New Bookmarks
Year 2004 Quarter 3: July 1 - September 30 Additions to Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

New:  Once again Trinity University Receives a U.S. News Number 1 Ranking (for the 13th year in a row) http://www.trinity.edu/departments/public_relations/trinity_today/today.htm 

Of course the people don't want war. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Hermann Göring

Choose a Date Below for Additions to the Bookmarks File

September 15, 2004   September 1, 2004     

August 14, 2004         August 1, 2004   

July 21, 2004              July 12, 2004 

September 15, 2004 

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on September 15, 2004
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

Stian's Friendship Page (Forwarded by Paula) --- http://home.no.net/chatoman/email/friendship.php 

Once again Trinity Receives a U.S. News Number 1 Ranking (for the 13th year in a row) http://www.trinity.edu/departments/public_relations/trinity_today/today.htm 

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Organization (the World's largest such organization) for Security and Co-operation in Europe --- http://www.osce.org/ 

The Vanishing Protestant Majority --- http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040720.protestant.pdf 

Quotes of the Week

If you are listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you are a bigger moron than they [sic] are.  Why are we rock stars?  Because we're morons.
Rock-and-roller Alice Cooper, Newsweek Magazine, September 6, 2004, Page 23

Some regard themselves as perfect only because they are less demanding of themselves.
Hermann Hesse

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it
George Bernard Shaw

Only the vigilance of public opinion ensures the future of any society .
Noam Chomsky

Good friends are like stars, You don't always see them, But you know they are there.
Anonymous (forwarded by Paula Ward)

A sociologist is someone who goes to a football match to look at the spectators
Gesualdo Bufalino

Keeping a diary is bad for your health, say UK psychologists. They found that regular diarists were more likely than non-diarists to suffer from headaches, sleeplessness, digestive problems and social awkwardness.  Their finding challenges assumptions that people find it easier to get over a traumatic event if they write about it.
Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, September 4, 2004 --- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996374 

September 11, 2004 reply from MacEwan Wright, Victoria University [Mac.Wright@VU.EDU.AU] 
Dear Bob, They appear to have history on their side - rumour has it that that great diarist Samuel Pepys suffered as described. But where would history be if it were not for these long suffering diarists? 
Kind regards, 
Mac Wright

Cyber-begging is not new, but a free web service called Dropcash has linked data from payment service PayPal with that of blogging system TypePad to make it even easier to create your own fundraising webpage - complete with progress bar.
The Guardian, September 9, 2004
Bob Jensen's threads on charity frauds are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudreporting.htm#CharityFrauds 

Is the Verifier Approach science or art?
When the news of Rugg's breakthrough was published last winter, everyone missed the bigger story. Rugg cracked the Voynich not because he was smarter, but because he focused on what everyone else had missed. Then again, this came naturally to Rugg: He has made a career out of studying how experts acquire knowledge yet screw up nevertheless. In 1996, he and his colleagues developed a rigorous method for peering over the shoulders of experts - doctors, software engineers, pilots, physicists - watching how they work and think, testing their logic, and uncovering ways to help them solve problems.
Joseph D'Agnese (See Below)

Overall, MSN Music is no match for iTunes -- yet. But if you don't have an iPod and want or need to buy music in Microsoft's format, it may be a good choice over time.
Walter Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2004, Page B1

Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe the egoistic distemper.
Gerald Early as quoted by Mark Shapiro at http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-09-09-04.htm 

The whole of e-commerce depends on prime numbers. I have described the primes as atoms: what mathematicians are missing is a kind of mathematical prime spectrometer. Chemists have a machine that, if you give it a molecule, will tell you the atoms that it is built from. Mathematicians haven't invented a mathematical version of this. That is what we are after. If the Riemann hypothesis is true, it won't produce a prime number spectrometer. But the proof should give us more understanding of how the primes work, and therefore the proof might be translated into something that might produce this prime spectrometer. If it does, it will bring the whole of e-commerce to its knees, overnight. So there are very big implications.
Louis de Branges as quoted by Tim Radford in The Guardian, September 7, 2004 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1299014,00.html 
The hypothesis formulated by Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann in 1859, according to Marcus du Sautoy of Oxford University, is the holy grail of mathematics. Louis de Branges, a French-born mathematician now at Purdue University, is now claiming the $1 million prize for solving the Riemann hypothesis.  Whether or not there are "big implications" is still subject to debate among mathematicians.

