October 13, 2006

'You've got Google Mail!'

Aiming to be many things to some people if not all things to all people, Google has started offering participating colleges free access to Google Apps for Education, an e-mail system that allows colleges to outsource their e-mail while maintaining addresses originating from the college's .edu domain.

Arizona State University had the system up and running for its 65,000 students in just two weeks, reports Jeffrey R. Young in the October 12, 2006 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education's The Wired Campus.

Arizona joins San Jose City College, part of the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District of California, which added Google's Gmail service last February. The service also includes an instant-messaging client, a calendar, and a Web-page tool. Each user gets two gigabytes of space, some 20 times as much as the former Arizona State system allowed, and the campus saves some $400,000 yearly.

Google sells advertising that will appear on the college mail services. As some colleges have nonsolicitation policies that preclude running advertisements in e-mail, the Google service must negotiate individual solutions with such campuses.

Google's service is similar to services provided by Microsoft and Yahoo. In addition to cost savings, such commercial services promise better security for users than colleges typically do. But colleges thus become dependent on such commercial services to prevent outsider access and data mining, and they lose the ability to trace messages and other functions "that can be important in harassment or discipline cases."

Colleges have typically excluded faculty from the new service. Chronicling your students' careers

The Chronicle of Higher Education is seeking editorial interns for the winter/spring 2007 session. The internships are paid, full-time positions in its Washington office and will last from January until June.

Duties include reporting and writing brief features for print, and daily news articles for its Web site.

Applications must be received by October 27. More information about the internships and how to apply is available on the Chronicle Web site: http://chronicle.com/help/staff/intern.htm

September 5, 2006

A 'democratic' alternative to peer review?

The system of peer review of articles by journals has both positive and negative features. Efforts are underway to eliminate the negative and preserve the positive.

The central idea behind peer review is the acceptance of a research report by a community of individuals knowledgeable about the subject matter. When a researcher wants to publish an article reporting the results of a set of experiments and their analysis in a particular area of neuroscience, for example, she submits it to a journal like Brain Research along with a list of potential reviewers. The editor who receives the submission contacts several of the reviewers on that list, and perhaps others left off the list, asking that each review the manuscript and provide detailed evaluations.

Adam Rogers, in the latest issue of Wired magazine, observes that the peer review process is "genius when it works."

But when researchers make mistakes or deliberately falsify data, the process can fail. And it can fail if the reviewer is overly sympathetic to the author, or otherwise doesn't do his or her job ethically, seeing the review process as an opportunity to learn what is going on at other competing labs and undermining the process of vetting research in order to scoop it.

Nature journal, a premier scientific publication, is experimenting with a new version of the vetting process. Any author who sends in a manuscript for review can opt to have the draft posted on the web for comment simultaneous with the traditional three-reviewer process. The editor then reviews both spontaneous web reviews and commissioned peer reviews in order to make a decision whether to publish in original form, suggest revisions, or decline to publish altogether.

Other journals have dropped peer review altogether. Brock Read, reporting in a Wired Campus article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, indicates that "arXiv, an online archive run by Cornell University, has become a popular testing ground for physicists and mathematicians. PLoS One, an open-access journal being developed by the Public Library of Science, is already billing itself as a clearinghouse for 'work that deserves to get published without delay' — the kind of delay, it suggests, that is inevitable with peer review."

As with so many other aspects of academic publishing, the internet has stimulated what might be called the democratization of knowledge: making the acquisition of knowledge in a culture more of a generalized act of the "social mind" than the purview of self- or other-appointed experts.

For further reflection on these changes and the need for them, see this chronicle.com article and this wired.com article. A sustained critique of peer review practices may be found in Bernard E. Rollin, Science and Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), especially chapter 10.

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U of Michigan Library: Only Out of Copyright Books Will Be Available On Google

One of the questions surrounding the Google library project, in which it is scanning the contents of major university and public libraries, has been whether all the scanned works will be available online as full-text versions. The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor has interpreted fair use copyright policies to prohibit their making full-text versions of copyrighted books available even to users on campus.

While the university has included all scanned works in its online card catalog, users will be able to read online the complete texts of only those works which are out of copyright.

One difference in accessibility between the Michigan collection and the Google library is that passages in Michigan's digital copies can be electronically highlighted and copied for quotation by scholars, whereas the same work in Google's library will lack this feature.

Some worry that Michigan will thereby facilitate plagiarism. The University is aware of that possibility, but doubts that any significant increase will result.

It is more likely that Michigan's resources will be accessed by other libraries lacking them, thereby effectively increasing their own collections. That possibility, especially for rare out-of-copyright works, may have a depressing effect on both used book resellers and issuers of print-on-demand reprints.

A report of the situation can be accessed here at chronicle.com.

Difficulties in downloading out-of-print works, as well as surprising features (such as reading marginalia comments) have been documented by Scott Carlson in a recent article on chronicle.com.

