Higher education presidents not strongest supporters of tenure

The survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Social and Demographic Trends Project in association with the Chronicle of Higher Education in March and April this year.

• Access the full report (PDF): Is College Worth It?
• Go directly to chapter 4 for the Views of College Presidents
• Chronicle of Higher Ed article: Most Presidents Prefer No Tenure for Majority of Faculty

What makes a good App? A usability survey

Web design guru Jakob Nielsen has released a new and free survey: Usability of iPad Apps and Websites (2nd edition).

As reported in this RWW article:  It provides an " in-depth analysis about how people are using iPads. As is usual with Nielsen reports, it also lustily lists all the design flaws that his users found - such as touchable areas that are too small, low discoverability and "swipe ambiguity."

 

Corporate Recruiters Survey 2011

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has released its Corporate Recruiters Survey 2011 report.

Trends:

• School ranking comes before academic quality for MBA recruiters (see related article from CNN Money)
• Globally, more companies are hiring in 2011 and the average number of new hires is expected to increase. 
• In 2011, European companies are poised to exceed the average annual starting salary that US employers plan to offer MBA graduates.
• Demand for MBA graduates in the United States is expected to be strongest in the finance, accounting, health care, pharmaceutical, consulting, and high-tech sectors; in Europe, energy and utilities; and in Asia, high technology, products and services, finance, and accounting. 

Amazon announces Kindle Library Lending Program

Press relase from Amazon and from Overdrive, digital distributor of eBooks for many libraries, and Amazon's partner in this program.

The release is planned for later this year in the US.

Annual Reviews white paper

A white paper from Annual Reviews publisher:

"The paper draws on a survey of early-career researchers to examine their approach to academic literature, such as how and why they read it, how much time they dedicate to it, what informs their reading choices, and how they assess quality. "

Click to read

AAUP Faculty Salary report – 2010/2011

It’s Not Over Yet: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2010–11

Per the press release, the results of the latest AAUP survey:

“…are only marginally better than last year and represent the continuation of a historic low period for faculty salaries. For the second consecutive year, the overall average salary level increased at a rate less than inflation, and this is the fifth of the last seven years in which overall faculty salaries declined in purchasing power.”

Top Private Universities in Faculty Salaries for Full Professors, 2010-11

University	Average Salary
1. Harvard University	$193,800
2. Columbia University	$191,400
3. University of Chicago	$190,400
4. Stanford University	$188,400
5. Princeton University	$186,000

Top Public Universities in Pay for Full Professors, 2010-11

University	Average Salary
1. New Jersey Institute of Technology	$158,700
2. University of California at Los Angeles	$153,700
3. University of California at Berkeley	$149,100
4. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor	$146,900
5. University of Maryland at Baltimore	$144,800

Adapated from Losing Ground on Salary (Inside Higher Ed. article)

SciVal Strata: new tool to measure academic performance

Elsevier announces a new tool to "measure individual or team performance using customizable indicators."

See this article from ReadWriteWeb: Strata Allows You to Play Fantasy Football - With Scientists

Another study questions the impact of open access journals

Mr. Philip M. Davis, a researcher in the department of communication at Cornell University, publishes a study in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology journal and concludes that "open access publishing may reach more readers than subscription access publishing, although additional readership may not translate into more citations."

Open access, readership, citations: a randomized controlled trial of scientific journal publishing

Milestone: more people get their news online than in print

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its latest report on the "State of the Media." 

The study finds that, "When it came to any kind of news, 46% of people now say they get news online at least three times a week, surpassing newspapers (40%) for the first time."

Source: Nielsen Media Research, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, Audit Bureau of Circulation

TED talk: Let's use video to reinvent education

Salman Khan talk at the TED conference.