Most of us come up with our best ideas when we are about to nod off, says a study. So is it time the boss put beds in the workplace?
Denise Winterman, BBC News, September 7, 2004 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3631040.stm 

Try This Out for Mutual Fund Conflict of Interest:  Guess the Stance Taken by Fidelity's Board With Respect to Expensing of Corporate (read that Intel) Failure to Expense Employee Stock Options?
But while Fidelity funds hold almost 3 percent of Intel's shares for clients, Intel is also a big customer of Fidelity, creating the potential for a conflict at the fund giant. Fidelity is the recordkeeper for Intel's 401(k) plan, which held eight Fidelity funds worth $1 billion at the end of 2003.
Gretchen Morgenson, "A Door Opens The View Is Ugly Mutual Fund Board Voting," The New York Times,  September 12, 2004.
Bob Jensen's threads on the mutual fund scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm#MutualFunds 

Some Argue That This Would Be a Good Thing
An Australian scientist claims that men could face extinction within ten million years.  Professor Jenny Graves, of Australian National University, believes two different species of human could emerge.  The scientist claims an important aspect of male genetic make-up is under threat, reports The Scotsman.
Ananova --- http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1097806.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery 

"Now it's about personal communication," says James Stewart, a senior research fellow at The Institute for Studies of Science, Technology and Innovation at the University of Edinburgh. "When you don't know where people are it becomes much more private."  Having a mobile means loved ones can reach you at any time. Text messages in particular are a way to regularly reach out to family and friends.  Often just the fact we are getting in touch is more important than what we communicate, says Prof Stewart.
Mark Ward, "The Future of Affection," BBC.com, September 13, 2004 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3651170.stm 

Bob Jensen's July-September 2004 Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud093004.htm 

Bob Jensen's April-June 2004 Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud063004.htm

"Deloitte & Touche Launches DTect Financial Fraud Investigation Service," SmartPros, September 7, 2004 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x45061.xml 

The Financial Advisory Services practice of Deloitte & Touche LLP has launched DTect, a proprietary fraud investigation service designed to help companies identify, track and analyze electronic and financial fraud indicators by sifting through large amounts of electronic data in a fraction of the time expended by using existing conventional methods.

“We involved forensic technology practitioners and forensic accountants from around the world in the development of the service. Many of these professionals are former law enforcement technologists with significant experience in the use of computers in economic crime investigations,” said Peter McLaughlin, DTect National Product Line Leader.

DTect is a procedural-driven service created to analyze mountains of historical financial transactional data such as sales, accounts payable, inventories and employee compensation. It is designed to utilize hundreds of analytical test algorithms, resulting in profiles that help identify anomalies that could indicate financial fraud. These test algorithms are executed against client-supplied data, which result in a series of profiles that are scored and ranked according to client-specific risk measurements. The higher ranking scores indicate the most probable occurrences of potential fraud, abuse, or collusion of employees and vendors.

The DTect service does not rely solely on traditional sampling techniques but enables comprehensive testing of multiple aspects of financial transactions. Anomalies and trends are identified through DTect’s unique scoring methodology, which is used to focus efforts on the highest risk transactions and entities. Other differentiators that set DTect apart from traditional software technology include the incorporation of third-party data sources, analysis of the total population of records rather than only a sampling and the ability to customize test scenarios to conform to specific client needs.

In developing DTect, Deloitte & Touche forensic professionals analyzed all types of fraud to identify distinguishing attributes. The investigators then created the tests, which can be applied to business processes such as vendor, payroll and expense disbursements, to detect the presence of fraud characteristics. Each test generates a risk score, which is assigned to each vendor, employee or job category, invoice, or transaction that fails a test. High risk scores indicate anomalies in vendors and transactions. Deloitte & Touche investigators then work with their clients to interpret and explain results, to investigate and resolve anomalies, and to identify potential incidents of fraud.

Continued in the article

"Trillion Dollar Bet"
Nobel Prize Winners (Myron Scholes from Stanford, Robert Merton from Harvard) Must Pay Millions Due to Tax Fraud (in Judge Janet Bond Arterton's 200-page ruling on August 27, 2004)

"Judge's Ruling In LTCM Case May Resonate," by Diya Gullapalli and Henny Sender, The Wall Street Journal, . August 30, 2004; Page C1 ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm#LTCM 

There is a tremendous (one of the best videos I've ever seen on the Black-Scholes Model) PBS Nova video called "Trillion Dollar Bet" explaining why LTCM collapsed.  Go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stockmarket/ 
This video is in the media libraries on most college campuses.  I highly recommend showing this video to students.  It is extremely well done and exciting to watch.

