The Shared Benefits of a College Degree

Publicly-funded education has long been considered integral to the health of our country. In 1822, James Madison noted, “learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty & dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.” He goes on to advocate for public funding of education as a path towards equal opportunity, noting “Without such Institutions, the more costly of which can scarcely be provided by individual means, none but the few whose wealth enables them to support their sons abroad can give them the fullest education… At cheaper & nearer seats of Learning parents with slender incomes may place their sons in a course of education putting them on a level with the sons of the Richest.”

How has public funding for Florida colleges fared in the past decade? According to a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, state funding has been cut 22.7% since 2008, a reduction of $2,132 per student (a glimmer of hope is that since 2015, Florida has increased funding 3.5%, or $244 per student). As a result of public finding cuts, institutions have been forced to raise tuition costs. Indeed, Florida’s universities increased tuition costs by an average of 64.3% between 2008 and 2016, a hike of $2,490 per student. Florida is not unique in this, and these data point to a worrying national trend in higher education: less state funding and more reliance on students to carry the load of the cost of college education – many by taking on substantial student loan debt.

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Philip Trostel argues that making cuts to higher education is easier when law-makers emphasize private, individual benefits of a college education (e.g., higher annual and lifetime income, longer life expectancy, more access to higher-quality healthcare, higher retirement accounts). When the value of higher education is framed on these individual benefits, law-makers and citizens alike often exclude discussions of the larger societal goods that result from higher education. Trostel argues that the notion of an educated populace as a public good has been completely omitted. With that omission, and the prevailing notion that private goods are best served by private means, financing of higher education has been deemed better-served by the free market, and not by public funding of universities.

Making higher education out of reach for those, as Madison suggests, with "slender incomes" has the consequence of inadvertently diminishing the "public mind" and threatening "public liberty." Shifting the narrative of the benefits of college education away from private gains to public gains might not change much in the short term. Over time, focusing on the shared social goods a society receives from college graduates can bring wider support for more public funding to achieve those aims, supporting a public that is ready to defend their public liberties.

By Greg Rousis

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Alternatives To Traditional Final Exams Encourage Student Engagement, Learning

When students leave college classrooms at the end of the semester, what are they really taking away with them? Too often, courses culminate in a student turning in a traditional multiple-choice final exam, quietly muttering "Thank you" to the professor, and walking out of the lecture hall having learned little of substance that will stay with them for more than a couple months. The suggestion to exchange final exams for semester 'finales' may seem far-fetched, but the idea might have practical value.

The most common reason students walk out of a course without having learned meaningfully is that they never made course material relevant to themselves. Past research indicates that students experience greater levels of motivation to learn when their teachers make content personally relevant to the students. Personalizing knowledge by putting it into one's own context is all that it takes for students to understand more deeply, rather than just hearing information, memorizing it, and regurgitating it without having ever really thought about it.

There are plenty of examples as to what a semester "finale" might look like. In general, they all focus on giving students an ultimate experience they can use to make course material personal and practical for them- something they can take with them into their future. The idea is to get students thinking,especially on the last day, so they can leave the course still mulling over what they've learned and how it can continue to apply to their intellectual life. Presenting students with just one particularly novel, perplexing question, for example, and asking them to solve it within a confined time is one way to change the final assessment paradigm. Perhaps instead of a final exam, the last day of the course could be a rubric-outlined debate or a collaborative assignment.

The point is, there is a serious lack of genuineness and creativity in the way most professors assess their students at the end of their courses. Final exams as they stand now often make the end of the semester feel more like a chore than a crescendo of an academic experience. By adding a little novelty, a little intrigue, and a little excitement, professors can create an end of the semester assessment that students will be talking about, and thinking about, long after the course is finished.

How do you add creativity and engagement in your final exams?


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Use Technology To Help Curate Your Tenure Portfolio

Tenure-track faculty are asked to keep track of their most important contributions from the very moment they are hired. That body of work, sometime in the future, will be used to determine their worthiness for receiving tenure, and must be managed diligently in the meantime. Over what can be a very long period, one of the biggest challenges of creating an excellent portfolio to showcase one's entire career up to that point is simply keeping track of everything. That's where technology can be a game-changer.

