This Lupine Field is Across the Road on a June Sunrise

For a description of our Lupine Festival, go to http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0027pL 

There is a fantastic spot in northern New Hampshire for wildflowers with mountains on the horizon (though not usually covered in snow at that time of the year). Go to Sugar Hill, NH in mid-June for the lupine festival. From about June 10th to 17th there are fields of lupines that bloom beneath the White Mountains. In Sugar Hill on Sunset Road there is a 12 acre field completely filled lupines that has Cannon Mountain and Mt. Washington in the background. These lupines come in shades of blue, purple, white and pink. The attached image was taken at sunrise in the lupine field on Sunset Hill Road in Sugar Hill. The back roads around Sugar Hill contain a number of spots where there are large concentrations of lupines, some strategically located near red barns and white churches. This spot is not only great for grand landscape shots, but is also macro photography heaven, the dew drops and little insects on the lupines also make great subjects. But be careful, one morning at sunrise I was intently photgraphing the sunrise and moved towards a tree to include it in my shot. I startled a mother moose and calf who I did not realize were on the other side of the tree and they ran right in front of me. Of course having a 17-35mm lens on my camera with an ND grad and polarizing filter made it a little tough to get a good shot of the moose.

About 5 miles away is Franconia Notch state park where there are lots of nice waterfall opportunities, my favorites include The Basin, the Falling Waters Trail (Stair Falls and Cloudland Falls are both wonderful)and the Flume.

This area in early to mid-June can't be beat. To do grand landscape photography in New England requires a little more work than in the national parks out west, but Sugar Hill is one of the better locations in New England for the kind of photography you are interested in.

-- Ed McGuirk , April 06, 2002; 06:15 A.M. Eastern

---

I live in New Hampshire and have done a good amount of hiking in the Whites and know of some good places. In particular one place that comes to mind is on Mt. Garfield - there is a pond, a short way from the summitt which is beautiful. I hiked up Mt. Eisenhower in the spring in early june/ late may (I can't remember exactly when) on a cloudy day and it was spectacular (with 70 mph winds). Additionally, there is one trail that I myself have not been on - The Alpine Garden Trail on Mt. Washington, which is known for its alpine flowers which bloom in June (I'm hoping I'll get up there for that). Good luck. I too, am very much looking forward to spring photos in the Whites.

-- Doug Seigars , April 06, 2002; 08:35 P.M. Eastern

June 12, 2007 message from Bob Jensen to David Johnstone at Sidney University in regard to an offer to spend a year in a think tank. I am invited to spend a year in a new think tank called the U.S. Studies Center at Sydney University. It's a great honor, and Erika is bugging me to accept.

Hi David,

I request that I be reconsidered after a couple of years.

My wife's medical condition following her latest spine surgeries requires that I help her during her year-long healing process. At the moment she's unable to travel. You can read about her ordeal at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm 

In her heart she pleaded with me to accept this opportunity, but she just was not listening to her brain's refusal to face up to the reality of such a trip for her at this time.

I consider it a great honor to be considered for this visiting opportunity. I spent two outstanding years in a think tank on the Stanford University campus called The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences --- http://www.casbs.org/ 

Thank you for doing me this honor. Perhaps it might work out when my wife is able to travel once again.

Bob Jensen

 

Tidbits on June 20, 2007
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.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.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.

Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

Bob Jensen's blogs and various threads on many topics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
       (Also scroll down to the table at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )

Set up free conference calls at http://www.freeconference.com/  

If you want to help our badly injured troops, please check out
Valour-IT: Voice-Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops  --- http://www.valour-it.blogspot.com/

Visit BlogU, Inside Higher Ed's home for academic blogging, at http://www.insidehighered.com/views/blogs .

Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Remember Me --- Click Here

Link forwarded by Linda Kidwell
Awesome Photos from Outer Space (Turn up your speakers)
Somewhere in Time --- http://www.trdaniel.com/somewhere in time/index.htm

Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media --- http://ncam.wgbh.org/

How Bad Guys Can "Bump the Lock" on Your Apartment or Home
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/432133/lock_bumping/

Jeff Dunham (ventriloquist) & Walter (that's not so nice Walter) videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX1h4onXFGk

http://www.jibjab.com/view/124204#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS4AmNQ34wY&mode=related&search=

Jay Leno introduces Boo Boo the Chicken to Terry Bradshaw on the Tonight Show --- http://www.jibjab.com/view/30666
(Bob Jensen once spent a forgettable night in Adelphia)

From Microsoft
Surface Computing Videos --- http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Power of Observation (a test) --- http://www.oldjoeblack.0nyx.com/thinktst.htm

Auditors and Fraud Inquiries --- http://accounting.smartpros.com/standard/smartsurvey/jhcohn.asp

Dan Stone forwarded the link below:
Jeremy Parker's Accountant Film Reviews Podcast --- http://www.gorskys.com.au/video/film-review-pirates-2.html

Promo Chess Videos
June 8, 2007 message from Ben Portman [ben@defeatmyticket.com]

HI Bob, great site, I just ran across it for the first time today. It is always cool to see a site like yours that goes back to the "good ole days" of the internet when yahoo had almost no graphics on it and the internet was in its infancy...