One of the more interesting summaries is the Report of The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, April 1999 --- http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/reports/hedgfund.pdf 

The principal policy issue arising out of the events surrounding the near collapse of LTCM is how to constrain excessive leverage. By increasing the chance that problems at one financial institution could be transmitted to other institutions, excessive leverage can increase the likelihood of a general breakdown in the functioning of financial markets. This issue is not limited to hedge funds; other financial institutions are often larger and more highly leveraged than most hedge funds.

What went wrong at Long Term Capital Management? --- http://www.killer-essays.com/Economics/euz220.shtml 

The video and above reports, however, do not delve into the tax shelter pushed by Myron Scholes and his other LTCM partners. A nice summary of the tax shelter case with links to other documents can be found at http://www.cambridgefinance.com/CFP-LTCM.pdf 

The above August 27, 2004 ruling by Judge Janet Bond Arterton rounds out the "Trillion Dollar Bet."

You can read more about the rise and fall of Long-Term Capital Management at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudrotten.htm#LTCM

In 2003, occupational fraud is estimated at $660 billion.

2004 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud and Abuse, The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners --- http://www.cfenet.com/resources/rttn.asp 

Occupational fraud and abuse is a widespread problem that affects every entity, regardless of size, location or industry. The ACFE has made it a goal to better educate the public and anti-fraud professionals about this threat. The 2004 Report to the Nation is based on a survey that began in late 2003 and ran through the early months of 2004. Certified Fraud Examiners throughout the US were asked to provide detailed information on one fraud case he or she had personally investigated that met the following criteria: The case involved occupational fraud; The fraud occurred within the last two years; The investigation of the fraud was complete; and The CFE was reasonably sure that the perpetrator had been identified.

The end result is a comprehensive report that sheds light on occupational fraud and abuse while offering stark lessons and valuable insights about its prevention and detection.

Download the 2004 Report to the Nation * (564 kb)
Order a printed copy of the 2004 Report to the Nation
Download the 2002 Report to the Nation * (857 kb)
Download the 1996 Report to the Nation * (235 kb)

 

"University Students in California Warned of Possible Identity Theft," The Wall Street Journal, September 2, 2004 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109417629363709000,00.html?mod=technology%5Fmain%5Fwhats%5Fnews 

California university officials have warned nearly 600,000 students and faculty that they might be exposed to identity theft following incidents where computer hard drives loaded with their private information were lost or hacked into.

Since January, at least 580,000 people who had personal information about them stored in university computers received warnings they might be at risk.

The latest instance of missing equipment occurred in June at California State University, San Marcos.

An auditor lost a small external hard drive for a laptop computer. Personal data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other identifiers for 23,500 students, faculty and staff in the California State University system were contained on the missing hard drive.

At the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University, hackers broke into computers and obtained access to files of personal data for more than 500,000 current or former students, applicants, staff, faculty and alumni.

Officials from the Cal State system and UC San Diego said they have no evidence any personal data were stolen.

At the University of California, Los Angeles, a stolen laptop in June led officials to notify as many as 145,000 blood donors that their data might be in the open.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on identity theft are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraudreporting.htm#IdentityTheft 

StudentAffairs.com --- http://www.studentaffairs.com/ 
The online guide for student affairs professionals.

Sharing Professor of the Week:  What He Shares is GREAT!

The Finance Professor (Jim Mahar from St. Bonaventure University) --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/ 

NEW!!!  Mini Summaries (glorified abstracts) from past FinanceProfessor.com newsletters!  GREAT for class.  Note some links are no longer valid as once the articles are publish in paper format, some journals remove the link.  However, that said, the links are still worth your time!  Great way to stay abreast of what is going on! --- http://www.financeprofessor.com/summaries/summaries.htm 

• Corporate Finance
• Investments
• Financial Institutions (also Money and Banking)
• International Finance
• Accounting

Appeared in September 25th, 2003 newsletter

OUCH, This one is going to be controversial! Just don’t blame the messenger! ;) In a hard hitting article Kane looks at the accounting profession and does not like what he finds. After laying out “an unremitting flood of accounting scams” he “traces a major part of the problem to the flawed ethics of the accounting profession” Which he claims “by designing and certifying reporting options that help troubled firms and rouge managers to conceal adverse information from outside stakeholders, the highly concentrated accounting industry manages to insulate fro serious sanctions the economic rents it can earn from cleverly abetting deceitful behavior.” Wow. This one is definitely worth reading and discussing. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=396694# 

Jim Mahar's best newsletter ever, August 17, 2004 
Best Newsletter Ever!, CAPM revisited, Pay Matters, New Blog, and much more --- http://lists.topica.com/lists/FinanceProfessor/read/message.html?mid=1717368295&sort=d&start=88 

Top Stories ********************************************************** 
1. Blog and New format 
2. Can your stock price be too high? YES 
3. A new look at Executive compensation 
4. CAPM Revisited and dead? (but the Nobel Prize will not be recalled)
5. Employees may make poor owners (pun intended) 
6. Loyalty and the conglomerate discount 
7. When a bubble is not a bubble 
8. You should worry about endorsee’s performance 
9. Retirement planning 
10. Return on equity may not be as reported

So what's so wrong with an accountancy career?

