New look for Google Scholar

Google Scholar has a new look, read all about the changes from the Google Scholar announcement.

To access the advanced search features, users must click on the arrow in the search box and can refine the search without leaving the result page.

Free online courses from Harvard and MIT

Harvard and MIT have teamed up to release edX an open source platform to deliver online courses worldwide.
The schools have committed to a combined $60 million ($30 million each) in institutional support, grants and philanthropy to launch the collaboration. Here is an excerpt of their FAQs.

Who can take edX courses? Will there be an admissions process?
EdX will be available to anyone in the world with an internet connection, and in general, there will not be an admissions process. For a modest fee, and as determined by the edX board, MIT and Harvard, credentials will be granted only to students who earn them by demonstrating mastery of the material of a subject.

Is there anything innovative about the online technology?
Yes. It will move beyond the standard model of online education that relies on watching video content and will offer an interactive experience for students. And the technology will be open source; other universities will be able to leverage the innovative technology to create their own online offerings.

edX press conference:

Video streaming by Ustream

AAUP Faculty Salary report – 2011/2012

A Very Slow Recovery: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2011–12

The AAUP released its annual review of faculty compensation, read the April 9, 2012 press release.

Average Salary for Full-Time Faculty, by Category, Affiliation, and Academic Rank, 2011-12 

Adapted from this Higher Education article: Slow Recovery

Academic salaries, an international comparison

The project led by a team of researchers from Russia's Higher School of Economics and Boston College in the USA looks at salary data from 28 countries.

The research will be available in an upcoming book: Paying the Professoriate: A Global Comparison of Compensation and Contracts

Data is available on the project website

Click for bigger view

Tablet ownership triples among college students

The Pearson Foundation recently released their second annual survey on Students and Tablets.
Key findings:

• Tablet ownership has more than tripled among college students since March 2011, with one-quarter of students now owning a standard tablet (25%), compared to only 7% in March 2011.
  
•  Ownership of standard tablets among college-bound high school seniors has quadrupled from 4% in March 2011 to 17% in January 2012.
  
• Among college students, one-third (35%) of those who own a standard tablet also own an e-book reader or small tablet device.
  
• Almost one-half of current tablet owners (46%) say that they intend to purchase another tablet within the next six months.

For more information, read the Pearson Foundation Survey on Students and Tablets 2012

The European Business Schools Women on Board Initiative

Several european business schools (including INSEAD) have come up with a list of:

"3500 board-ready women to bring Europe into the 21st Century and support European Commission Vice President Reding’s initiative to shatter the glass ceiling for women in Europe’s publicly listed corporation’s board rooms. "

Participating schools:

• Boston University Institute of Leadership Brussels
• Cambridge Judge Business School Cambridge University 
• EDHEC Business School 
• EFMD – European Foundation for Management Development
• Erasmus University: Rotterdam School of Management 
• ESMT 
• IMD BUSINESS SCHOOL 
• INSEAD 
• University of St. Gallen: Institute for Leadership and Human ResourceManagement – Female Board Pool 

Press release

Full List
FT article: Schools promote women on boards

Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing

A study was released in Science magazine on February 3rd: Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing. 

The authors analyzed 6672 responses from a survey sent to researchers in economics, sociology, psychology, and multiple business disciplines (marketing, management, finance, information systems, and accounting) as well as data from 832 journals in those same disciplines 

The survey results are available in the  supporting material along with a list of journals identified as 'coercers' by survey respondents. 

1. Journal of Business Research 
2. Journal of Retailing 
3. Marketing Science 
4. Journal of Banking and Finance 
5. Information and Management 
6. Applied Economics 
7. Academy of Management Journal 
8. Group and Organization Management 
9. Journal of Consumer Psychology 
10. Psychology and Marketing 

Conclusion from the paper:

Overall, the empirical results from the author survey and the journal-based data tell a consistent story. Coercive self-citation exists and is more common in the business disciplines than in economics, sociology, and psychology

Elsevier under fire...again -- Updated

Update February 28, 2012:

• In a press release, Elsevier announces that it withdraws its support for the Research Work Act (a bill that was threatening open public access of federally funded research).
• In parallel it has announced to the Mathematics research community that it would reduce the price of access to articles in its math journals to no more than $11 per article and that it would make the articles in “14 core mathematics journals” free to the public four years after they are first published

This Inside HigherEd article also mentions that hours after Elsevier pulled out of the RWA, lawmakers killed the bill entirely.

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This time the action comes from University of Cambrige mathematician Tim Gowers (Fields Medal winner in 1998) Here is his entire blog post: Elsevier — my part in its downfall

I am not only going to refuse to have anything to do with Elsevier journals from now on, but I am saying so publicly.

His call has been answered and a public website The Cost of Knowledge has already received over a thousand signatures from researchers all over the world.

Academics have protested against Elsevier's business practices for years with little effect. The main objections are these:

They charge exorbitantly high prices for their journals.

They sell journals in very large "bundles," so libraries must buy a large set with many unwanted journals, or none at all. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting their essential titles, at the expense of other journals.

They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, that aim to restrict the free exchange of information.

Apple enters the E-textbook market

While this is initially targeted to the high school market, there are obvious implications and potential for Higher Education.

NEW YORK—January 19, 2012—Apple® today announced iBooks® 2 for iPad®, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users gorgeous, fullscreen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, unrivaled navigation and much more. [...]Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore℠ with most priced at $14.99 or less [...].

Read the full press release

from Apple site.

For reactions to the announcement (Chronicle of Highed Ed. article.)

Can Tweets Predict Citations?

Interesting article in the Journal of Medical Internet Research:
Can Tweets Predict Citations? Metrics of Social Impact Based on Twitter and Correlation with Traditional Metrics of Scientific Impact

The author, Gunther Eysenbach , concludes: 

Tweets can predict highly cited articles within the first 3 days of article publication. Social media activity either increases citations or reflects the underlying qualities of the article that also predict citations, but the true use of these metrics is to measure the distinct concept of social impact. Social impact measures based on tweets are proposed to complement traditional citation metrics. The proposed twimpact factor may be a useful and timely metric to measure uptake of research findings and to filter research findings resonating with the public in real time.'