I'm a chess fanatic and I thought you'd be interested in this guy's (Chad Kimball) site: http://www.chessvictory.com 

You have to give your email address to get the videos, which sort of a bummer, but it is still a great resource.

This guy has taken a chess book by edward lasker and created a bunch of videos out of it, and is offering them for free.

I've checked out the videos and they're awesome.

Could you add that site for me?

Ben

Jensen Comment
Ben Portman's connection with Chad Kimball is unknown to me. I'm really not a serious chess player and have not signed up for the above free videos. I pass this information along for those of you who want to take up the offer of these free videos. Apparently this is a promo for personalized training and sales of Chad's other chess videos and books --- http://www.chessvictory.com/index2.htm
Chad sells at least 14 books on chess --- http://www.comparetobuy.com/chess.htm

Other references include the following:
"How to Use the Internet to Dramatically Improve Your Chess Strategy," by Chad Kimball , Selfgrowth.com --- http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Kimball1.html

Ranges Chess Club ---
http://www.rangeschessclub.com.au/PHITE.php?sitesig=PT&page=PT_500_Links

Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Tchaikovsky's 'The Maid of Orleans' From the Washington National Opera ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10735034

Andre Previn: Musical Polymath Goes Solo (pianist) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10881145

Operatic Pop Singer Rufus Wainwright in Concert --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10804745

Great Lake Swimmers in Concert (folk music) --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10759840

Slavic Soul Party: Heart and Feet Music --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10859007

Pacha Massive: Latin Music Gets Big --- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10812710

Photographs and Art

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Darwin’s evolving thoughts and private communications on the boundaries of science and religion ---
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/index.php

The Complete Work of Charles Darwin --- http://darwin-online.org.uk/

The Death Of The Lion by Henry James --- Click Here

Love of Life and other Stories by Jack London --- Click Here

The Battle Of The Books And Other Short Pieces by Jonathan Swift --- Click Here

From the University of Illinois Issues in Scholarly Communication Blog on June 7, 2007 --- Click Here
Internet Archive Texts - a part of the broader Internet Archive, an non-profit organization founded with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. The Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages
Google Books
Microsoft's Live Search Books
Amazon's Search Inside

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announces the availability of a newly-digitized collection of Abraham Lincoln books accessible through the Open Content Alliance and displayed on the University Library's own web site, as the first step of a digitization project of Lincoln books from its collection. View the first set of books digitized at: http://varuna.grainger.uiuc.edu/oca/lincoln/

Abraham Lincoln The Lincoln Institute --- http://www.abrahamlincoln.org/

G8 Summit --- http://www.g-8.de/Webs/G8/EN/Homepage/home.html

It's time to fuse humans and mice into humice
David Ewing, MIT's Technology Review, June 8, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/18844/
Jensen Comment
This is something not foreseen in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

Caution! Vehicle may be hauling political promises.
Sign painted on the back of a septic pumping tank truck more popularly known as a "honey wagon."
Here's an example --- http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/IMMIGRATIONPOSITIONS.html

Here's an example of the "Harry Wagon" that invoked a heavy price on millions in his political gaming
The Bush-Backed Immigration Bill Was Killed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
in Alleged Fear That Passage Might Favor Republicans in the 2008 Election
Mr. Reid said he favors the immigration bill and indeed he may. But he also has political interests. These include enlarging the Democratic majority (now 51-49) in the Senate and the election of a Democratic president. And it's here that Mr. Reid's Bush-bashing language is most revealing. For Democrats in 2008, running against Mr. Bush as a failed president would be ideal, just as it was in 2006. The normal political pattern is that unpopular presidents with minimal accomplishments are succeeded by presidents of the other party. The passage of sweeping and generous immigration legislation on Mr. Bush's watch might jeopardize that. The president might not look so much of a failure. Moreover, the passage of that legislation would also take an issue that bitterly divides Republicans off the table.
Fred Barnes, "Who Killed the Immigration Bill?" The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2007; Page A13 --- Click Here