September 11, 2004 message from Denny Beresford (University of Georgia)

The latest issue of the Sporting News includes a story about professional football teams having to cut players at the end of training camp. It includes a short story about a receiver named Rich Musinski who was cut by the Tennessee Titans. Before he was cut he was asked what would happen next in that event.

"What will I do if it doesn't work out in football? I have a degree in accounting from William & Mary, but I'm not getting into that, that's for sure. It's awful. I think I'd like to take over my dad's business. He delivers lunch meat, cheese, salads and things like that to grocery stores and convenience stores."

Denny Beresford

The techniques vary: Camera phones can be used to create high-tech cheat sheets, letting students call up photos of key notes they took back in the dorm. A student also could surreptitiously send a photo of his answers to a friend sitting in the same classroom during an exam.
Marlon A. Walker (see below)

"High-Tech Cribbing: Camera Phones Boost Cheating," by Marlon A Walker, The Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109477285622714263,00.html?mod=gadgets%5Flead%5Fstory%5Fcol 

Diann Baecker thought it was odd that a student in one of her language classes had left his cellphone flipped open during a test -- until she started grading the exams.

The assistant professor at Virginia State University in Petersburg noticed that the student, and his neighbor, had used identical language to answer an essay question. She deduced that one student must have taken a picture of his neighbor's essay with his camera-equipped phone and then copied the answer onto his own test using the image on the phone's screen.

These days, Prof. Baecker tells students to put their phones under their desks, along with their books and backpacks. "The picture phone is the new thing" for cheating, she says. "Technology just makes it a lot easier. They're not leaning over their neighbor's shoulders anymore."

A small but growing number of students are using camera phones to cheat, according to students and educators across the country. The techniques vary: Camera phones can be used to create high-tech cheat sheets, letting students call up photos of key notes they took back in the dorm. A student also could surreptitiously send a photo of his answers to a friend sitting in the same classroom during an exam.

Continued in the article.

September 10, 2004 reply from David Will

I may be a little off the wall on this, and I'm no professor, but why not allow a cheat sheet in exams? Especially accounting exams? Consider it like an open book exam. Then it ruins the incentive to cheat with a cell phone or fancy calculator. I got my MBA from Penn State and one of our profs allowed us a 1 page personal cheat sheet. It became an art to fit the most content on one piece of paper. People even went so far to shrink text down using a copier, but quite honestly, we didn't use half the information because we knew it already from attending classes and from creating the cheat sheet to begin with.

Besides, what's wrong with having to look something up? Don't we all look things up when we can't remember? I hated having to get used to a new calculator in an exam. I wanted MY calculator! If you're concerned about more advanced cheating, get a few grad students to monitor the hall, don't strip the students of the equipment they've been using all year.

Anyone have an idea what percentage of students cheat when given the opportunity? I suspect it's a very small percentage - but that's just a guess.

Dave Will

Principal Boston Conferencing, Inc. web conferencing services

September 11, 2004 Reply from Bob Jensen

Hi David,

It all depends on the nature of the material and the design of the exam.

Take home exams are best individualized to make it harder for students to copy other students' answers. Of course it is still possible for a student to hire somebody to complete all or part of the examination.

Open-book and open-note exams are great when there are problems, essays, and cases, but they do not work well with terminology and concepts that can simply be copied from books and notes without having ever studied the material before the exam. I generally give open-note exams, but I insist that the notes be written individually by each student throughout the course. No photocopies or computer printouts are allowed except for those authorized in advance. This makes it more difficult for students to simply use another student's material for the exam. I might add that many students, often top students, hate this approach because risk-averse students sometimes take the hundreds of hours needed to compile note folders thicker than the Chicago telephone directory.

Closed book exams are better for terminology and concepts. They are also better for CPA examination preparation. However, the CPA examination now allows limited-function word processors and spreadsheet software on the computer. Hence, exams that do not allow computers are somewhat out of date. The problem is that it is too expensive to provide students with CPA-exam type computers rather than typical full-function computers. It is one thing to supply each student with a four-function calculator. It is quite another to supply each student with a CPA exam-type computer.