Robert Talbert, a mathematics professor at Grand Valley State University and contributing writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education blog, says that technology can help faculty preparing for tenure selection work smarter, not harder. Instead of relying wholly on traditional storage and hoping that, on submission day, everything is in the binder that's been accumulating important files for years, he suggests using some technological assistance to keep disciplined and organized. At the core of his advice is that you can use technology to implement a system you trust that can easily be categorized and searched that you are able to easily organize and settle on a weekly basis. This allows you to make sure you are staying ahead of the constant influx of materials you must track, such that you can rest easy knowing each item that came across your desk or screen is safely vaulted where you can access it easily at a later time if necessary. Talbert recommends using converting all paper documents into electronic formats using a scanner, then keeping track of them using a free storage and organization service like Evernote, Dropbox, a combination of both, or some other means. Talbert goes into pretty specific detail about how he recommends using Evernote and Dropbox to prepare a portfolio. But the basic takeaway is this: if you're preparing for tenure selection, get organized with technology or be risk being overwhelmed when your time comes.

UNF will be hosting two two vendor demonstrations for electronic tenure and promotion portfolios on Friday, March 11th: Interfolio’s By Committee (12:00-1:30pm) and Data180’s Faculty180 (2:00-3:30pm). Both demonstrations will be held in Building 51, room 1205. Faculty are encouraged to come out, ask questions, and provide feedback on these digital systems for managing the promotion and tenure documents and process.

New Education School Promotes Teacher Competency, But Questions Remain

The American public school system has long struggled to recruit and retain high-performing teachers, particularly in schools in lower income areas where there are less resources to go around yet more obstacles to learning to overcome. Another issue that needs improvement is that there there are not enough "high-performing" school teachers to begin with.

Critics believe that this is due to the lack of competency-based graduate level teacher education schools. As more and more teachers have some type of specialized graduate degree in education, with about 185,000 Master's in Education degrees awarded in 2010, issues with graduate education degrees have become more apparent. One planned school, created by outspoken teacher-education critic Arthur Levine, seeks to focus on critical competencies achieved rather than the amount of time spent in class learning how to teach.

The principal of establishing competency for educators may hold just as much value for those who teach in higher education as it does for those who teach in primary and secondary settings. Many faculty members at universities are in teaching positions because they are experts in their fields, but they are rarely required to demonstrate teaching competencies or educational standards. One group, , has proposed a competency-based system or teachers in higher education, including badges for mastering learning environments, assessment techniques, ethics, and leadership.
Digital Promise

Several problems with the school's proposed approach have yet to be reckoned with. First, the criteria for these competencies is nebulous, with no goals or practices specifically enumerated by the new school. Which competencies are critical, and what they are composed of, must be clearly delineated for both secondary and post-secondary educators.

Second, what is the best way to measure how good or competent a teacher is? Surely it has something to do with a unique ability to bring out the best in their students and to enable them to learn what they will need to succeed. However, although there are outcomes that reflect effective teaching, there is no set of accurate or quantifiable measurements to determine what effective or competent teaching is or how it is achieved. These issues are just as relevant for school-teachers as they are for higher education faculty.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the proposed school is an entirely online curriculum. This format gives freedom to future teachers to work at their own pace to achieve the competencies and skills deemed necessary to graduate, but it seems unlikely that an online learning curriculum with no social interaction between teachers and no experiences with students will prepare graduates for an extremely person-focused profession. Results remain to be seen.


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3 Strategies for Making The Most of the Few Minutes Before Class Starts

Most professors arrive to class early, perhaps around five minutes before they will need to begin teaching. Typically, professors will use this time to collect thoughts, prepare technology, or organize slides and notes. Faculty who are newest to teaching may especially use this time to prepare themselves for lecturing, which can initially be intimidating. But once the jitters have gone and the course material has become second-nature, how can professors use that few minutes before class begins to maximize student learning? In a recent article, James Lang provides some suggestions on how best to use that time.

Get to know your students. In the book, How College Works, sociology researchers conclude that relationships formed in college are the most important and influential part of the undergraduate experience. This includes relationships formed with professors, which are key to motivating students and increasing their learning and performance. Learning is easier when students can relate to their professors and know that professors care about their academic success. Using the first minutes of class to simply ask one or two students how they are, what their major is, or what they enjoy outside of class is an effective way to open the door to a mentoring relationship or at least increase their trust and participation.

