Under attack: Sony, CIA....JSTOR?!

Corporations and government have recently been under intense hacker attacks and now Academia is also a target: programmer and internet activist Aaron Swartz has been indicted for illegally downloading millions of articles from JSTOR via a MIT account.
This statement from the US justice department states:

AARON SWARTZ, 24was charged in an indictment with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million

JSTOR is not pressing charges and has issued this statement. 
See also New York Times article: Internet Activist Charged in MIT Data Theft

Google+ Project

Google's new project Google+ while still available 'on invitation only' is growing fast and is already considered for use in the classroom according to this article.

It is also starting to get less enthusiastic coverage

Interactive tour.

Top 10 management journals by impact factor

The 2010 Journal Citation Report from Thomson Reuters has just been released.

• Covers more than 9,100 journals from over 2,200 publishers in approximately 230 disciplines from 78 countries.
• The Sciences Edition covers over 6,500 journals; the Social Sciences Edition covers over 1,900.
• Cited and citing journal statistics from 1997 forward.

Access the Journal Citation Report on the Library page to view more rankings by disciplines.

Top 10 management journals by impact:

1. Academy of Management Review
2. Academy of Management Annals 
3. Academy of Management Journal
4. Journal of Operations Management
5. MIS Quarterly
6. Research in Organizational Behavior
7. Organizational Research Methods
8. Journal of International Business Studies
9. Journal of Business Logistics
10. Journal of Management Studies  

New Digital Partners: Google and the British Library

Per the agreement, 250 000 out-of-copyright titles representing 40 million pages from 1700-1870, from the French Revolution to the end of slavery will be digitized.

Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, The Natural History of the Hippopotamusor River horse. 1775 (2), British Library Board

"Once digitised, these unique items will be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books, as well as being searchable through the Library’s website and stored in perpetuity within the Library’s digital archive."[Click for full press release]

Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity

A 2011 McKinsey report shows that:

Analyzing large data sets—so called big data—will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus as long as the right policies and enablers are in place.

Google's chief economist Hal Varian has been reported as saying that "the sexy job of the next ten years will be statisticians" [p.103]

Executive summary - Full report 

Top-Ten IT Issues in Higher Education: 2011Survey

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2011 - Educause survey

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2011

1.   Funding IT
2.   Administrative/ERP/Information Systems
3.   Teaching and Learning with Technology
4.   Security
5.   Mobile Technologies
6.   Agility/Adaptability/Responsiveness
7.   Governance, Portfolio/Project Management
8.   Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure
9.   Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity
10.  Strategic Planning

Full text of the survey in HTML or PDF

American Economic Association drops double-blind peer review process

"The American Economic Association announced last week that it is ending "double blind" peer review, the traditional system in the social sciences in which authors of submitted articles are not known to reviewers, nor are reviewers known to authors. Political Analysis, a key journal in political science, is making a similar shift."

Full article from Inside Higher Ed.  
AEA announcement

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.