Bob Jensen

Bob Jensen's threads on education cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

Logical Positivism --- http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/logpos.htm  

Keep Updated on the Latest Gadgets 
Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, September 2004, Page 21 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sep2004/news_web.htm 

Research for Techies
www.technologyowl.com

At this Smart Stop CPAs and tech enthusiasts can read news and reviews of the latest technology products before buying that next peripheral. Categories include computers, mobile phones and personal digital assistants for the office. Users can scan headlines and summaries for links to reviews on digital and home entertainment products.

“Just the Good Stuff”
www.thegadgetbox.com

A new high-speed public dryer that sucks the water right off your hands? Mitsubishi Electric made it happen. Read all about it and other gadgets at this fun Web site. CPAs also can check out a computerized “smart shoe” from Adidas and T-Mobile’s answer to the Blackberry—Sidekick—which purportedly is a hit in Hollywood. Featured gadgets for the office include a travel power briefcase and an iceless can cooler.

Bob Jensen's threads on gadgets are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#Technology 

What works in education?

September 2, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

"CONSUMER REPORTS" FOR RESEARCH IN EDUCATION

The What Works Clearinghouse was established in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences with $18.5 million in funding to "provide educators, policymakers, researchers, and the public with a central and trusted source of scientific evidence of what works in education." The Clearinghouse reviews, according to relevance and validity, the "effectiveness of replicable educational interventions (programs, products, practices, and policies) that intend to improve student outcomes." This summer, the Clearinghouse released two of its planned reports: peer-assisted learning interventions and middle school math curricula. For more information about the What Works Clearinghouse and descriptions of all topics to be evaluated, go to http://www.w-w-c.org/ 

See also:

"'What Works' Research Site Unveiled" by Debra Viadero EDUCATION WEEK, vol. 23, no. 42, pp. 1, 33, July 14, 2004 http://www.edweek.org/ew/ew_printstory.cfm?slug=42Whatworks.h23 

"'What Works' Site Opens Dialogue on Research" Letter to Editor from Talbot Bielefeldt, Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology, International Society for Technology in Education EDUCATION WEEK, vol. 23, no. 44, p. 44, August 11, 2004 http://www.edweek.org/ew/ew_printstory.cfm?slug=44Letter.h23 

Bob Jensen's threads on education resources are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm#Resources 

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 

"E-learning and Language Change--Observations, Tendencies and Reflections" By Henrik Hansson and Sylvia van de Bunt-Kokhuis .First Monday, vol. 9, no. 8, August 2, 2004 http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_8/hansson/index.h 

From the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Newsletter on September 2, 2004 

Business School Numbers Down: 
An improving economy or doubts about value? After a golden era from the MBA degree, new figures show demand for the traditional, two-year master's of business administration program is slumping.

For details see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/08/01/financial1345EDT0007.DTL&type=printable 

From the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Newsletter on September 2, 2004 

Life 101: Mothers of College Kids Create Product to Help Students Master Survival Skills Diane Brandt, MBA '78 and Susan Rothstein, MBA/PMP '78 founded a company to produce the CollegeCase--a sleek and easy-to-use binder--designed to be a compact and portable device for students to store important documents, record key information, and find tips on such topics as banking, bill-paying, health care and travel. 

Menlo Park Almanac, July 28, 2004 --- http://www.almanacnews.com/morgue/2004/2004_07_28.casea.shtml 

September 2, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

SURVEY ON QUALITY AND EXTENT OF ONLINE EDUCATION

The Sloan Consortium's 2003 Survey of Online Learning wanted to know would students, faculty, and institutions embrace online education as a delivery method and would the quality of online education match that of face-to-face instruction. The survey found strong evidence that students are willing to sign up for online courses and that institutions consider online courses part of a "critical long-term strategy for their institution." It is less clear that faculty have embraced online teaching with the same degree of enthusiasm. The survey's findings are available in "Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality & Extent of Online Education in the U.S., 2002 and 2003" by I. Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman, Sloan Center for Online Education at Olin and Babson Colleges. The complete report is online at http://www.sloan-c.org/resources/sizing_opportunity.pdf 

The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is a consortium of institutions and organizations committed "to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines." Sloan-C is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. For more information, see http://www.sloan-c.org/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side of distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm 

September 2, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

INFORMATION LITERACY RESOURCE

"It has become increasingly clear that students cannot learn everything they need to know in their field of study in a few years of college. Information literacy equips them with the critical skills necessary to become independent lifelong learners." The ALA Association of College & Research Libraries' "Information Literacy" website provides resources for faculty and librarians to use in teaching and promoting information literacy. The site includes core readings, syllabi, tutorials, and workshop ideas. The website is available at http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/informationliteracy.htm 

ACRL, a division of the American Library Association, is a professional association of academic librarians and other interested individuals. It is dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improve learning, teaching, and research. For more information, contact Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library Association, 50 East Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795 USA; tel: 800-545-2433; fax: 312-280-2520; email: acrl@ala.org ; Web: http://www.ala.org/acrl/. 