Provide context. Use the extra pre-class minutes to help students understand the greater framework for the course or its attached field of study by writing an agenda or schedule for the day's material. This gives students an awareness of how course information fits in the day's lecture, the overall subject, and the course's sub-groupings and allows them to make connections between specific facts and ideas. This leads students to a more practical understanding of course knowledge rather than strings of facts to passively memorize and regurgitate.

Engage the class. Giving your students a reason to focus up and learn is a great way to use the minutes before class when students are still trickling in and getting settled. Displaying a picture, quote, or idea that relates to the course in an especially interesting way fosters interest and enthusiasm. Other engaging ways to warm up your students include sharing a funny image, story, or jokes. Personally, I ask students to request a song the class to be played in the following class, pick my favorite request, and play it in the 3-5 minutes as students are coming in. Such efforts not only help to enliven the class by bringing them some entertainment and break the ice, but also help to humanize their professor.

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Student Evaluations of Teaching Useful - in Context

Students' evaluations of professors have great value for administrators who seek an accurate
assessment of the quality of teaching at their universities. This is in turn drives their decisions regarding faculty promotion, pay rates, and termination.

One of the problems with placing such heavy weight on student evaluations in making decisions about faculty employment is that students don't always give valid feedback. Students, like most people, don't always play fair. Students will sometimes give poor scores (not to mention rude comments) in evaluations, not because the scores are warranted, but because they felt the class was too challenging or made them work too hard. When these ratings are included in aggregate, they punish professors who simply teach difficult courses or demand high standards from their students.

How can student evaluations be more useful? A recent article outlines some suggestions on using student evaluations of teaching more effectively. The best ideas seem to revolve around cross-checking teaching quality using measurements other than student evaluations alone. For instance, finding innovative ways to assess how much students are learning by the end of their courses, rather than asking them to solely self-report how much they liked the experience of the course, is one way to supplement assessment. Other ideas that have been successfully implemented include classroom observations (both scheduled and surprise) by administrators or senior faculty, spot-checking faculty practices feedback on assignments, and including multiple iterations of student evaluations throughout the semester to give professors a chance to adjust their strategies. The Office of Faculty Enhancement at UNF provides a number of alternatives to end-of-semester student evaluations.

Context is very important in using results from student evaluations, especially because research has shown positive correlations between students' expected grades and their evaluation scores. Essentially, student evaluations are important because they provide direct feedback on how students feel about their professors' ability to educate them. However, they do not tell the whole story, must be taken in their rightful context, and need accompaniment to be used as a key metric in faculty assessment.

Making Office Hours Required for Students: The Best Bad Idea You've Ever Heard

It is well known that students who build working relationships with their professors are
more successful both in college and after graduation. One of the best ways to cultivate that relationship is the simple step of coming to a professor's office hours.

Despite the fact that office hours are theoretically beneficial for students, very few students seem to take advantage of this valuable opportunity. Office hours should be the time students are receiving much-needed mentoring that can lead to increased student engagement, leading to better performance in the course and ultimately to higher graduation rates.

Should faculty then make office hours mandatory for students? The logic behind this move is simple. Much is lost in the translation of course material and knowledge from the professor to the student during the lecture because it lacks personal and motivational factors that are typical in more personal conversations. This effect is compounded when grades and feedback are given only through writing, whether digital or analog. Making a personal connection has always been, and is still, extremely helpful to the learning process. Although practical ways to implement required office hours depend tremendously on course size, the idea that students benefit from engaging with their professors on an individual level about course topics is wholly unsurprising and is worth pursuing.

Let us know your feedback. Do you require office visits for your students? What would be some advantages or disadvantages?

TurnItIn Provides a Valuable Service, But Jeopardizes Students' Rights

Realistically, if you're a professor who needs to ensure students aren't cheating on their papers, TurnItIn.com is a true time-saver with few alternatives. TurnItIn is a tremendous boon for professors who simply do not have time to painstakingly check their students' written work for plagiarism against the millions of other scholastic documents on the internet. In an insightful article published last month, one professor praises TurnItIn for its incredible efficiency and criticizes it for its monopolistic hold on students' original works.

The issue hinges on what TurnItIn does with all of those student papers it receives. It keeps them, archives them, and continues to use them for plagiarism checking. Whereas this is more of an issue in principle rather than reality, the fact remains that students are required to give over their intellectual products to a company that will use them to make a profit. Some may find that to be a bit unsettling, although there is no apparent harm that comes from it. After a 2007 lawsuit, a district court determined that TurnItIn is not breaking any copyright laws in their practices. Despite the fact that it is not technically unlawful, TurnItIn does influence the rights of students to be in control of their intellectual property.