August 1, 2006

Are textbooks obsolete? Eric Pallant thinks so

Eric Pallant, an environmental science professor at Alleghany College, Pennsylvania, dropped the textbook for one of his courses and assembled a collection of Web resources for his students. He found that the web sites he listed actually interested his students more than the textbooks he had used, providing more up-to-date information on events that don't yet appear in textbooks (such as the impact of Hurricane Katrina), and saving students both the $100 cost of the textbook and the labor of carrying its four pounds to class. He found that students, who spend much of their lives on the Internet, preferred this to textbooks which, they say, are antiquated.

The article, appearing in the Chronicle of Higher Education online issue of June 30, 2006, does not discuss the potential disruption of courses that use only online materials when internet service providers experience crashes, nor the possibility that a student may not be able to recover material from a particular web address at a crucial point in a semester, such as just before an examination or a term paper deadline. Some will continue to prefer holding a book in their hands to reading it on a monitor screen.

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Twilight of the textbook publishing house?

Peter Wayner, in his July 20, 2006 New York Times article, "Technology Rewrites the Book," reports on a growing impact of free book-producing software and print-on-demand technology. Authors can put their own books together with software that simplifies the process of putting together a professional-looking book. The niche that is being explored by companies like Blurb.com is the market for small press runs: people who want to put together photos from a trip, architects who want to create impressive presentations for clients, individuals wanting to publish their own poetry, cooks seeking to handle impressively the requests of friends for their recipes. Blurb.com will make its money from selling copies of the book: prices start at $29.95 for a book of up to 40 pages, and range to $79.95 for books up to 440 pages.

The software is easier to use than InDesign from Adobe or Quark XPress, professional publishing packages retailing for several hundred dollars. Other companies offer more specialized book services, many focusing on producing bound photo albums. Kodak Gallery, Snapfish, and Shutterfly are online photo processing sites that allow their customers to order bound volumes of their prints. Other free software packages are available from Picaboo.com, Sharedlnk.com, Lulu.com.

Lulu, which offered a presentation at the July 2006 TAA convention in Orlando, takes a pdf file, helps the author design a book cover, and distributes the book either in an electronic format or a soft- or hardcover book. A 6-by-9 inch softcover book with 150 black and white pages would cost as low as $7.53 per copy from Lulu. Individualization of specific copies is supported by software from SharedInk.com. Lulu helps authors market their works through order-fulfillment relationships with online booksellers like Amazon.com.

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An open and shut case?

Scott Carlson, writing in the August 3, 2006 online Academe Today, a section of the Chronicle of Higher Education, indicates there are strong signs that Google is close to reaching an agreement with the University of California to digitize up to 34 million books in the university's library system. In "U. of California is in Talks to Join Google's Library-Scanning Project,"

Carlson notes "the university system's Board of Regents heard a presentation, 'Large-Scale Digitization of UC Library Holdings: An Historic Opportunity,' at a meeting in late July, but the minutes of that meeting are not yet available." Carlson notes that the University is already involved in a competing scanning project, the Open Content Alliance, which follows an open-source model, while Google's project is "notoriously secretive."

TAA and other critics of Google's digitization practices object to the copying of works that are copyrighted without permission of the copyright holder. Google's response has been to liken this practice and the subsequent indexing of "snippets" to their practice of presenting brief glimpses of website content, already established as within the purview of fair use. Google's strategic development partner, Roland Lange, provided a detailed description and justification of Google's Print Library principles and practices at TAA's Orlando Convention, July 8, 2006. A detailed report of his presentation is available on TAA's website under Post Convention News, entry for August 1. Brewster Kahle, director of the Internet Archive and co-founder of the Open Content Alliance, speculated that the joint arrangement with Google and the OCA could either undermine the latter's being an alternative or could result in Google's being more open about its digitizing project with the result being a single project with digitizing labors and their results being shared. On the question of why the University of California's Library system might be lying down with antagonistic bedfellows, Daniel Greenstein, director of the University's Digital Library, said, "We'll work with anybody who shares that mission [the new digital role of libraries in the public domain]. . . . We see this as the future of the academy and the future of the university."

July 13, 2006

Holland publisher reaches out in solidarity

Scott Carlson reported in the June 27, 2006 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education that Springer, a publishing company founded in part in the flood-prone Netherlands, has given seven Louisiana libraries free and permanent access to more than 10,000 electronic books, chiefly in the sciences, technology, and medicine. The Louisiana libraries to receive this gift are Xavier University, Dillard University, the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Loyola University of New Orleans, Southern University at New Orleans, Tulane University, and the University of New Orleans. The animus that traditionally has existed in universities toward publishers as book and journal prices spiral higher and higher has been set aside, at least temporarily, in the face of this generous gift. One Xavier librarian, Robert Skinner, observed that the decimation of New Orleans libraries provided "an opportunity to give back to a community that has had to dig deeper into its pockets every year just to stay current." The announcement of the gift was made at this year's American Library Association conference, held in New Orleans.