Bob Jensen's threads on resources are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm#Resources 

President Bush directly creates 500 new jobs.  The IRS is seeking 500 new agents and officers --- http://www.smartpros.com/x45077.xml 

September 2, 2004 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

RHETORIC, COMMUNITY, AND CULTURE OF WEBLOGS

The Department of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota has created "Into the Blogsphere," a website to explore the "discursive, visual, social, and other communicative features of weblogs." Educators and faculty can post, comment upon, and critique essays covering such areas as mass communication, pedagogy, and virtual community. The website is located at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/ 

For more information on weblogs in academe, see also:

"Educational Blogging" By Stephen Downes EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 9, no. 5, September/October 2004, pp. 14-16, 18, 20-22, 24, 26 http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp 

"The Educated Blogger" CIT INFOBITS, June 2004 http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitjun04.html#1 

Bob Jensen's threads on blogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 

 

September 5, 2004 message from Rob Collyer - Dot Magic Solutions [rob@dotmagic.co.uk] 

Dear Bob,

I am contacting you in the hope you consider listing our website as an additional resource of web design and development information for your students.

Our website consist of articles and tutorials on many aspects of design and development. The biggest part of our website is forums... a place where any of your students can go day or night, to ask questions and receive free help and advice, tips and tricks etc for any web design / development issues.

As our website also houses articles and tutorials, it is an excellent place for students to submit this type of resource. Authoring articles and tutorials is a great way for them to become known in their chosen area... a great thing to direct people to on a resume and of course they go some way to establishing the author as an expert in that area.

The address of our website is: http://www.webforumz.com  , I would be very grateful for you to include reference to it on your website as an additional source of help and information.

I would be happy to furnish you with more info should you so require and look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,

Rob Collyer - 20 years experience of programming: 
VB, ASP, (X)HTML, SQL, ASP.NET, XML, COM, CSS, JavaScript, XSS, SOAP. Site Admin www.webforumz.com 

Bob Jensen's threads on Web publishing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#WebPublishing 

"The Myths Of Growing Up Online," by Henry Jenkins, MIT's Technology Review, September 3, 2004 ---  http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/09/wo_jenkins090304.asp?trk=nl 
Alarmist and polarized rhetoric is distorting important new findings about the risks and benefits of children's use of the Internet.

For almost a decade now, the debate about youth and new media technologies has been polarized around two conflicting myths—let's call them the Myth of the Columbine Generation and the Myth of the Digital Generation. The first is driven by fear, the other hope, but both distort the reality kids and parents must negotiate in the online world, and both exaggerate the centrality of digital media in children's lives.

Parents, educators, and policymakers can get whiplash trying to respond to the competing pull of these two myths. One pulls us toward wiring every classroom in the country so that kids may enjoy the benefits of digital access, the other mandates filtering programs in school and library computers since kids can't be trusted once they log on.

In a classic version of the Columbine Generation argument, Eugene Provenzo Jr., a professor of education at the University of Chicago, argues that recent school shootings are the "result" of a "social experiment" in giving children unfettered access to pornography and violence. By contrast, journalist Jon Katz, in his books Virtuous Reality and Geeks, offers a vivid version of the Digital Generation perspective, celebrating the ways that the online world has liberated children from the constraints of their own neighborhoods and the limitations of their narrow-minded parents.

Anyone who has read my column over the past few years knows I fall much closer to Katz than Provenzo. But if we are being honest, the truth lies somewhere in the huge space in between those two overstatements. When I went into schools around the country following the Columbine shootings, it was clear that teachers, parents, and students had heard plenty about the dangers of going online and little about the benefits. The case that growing up online was going to produce a more socially connected, better informed, and more creative generation was a perspective that was needed to counterbalance the hysteria being generated by the most sensationalistic news stories. I remember one student exclaiming, "Why haven't we be told this before?"

As time has passed, I have felt a greater need to pull back from such either-or arguments, yet to do so seems like unilateral disarmament as long as the culture warriors are ready to pounce on any concession. I have become increasingly concerned by the ways that television discussions, newspaper articles, and government hearings are structured around the assumption that this debate can be reduced to two opposing sides, usually pushed to their extremes—making it impossible for more moderate perspectives to be heard.