As term papers, research manuscripts, and other long written assignments pile up, it is hard to argue against the benefits of using a site like TurnItIn to protect academic integrity and ensure the quality of students' educations. But there is a hidden cost of student ownership that, although practically innocuous (for now), may trouble the ethical constitutions of some.

When Assessing and Correcting Personal Bias, Slow and Steady Wins

The first step in eliminating bias is acknowledging that a bias exist. However, few faculty members, or any other profession, are willing to acknowledge their own biases in the classroom. Although progress can come from large-scale change that trickles down into individual lives and everyday interaction, equally beneficial change can work from the bottom-up. Taking small steps on a manageable time scale to reduce our own biases can make all the difference.

Here are a few tips to becoming a little more equitable everyday.
1) Faculty are often tempted to grade students based on personal characteristics and their work, rather than solely on the quality of the work. Like many other mental shortcuts used for judgement and decision-making, making assumptions about another person saves massive amounts of time and are often accurate enough. Faculty may begin reading an assignment, stop and think, "So-and-so usually does great work," and, thus, skim the rest of the assignment with their mind already made up on what type of grade to give. However, when it comes to grading, using our first impression of a person is genuinely unfair. Students benefit when faculty take the time to thoroughly assess work for the work itself.

2) Whereas a faculty member may not be consciously biased, every human is biased on an unconscious level. If you don't believe that, follow this link and take the Race Implicit Attitude Test (IAT), Age IAT, or other available IAT. It's likely that you have no desire to act on your biases, whether unconscious or conscious, and simply becoming aware that you may be accidentally adjusting student performance evaluations or classroom experiences allows you to correct for biases.

3) Follow-up with yourself to continually evaluate how you are working to reduce your own bias.

4) Listen actively and empathetically to each individual with whom you speak. This allows you to look past surface-level characteristics and focus on content, substance, and quality.

5) Seek progress, not perfection. In other words, don't expect to ever fully eliminate bias, whether that's based on gender, race, age, or education level, because it is impossible to do so. But it's worth attempting to reduce as much as possible. By doing so, you are making a more fair and inclusive environment for your students.

Strategies for Online Discussion Forums

Do you have a strategy for managing discussions in your online courses? Some discussion topics seem to foster polarization and animosity. Online discussions of contentious issues can lead to "flaming" or emotional and anonymous venting. Online discussion forums may be one of the few places, however, that individuals have to discuss important issues with others who are different from them.

Anastasia Salter from ProfHacker has some suggestions for making online discussions safe and productive. Some suggestions include setting rules early and dealing with disruptive students.

Do you have some strategies that you think are effective?

Frankly Friday: The Soul of Higher Education

The Soul of Higher Education
Friday, April 10th, 2015, 9:30-10:30 a.m.
Faculty Lounge, Building 16, Room 4201
RSVP to ofe@unf.edu

In 2011, the Governor Rick Scott called on institutions of Higher Education in Florida to focus on producing more graduates in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and said that the State probably did not need more Anthropology majors. The stated goal of this reform was to produce students who have degrees where jobs are available. The increased emphasis on the college degree serving to provide job opportunities for graduates is a national trend. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dan Berret reviews evidence that college students increasingly view the college degree as an avenue to financial success and consider less and less that a college degree serves to develop a meaningful philosophy of life. As the Florida Board of Governors focuses more on performance metrics to determine State funding, the university system has increased its focus on producing graduates with jobs. These trends challenge traditional notions of universities providing a broad liberal education for students. Come and discuss the implications of these trends and how they might affect UNF. The Office of Faculty Enhancement will provide coffee and breakfast items.
Friday, April 10th, 2015, 9:30-10:30 a.m.
Faculty Lounge, Building 16, Room 4201
RSVP to ofe@unf.edu

Frankly Fridays - Who owns course content?

