SLOW KNOWLEDGE
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This next installment begins with my personal intellectual curiosity about big data, offers resources for using the Contingent Faculty Index, and concludes with a practical how-to about extracting data from pdf tables into csv format (for use in Excel, SPSS, Google Fusion Tables, etc.) How to Get a Humanist-Sociologist Excited about Big Data Wendy Hsu,…
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In this second installment of this open research process series I will more closely examine the 2006 data from the AAUP’s Contingent Faculty Index for what it has told us, how the data have been used, and what else the data can show. [Go to the beginning of the series on contingency] What the AAUP…
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My dissertation research focused on the obstacles that young aspiring musicians faced as the labor market shifted away from formal institutions toward contingent and freelance action supported by emergent technology. As a former adjunct, labor sociologist, and faculty support professional, I have become obsessed with the parallel forces I’m observing in higher education and how…
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I’m currently working with a data set from the Adjunct Project that began from a simple, brilliant, idea – use social media to ask adjunct faculty input their pay and benefits into a collective Google Spreadsheet. Over a couple of weeks the spreadsheet was populated with nearly 2000 responses, providing up to date information from…
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What is the fate of academic practice, where knowledge production is a slow, resource intensive process, in an age of fast-moving, fragmented, and free information? How can emergent technologies be put to effective use in learning to engage students in their learning when students – so-called “digital natives” – are primarily socialized as technology consumers…
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Check out this Google Doc where adjuncts across the US are compiling data on what they make, whether they have contracts, and whether they have benefits and retirement. Super creative use of digital media to gather important data cheaply and quickly. Kudos and thanks to Copy-Paste for building our knowledge of the labor conditions adjuncts…
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I recently took a new job as a consultant for social sciences in the department of Scholarship Technology at Occidental College. Part of the job involves helping faculty and students to incorporate new information technologies to advance their teaching, learning, and research and other part is to help students find the information they need by…
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The Guardian just ran an article on a study designed to understand the barriers that academics face in contributing their knowledge to Wikipedia. According to the article, academics are more inclined to use the crowd-sourced encyclopedia as a starting point of inquiry, but, like their students, they remain consumers rather than producers of the knowledge…
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Dean Meredith Wu on the significance of place and learning in the digital age: “Perhaps because I live with my family on the Lawn, this sense of place is always with me. But even if I lived elsewhere, I think the importance of place—our place—cannot be overemphasized. It is often said that with the digital…
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Key Ideas: Creativity, Divergent Thinking, Post-Industrial Education, Collaboration, Individual Learning
jacob alden sargent 