A case in point: a conference held this summer at the University of London brought together educators, activists, and scholars from more than 40 different countries to examine the research on the impact of new media on children's mental and social development, and on education, family, and community life. David Buckingham, one of the event's organizers, opened the sessions by challenging us to move beyond the easy answers and to acknowledge the complexities and contradictions our research was uncovering—good advice that was hard to follow.

A highlight of the conference was London School of Economics professor Sonia Livingstone's announcement of the preliminary findings of a major research initiative called UK Children Go Online. This project involved both quantitative and qualitative studies on the place of new media in the lives of some 1,500 British children (ages 9 to 19) and their parents. The study's goal was to provide data that policymakers and parents could draw on to make decisions about the benefits and risks of expanding youth access to new media. Remember that phrase—benefitsandrisks.

According to the study, children were neither as powerful nor as powerless as the two competing myths might suggest. As the Myth of the Digital Generation suggests, children and youth were using the Internet effectively as a resource for doing homework, connecting with friends, and seeking out news and entertainment. At the same time, as the Myth of the Columbine Generation might imply, the adults in these kids' lives tended to underestimate the problems their children encountered online, including the percentage who had unwanted access to pornography, had received harassing messages, or had given out personal information.

Livingstone’s report arrives at a pivotal moment: after decades of state-supported broadcasting, the British government is deregulating media content and opening the airwaves to greater commercial development. The number of media channels in British homes is expanding—and parents are being asked to play gatekeepers determining what media entered their home without being given the training or resources needed to do that job properly.

Continued in the article

Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side of technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm 

September 2, 2004 message from  Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu] 

INTELLECTUAL HONESTY IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE

"[T]echnology also adds new vistas to in-class cheating. Cell phones and PDA's provide a platform to share real time text messaging, adding a new angle to a note tossed not only from one side of a room to another, but also from one side of the campus or further beyond. With programmable calculators, PDA's and other handheld intelligent devices, students can store notes, access websites, send e-mail, or grab ready-made formulas to ease calculations. Camera phones have also been reported as potential devices for cheating by scanning a test’s contents for later review. No gum wrapper or note tucked into a sleeve can compare to the storage and intelligence of these devices."

In the conference paper "Intellectual Honesty in the Electronic Age" (presented at the University of Calgary) John Iliff and Judy Xiao, College of Staten Island, CUNY, give an overview of why students cheat and provide several ways, including technological solutions, for preventing cheating. The paper is available online at http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/~jiliff/iliff_xiao.htm 

See also:

"Combating Cheating in Online Student Assessment" CIT INFOBITS, July 2004 http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitjul04.html#3 

For more information about the annual University of Calgary's Best Practices in e-Learning Online Conference, held August 23-27, 2004, go to http://elearn.ucalgary.ca/conference/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

Algorithms for Linear Algebra

The Matrix Market ---  http://math.nist.gov/MatrixMarket/ 

A visual repository of test data for use in comparative studies of algorithms for numerical linear algebra, featuring nearly 500 sparse matrices from a variety of applications, as well as matrix generation tools and services.

Commentary of the Day - September 9, 2004: The Eleventh Annual Emperor's Awards. Guest commentary by Poor Elijah (Peter Berger), Courtesy of Mark Shapiro --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-09-09-04.htm 

The Ed Norton Academic Excellence Trophy salutes New York City's school chancellor for establishing rules that doubtless will lead the Big Apple to unprecedented levels of scholastic achievement.  The new regulations specifically prohibit correcting "errors with red ink" because it's an "aggressive" color," teaching grammar because it's "dull," and giving spelling tests because they "strike fear."

The Sisyphus Prize for Perpetual Research pays tribute to education's scientific endeavors.  Nominees included a high school survey that reported more sex, more driving under the influence, more hard-core drug use, and easier access to drug supplies.  On the brighter side, more students admitted to eating fruit.  This year's Sisyphus, however, belongs to Harvard researchers who uncovered the long sought connection between "diversity" and "binge drinking."  These scientists turned the world on its ear by discovering that "problem drinking" is more common among "white, underage male students" than it is among older students and females.  Their findings are expected to prompt colleges to "reconsider admissions policies."

In a related field the Archimedes Eureka Honorarium commends a Canadian study of 5,479 children, which suggests that "overweight adolescents are more likely" to be "victims of bullying."  The Canadian conclusions "echo data from British research" and "follow a U.S. study published last year."  Despite this investigative redundancy, the lead Canadian researcher modestly described his findings as what "anybody who's ever been on a playground would know."