Frank Conversation about
Faculty Issues

Topic: Who owns course content? Intellectual Property in the Digital Age

Friday, April 4^th, 9:30-10:30 AM, Osprey Commons Faculty Lounge (Building 16, Room 4201)

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

When a faculty member and a university enter into a relationship (based on a faculty hire), both parties typically intended for the relationship to be one with longevity. Both parties benefit from each others' success. Recent technological innovations, like Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and social media, have challenged the nature of the relationships between faculty and universities and between faculty and students. Recent conversations around copyright of MOOCs has started a broader conversation about how the intellectual contributions of faculty are attributed and protected.  As Cary Nelson, a former president of the American Association of University Professors, explains, this "is not just the ability of faculty members to profit from their own writings or inventions, but the future of their profession." As faculty and universities engage in conversations about intellectual property, students have inadvertently joined the discussion. In a recent debacle over the posting of a course lecture through social media, faculty members and the university joined sides to combat students' posting of a lecture that was not intended to be distributed outside of the classroom. Digital advantages and innovations are providing some unique challenges to faculty and universities across the nation. UNF has a couple of policies that address copyright and intellectual property rights. 

Copyright policy at UNF
Intellectual Property Guidelines at UNF

Come discuss how these issues impact UNF and faculty across the nation.

We will meet in the Faculty Lounge on the 4^th floor of the Osprey Commons.

OFE will provide the coffee and pastries.

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

To Share or Not to Share: The Open Syllabus Project

In a recent Chronicle article, Mark Parry discusses the benefits and challenges associated with gathering and sharing syllabi via web based databases. In particular he looks at the Open Syllabus Project,  an online database similar to MIT Open CourseWare and Syllabus Finder, meant to be used “as a platform for the development of new research, teaching, and administrative tools.”  

Of course there are several arguments against sharing syllabi including legalities such as copyright and ownership but by simply acknowledging the original author some of those concerns are usurped. In a 2012 Chronicle article entitled, "Forking Your Syllabus" by Brian Croxall, the author states, "When you’re beginning to plan something new, you can always benefit from seeing what others before you have done."

Would you agree that sharing syllabi in an open database is beneficial to the collective higher ed body or are the legal ramifications of copyright infringement and plagarism to great? Share your comments below.

To read the full articles click below:

Mark Parry, "New Syllabus Archive Opens the 'Curricular Black Box'

Brian Croxall, "Forking Your Syllabus"

Frankly Fridays Event - Can we talk about race?

Frank Conversation about Faculty Issues

Topic: Can we talk about race?

Friday, March 7^th, 9:30-10:30 AM, Osprey Commons Faculty Lounge (Building 16, 4^th Floor)

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

Despite efforts by Higher Education to bring diversity to college campuses, faculty of Color continue to be underrepresented among faculty ranks. A recent post in the Chronicle of Higher Education by an Associate Professor of African-American studies highlights the growing tensions around race bias in higher education and the attitudes of White Americans nationally. Recent research by the Harvard Business School suggests that as perceptions of race bias have decreased, perceptions of anti-White race bias have increased among Whites. Recent conversations among faculty on the UNF campus have highlighted the challenges faculty of Color face in feeling welcomed and supported by the UNF community.  

Come discuss how these issues impact UNF and faculty across the nation.

We will meet in the Faculty Lounge on the 4^th floor of the Osprey Commons.

OFE will provide the coffee and pastries.

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

Frankly Friday Event - Academic Free Speech?

Frank Conversation about Faculty Issues

Topic: Is Academic Speech Free?

Friday, February 7^th, 9:30-10:30 AM, Osprey Commons Faculty Lounge (Building 16, 4^th Floor)

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

The United States of America provides and supports free speech among its citizens. College campuses are known for the free exchange of ideas. One would imagine that college campuses in the United States would be places where free speech would be encouraged, even celebrated. Recent cases across the country (see Chronicle Article), including incidents in Florida, however, have identified boundaries of free speech on college campuses. The immediacy of social media has amplified the challenges of unfettered free speech on college campuses leading to national dialogues and some embarrassment for university administrators and leaders. To address these concerns many college campuses are passing new policies to address communication online. The University of North Florida recently revised an existing policy on online communication to more fully address both official and unofficial online communication. With new technologies, faculty are considering how their communications online might be affected, including statements and posts that up until recently have been imagined as personal.

Come discuss how these issues impact UNF and faculty in Florida.

We will meet in the Faculty Lounge on the 4^th floor of the Osprey Commons.

OFE will provide the coffee and pastries.