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Rice University Press goes digital

Following a trend in academic publishing also championed by such presses as Lulu, Rice University announced the resurrection of its academic press, defunct for 10 years, online. "The publishing house will post works online at a new Web site, where people can read a full copy of the book free. They can also order a regular, bound copy from an on-demand printer, at a cost far less than picking up the book in a store," reports Rebecca Buckman in the July 13, 2006 issue of the Wall Street Journal.

Chuck Henry, a Rice University vice-provost and publisher of the new press, indicates that works so published will never go out of print, can be amended by their authors online, and will support "open-source" updating of online material by readers, similar to the online Wikipedia.

Henry indicated that a royalty scheme for authors is still being worked out.

Academic tomes typically do not earn their authors significant royalties, and academics who publish in the non-textbook genre generally look to their university's merit increases for compensation for such work.

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If thought can move my finger to move a cursor, why not cut out the middle step?

The same issue of the WSJ reports on advances in neural prosthetic implants and even external devices that have the potential to enable amputees and quadriplegics to use nerve signals inside the brain to control electronic devices. Fueled by a U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency allocation of $48.5 million in funding to create artificial limbs for injured soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the aim is to make prosthetics capable of control by the thoughts of the amputee.

One of the subjects in whose brains Ciberkenetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc., has implanted the experimental system is Matthew Nagle, paralyzed in 2001 at age 21. "He was able to draw simple figures on a computer screen, and even play the videogame Pong, using his thoughts. Mr. Nagle's implant also was connected to a robotic arm, which he used to move an object, and a prosthetic hand, which he opened and closed," write Shirley Wang and Antonio Regalado, the article's authors.

"The New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y., has been working on . . . a less invasive technology, a brain-wave cap . . . to allow patients to email from their homes, according to Jonathan Wolpay, who heads the center's laboratory that studies nervous system disorders." Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, sufferers are being fitted with the interface system to permit them to send e-mail messages.

Other research on computer-brain interfaces aims at providing individuals who have lost the capacity for speech to initiate artificial speech through electrodes implanted in Broca's area of the brain.

July 3, 2006

Sex may sell, but it may get you banned

The American Library Association has released its list of most challenged books in 2005:

The "10 Most Challenged Books of 2005" reflect a range of themes. The books are:

• "It's Perfectly Normal" for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group;
• "Forever" by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;
• "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
• "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;
• "Whale Talk" by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language;
• "Detour for Emmy" by Marilyn Reynolds for sexual content;
• "What My Mother Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones for sexual content and being unsuited to age group;
• Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence;
• "Crazy Lady!" by Jane Leslie Conly for offensive language; and
• "It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families" by Robie H. Harris for sex education and sexual content.

Off the list this year, but on for several years past, are the Alice series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.

For more information on book challenges and censorship, visit http://www.ala.org/bbooks.

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The King and I Redux

In their article, "Thailand Blocks Yale Press's Web Site in Anger over Royal Biography," (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 17, 2006), Peter Monaghan and Martha Ann Overland report that the government of Thailand has blocked access in that country to Yale University Press's web site, in response to Yale's publicity material for The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, by Paul M. Handley, which Yale is to publish this month.

Handley spent 13 years in Thailand, and is critical of the King's ruling philosophy. King Bhumibol was born and raised in the United States before becoming his country's king in 1946 after the still-unsolved shooting death of his brother, and is the world's longest-reigning current monarch.

Should Handley's book be banned, it will join good company. William Stevenson's The Revolutionary King: The True-Life Sequel to 'The King and I', published in 1999, was banned in Thailand despite Stevenson's humanizing of the King as the result of Stevenson's unparalleled access to the palace.

Ironically, King Bhumibol declared in his December 2005 birthday speech that he can, indeed, make errors and that he welcomed criticism.

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New Laws on the Books

Reports last year by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) complaining about the high cost of textbooks are prompting legislators from 17 states to introduce bills intended to make textbooks more affordable. Connecticut, Virginia, and Washington enacted statues dealing with textbook prices, and senators in New York last month approved a measure being considered by the State Assembly.

A chief focus of the laws is faculty behavior: faculty members are encouraged not to use a new edition of a book if an old version would suffice. Another is to urge bookstores to order bundled items, such as workbooks and CD-ROMs, individually if cost effective to do so.

Bookstores are complying by informing professors of the prices of books they order, by actively questioning faculty book orders as to the necessity for all bundled items, and by publishing information about textbooks online, so students can shop for the lowest prices.

Potential conflicts with free speech and academic freedom issues have limited legislatures' approaches to the cost problem to bills that merely encourage colleges, professors, and publishers to keep textbook prices low, or that focus on institutional practices rather on publishers', who have the most control over the price of textbooks.

One group of professors have developed a less expensive alternative to publishing house texts. BooksUPrint.com sells books and also games in pdf format that anyone can print at any computer. This eliminates printing, shipping coats, returned books, and permits most listed texts to be sold for under $10. It also permits full-color illustrations, and embedded links to websites. It also reduces the weight of paper students have to take to class. It also permits an electronic text to be used by computerized voice readers, thus providing access to the blind, and permits texts to be magnified, providing access to the visually impaired. Details at http://www.booksuprint.com/index.asp.