No Child Left Behind mandates that each state identify its "persistently dangerous schools."  Last year's John Dillinger Medallion applauded California for finding no such schools within its borders, despite "twenty-eight incidents of battery, two assaults with a deadly weapon, one robbery, and three sex offenses" that non-persistently occurred at one Los Angeles high school.  This year's Dillinger travels cross country to New York City, where the school danger formula doesn't count any crime, including assault, rape, robbery, or drug trafficking, unless it involves a weapon.  A thousand-student Gotham school would need thirty weapons crimes per year two years in a row in order to qualify as "persistently dangerous."  Anything short of that apparently isn't dangerous enough.

The Horatio Alger Silver Bootstrap promotes effort as an essential component of learning.  The Academy lauds Duke University for eliminating eight o'clock classes so their "sleep deprived" collegians can get more shuteye.  However, this year's Bootstrap goes to the California statute, enacted to save students from "heavy backpacks," which established "maximum weight standards for textbooks."  The Golden State is arguably now the only jurisdiction in the world that sets school curriculum by weighing it.

Several strong nominees vied for this year's Phineas T. Barnum Citation.  Leading the pack was a "cash-strapped" West Coast school system that allowed students to improve their grades by donating school supplies.  A box of Kleenex, for example, raised a B+ to an A-.  Nonetheless, the growing trend among districts to set "automatic minimum grades" won the Barnum nod.  These schools, from Syracuse to South Carolina, have outlawed grades lower than their established minimums, which range from 50 all the way up to 62.  In other words, if you earn a 62 average, you get a 62.  If you earn a 20 average, you also get a 62.  Proponents intend to "send the message to students that we want them, number one, to be successful."

The Jerry Rubin Memorial Headband is shared by a cadre of activist students and their principal.  When the students threatened to sabotage a schoolwide standardized test unless officials reversed a decision to discontinue honors classes, one senior condemned them as "slimy" and "selfish."  Their principal, meanwhile, stalwartly described the plot as a "solid lesson in civics."

Competition for the coveted George Orwell Creative Use of Language Award is always fierce.  Runners-up included the American Dialect Society for lending its imprimatur to the newly coined "flexitarian."  Flexitarians are vegetarians who sometimes eat meat.  Then there was the innovative New England high school that overhauled its block scheduling system by dividing the cutting edge, ninety minute blocks into forty-five minute intervals called "split blocks."  Traditionalists may recall that these intervals were formerly called "class periods" until block schedulers banned them as educationally unsound.

This year's Orwell, however, pays homage to educators across the nation who are teaching their elementary students educational jargon.  Short paragraphs are "brief constructed responses."  Second graders learn to "model efficient subtraction strategies."  Fifth graders are warned, "You will have a formative assessment when this is over."  And first graders bask in these words of praise: "That was a good warm-up for showing our enduring understanding that a number represents a quantity."  Boosters believe they're "creating language that is more explicit and to the point than it is confusing."  Of course, they're talking about kids who don't know what "explicit" means.  Which leaves one important question: Will this be on the formative assessment?

If you think six-year-olds should know the answer, help yourself to an Emperor.  Poor Elijah figures we've each got at least one coming.

From Syllabus News on August 31, 2004

BlackBerry Becoming De Rigueur for Business School

The University of Maryland's Smith School of Business will equip each of its incoming full-time MBA students with Nextel BlackBerry wireless devices at the start of the fall 2004 semester. The plan is to encourage the MBAs to explore the “potential of the ‘always on’ technology in the educational experience,” according to the school.

About 400 BlackBerry’s will be distributed to first and second-year MBA students, and to some faculty and university staff. The Smith School will incorporate the use of the devices in select MBA courses during the fall 2004 semester. They may eventually be required in all core MBA courses.

The program includes a research component. In one case, the school's Center for Human Capital, Innovation, and Technology, will study team dynamics, virtual group behavior, and the creativity of community members who have the same technology available to them.

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Cramer on Career Ed: Education Stocks Teach Only Pain

Financial analyst James Cramer, of the Kudlow & Cramer duo, has had it with the career education market. In his column on realmoney.com, Kramer writes: “Analysts trying to cover these stocks would do better to sit on a grand jury than to do traditional research. These stocks are just momentum stocks. Whatever the cause, once momentum is lost, buyers turn to sellers and the chart gets lost, too.” Any faith Kramer had in commercial higher ed apparently went south when just after the University of Phoenix Online announced better-than-expected earnings, the Justice Department opened an inquiry into alleged financial irregularities at Career Ed.

To read full column, please visit: http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=9383