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

Helping Students Cheat? - Frankly Fridays Discussion

Frankly Fridays

Frank Conversation about Faculty Issues

Friday, October 18^th, 9:30-10:30 AM, Osprey Commons Faculty Lounge (Building 16, 4^th Floor)

Topic: Helping Students Cheat?
Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

As the stakes become higher for college graduates to find jobs and make a living, and as employers are demanding that employees have college degrees, students are finding ways to accomplish this requirement without extreme effort or challenge. In fact, e-commerce has responded to this need and provided websites where students can hire others to take their classes for them (http://www.wetakeyourclass.com/). As institutions of higher education are pressured to demonstrate that students learn important skills from their college experience, the challenge of ensuring that the appropriate students receive the appropriate recognition for their work is becoming increasingly difficult.

In two essays, Chronicle contributor, James Lang, provides some perspective and advice about how faculty at institutions of higher education might be implementing procedures that make student cheating more likely (Part I, Part II, Part III). In this Frankly Friday session, we will discuss the current state of cheating at UNF and some ways to address the issue.

Come discuss how these issues impact UNF and faculty across the U.S.
We will meet in the Faculty Lounge on the 4^th floor of the new dining facility, Osprey Commons.
OFE will provide the coffee and pastries.

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

Best regards,

Dan Richard

The End of Tenure - Frankly Friday Event

Frank Conversation about Faculty Issues

Topic: The End of Tenure

Friday, September 13^th, 9:30-10:30 AM, Osprey Commons Faculty Lounge (Building 16, 4^th Floor)

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

The landscape of Higher Education is changing. Institutions of higher learning have experienced greater demand from students and more scrutiny on the business of providing quality education to those students. A recent report by the US Department of Education indicates a move toward greater reliance on part-time and non-tenured faculty to satisfy increased teaching demands. As institutions of higher learning are making do with fewer tenure-track faculty, the entire higher education community has begun to question the future of the tenure track (see commentary by Ennis).

If you are a tenure track faculty member, do you trust the promise of academic freedom and job security the tenure track makes? If you are a non-tenure track faculty member, does the tenure track no longer hold an allure for you?

Come discuss how these issues impact UNF and faculty in Florida.
We will meet in the new Faculty Lounge on the 4^th floor of the new dining facility, Osprey Commons.
OFE will provide the coffee and pastries.

Let us know you will be there: ofe@unf.edu

Online Lecture Prompts Lawsuit

As faculty move toward more online forms of teaching and learning, various forms of online lecture delivery Chronicle article.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/harvard-professors-online-lecture-prompts-fight-with-record-company/65261
have been explored. A Harvard law professor found himself in a battle for copyrights when he used a video clip of a band in his lecture. The professor claims fair use, whereas the band claims he misused their work. A legal battle was initiated over the professor's use of the material. Read more about the issues in this

To read more about UNF's Copyright Guidelines, visit this guide provided by UNF's General Counsel's Office.
http://www.unf.edu/uploadedFiles/president/general_counsel/Copyright%20Policy.pdf

The Thomas G. Carpenter Library at UNF has published a decision tree guide for identifying copyrighted material that might be useful to faculty.
http://lgdata.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/docs/1652/243453/task_force_processes_copy.jpg

Which Tools to Use?

In a recent survey of 10,000 college students from across over 200 college campuses, students indicated which tools they would like their college professors to use more, or to use less. Among the winners are lecture capture and laptops. Among the less-attractive options are e-portfolios and smartphones.

Review the results of the survey at this website.
http://public.tableausoftware.com/shared/86732NWR8?:display_count=yes

Treatment or Research? The Government Decides

Two neurosurgeons at the University of California - Davis (UCD) have resigned over an investigation into their activities at the university. The two neurosurgeons reportedly injected bacteria into the brains of patients in hopes that the bacteria would induce an immune reaction that would fight cancer. UCD launched an investigation and found that that the surgeons were conducting research without the proper ethical protocols. The surgeons argue that they were providing treatment, not conducting research.
Read more about the case at the website:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/2-neurosurgeons-who-were-accused-of-misconduct-at-uc-davis-resign/65193

The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Safety (http://www.hhs.gov/) provides a definition of human subject research on their website.
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/45cfr46.html#46.102
The definition indicates that activities might be considered research even if the activities are not "conducted or supported under a program which is considered research for other purposes."

The moral of the story -- caveat scolaris (scholar beware).