Einstein marketing regime is based on express and implied claims that their videos are educational and beneficial for early childhood development,” a letter from the lawyers said, calling those claims “false because research shows that television viewing is potentially harmful for very young children.”

Of course the real danger isn’t the degradation of a young child’s vision from frequent and extended use of the television. The problem seems to be about “fostering parent-child interaction.”

Having seen Baby Einstein material, I am somewhat shocked that Disney has acquiesced to removing the label “educational” from these products… it seems to acknowledge that products so labeled would literally have to raise a child’s IQ. Doesn’t that seem like a pretty tough new standard for education? (One that, perhaps, most “educational” products would have difficulty achieving? At least it would prove to be a new, hard-to-prove evaluative standard…)

But even more interesting, I think, is the apparent agreement that the videos are more or less worthless as learning tools – that you might as well turn off the tv and talk with your child. Could it be that this same outcome will be demonstrated all the way up the educational food chain?