First, let me say that I really enjoy blogging. It's a brilliant format for keeping readers up to date on the things I care about--and for exchanging information with them . . . And that is precisely the danger here. Fury begets fury. Poison from the right-wing talk shows seeped into the Republican Party's bloodstream and sent that party off the deep end. Limbaugh's show--where Dick Cheney frequently expatiates --has become the voice of the Republican establishment. The same could happen to the Democrats. The spitballs aimed at me (by leftists extremists on Swampland) don't matter much. The spitballs aimed at Harman, Clinton and Obama are another story. Despite their votes, each of those politicians believes the war must be funded. (Obama even said so in his statement explaining his vote.) Each knows, as Senator Jim Webb has said repeatedly, that we must be more careful getting out of Iraq than we were getting in. But they allowed themselves to be bullied into a more simplistic, more extreme position. Why? Partly because they fear the power of the bloggers to set the debate and raise money against them. They may be right--in the short (primary election) term; Harman faced a challenge from the left in 2006. In the long term, however, kowtowing to extremists is exactly the opposite of what this country is looking for after the lethal radicalism of the Bush Administration.
Joe Klein (one of the more liberal columnists for Time Magazine), "Beware the Bloggers' Bile," Time Magazine, June 18, 2007, Page 25 --- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1630563,00.html

As families on Canadian Forces Base Valcartier prepare for the departure beginning next month of 2,300 soldiers to Afghanistan, anti-war groups have sent letters to soldiers' homes comparing Canada's military activities to war crimes and urging them to refuse deployment. The letters from a coalition of Quebec groups prompted angry reactions when they began arriving in mailboxes yesterday on the base outside Quebec City, home to the Royal 22nd Regiment, or Vandoos. "I read the headlines and threw it in the trash," said Master Corporal Pierre Calve, a father of three set to deploy to Afghanistan in August....
Graeme Hamilton, "Anti-war letter angers troops, National Post, June 11, 2007 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
I wonder how long it will be until extremists begin to stalk and terrorize families of soldiers.

Some educators think they’ve found the perfect metaphor for political
deadlock in Washington: university governance.
"A More Deliberative Democracy," by Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/12/democracy

“Universities are renowned for deliberations that take a long, long time,” pointed out Bruce Mallory, provost of the University of New Hampshire. Committees, task forces, the student government, the faculty senate, the board of trustees: Academe is full of representative bodies with mandates that sometimes conflict and competing interests that can lead to contentious disputes, bitter debates and long, drawn-out proceedings.

Mallory and others believe that divisive, adversarial politics are also being played out on the national stage, at an unprecedented level of intensity. He is a proponent of what is being called “deliberative democracy,” a process of informed and civil political discourse that ideally leads to a greater consensus and more rational collective decisions.

But sometimes, civilized political behavior needs to be learned. And that’s where universities come in, Mallory suggested, as nascent laboratories of democratic engagement.

“I think ... the fundamental principles are [a commitment] to civil discourse, and listening, and speaking. Oppositional or special-interest democracy degenerates to adversarial [politics], in the sense that there’s a win-lose kind of goal,” he explained. “A university is a good place to experiment with that.”

The university held a conference last week that established a national network focusing on the role of higher education in fostering deliberative democracy — working to improve the political discourse and, in the process, changing the decision-making culture in academe. The conference, “The Democracy Imperative: Mobilizing Higher Education for Deliberative Democracy,” included representatives from institutions such as the University of Maryland and University of Michigan, which are on the network’s advisory board.

“Common political discourse today tends to be polarized and positional, rather than being deliberative,” Mallory said, while deliberative democracy leads to “considering multiple points of view in a sustained fashion over a period of time, so that we don’t make decisions impulsively and without sufficient data.... Deliberative democracy aims to be sure that all parties are represented at the table and come with an equal voice.”

At New Hampshire, Mallory said, campus-level efforts are already paying off. The Democracy Imperative, as the project is called, has helped to organize “study circles” of concerned students, faculty members and others to discuss and deliberate over key issues — alcohol and drug use, free speech, making a safe environment on campus.

Continued in article

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift --- Click Here

Perhaps the aim nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refute what we are.
Michel Foucault --- Click Here

So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.
Peter Drucker --- Click Here
For a sickening example see
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/blogs/confessions_of_a_community_college_dean

Not that they're unrealistic. They're not. One of the reasons the show (Sopranos) was so popular -- one of the reasons it resonated -- is that it captured a widespread feeling that our institutions are failing, all of them, the church, the media, the law, the government, that there's no one to trust, that Mighty Mouse will not save the day. In Mr. Chase's world, everyone's a gangster as long as he can find a gang. Those who don't are free-lancers.
Peggy Noonan, "Old Jersey Real," The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2007; Page P9 --- Click Here

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) --- Click Here

Brig. Gen. Yosi Baidatz reported Monday, June 4, that Hizballah is busy restoring its fortified positions south of the Litani in villages and open ground under the very noses of UNIFIL international observers.
"IDF intelligence confirms Hizballah is rebuilding strongholds and preparing for a summer war," DebkaFile, June 4, 2007 --- http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4274 

Immediately following 9-11, an anthrax attack originating from letters containing anthrax spores infected 22 people, killing five. After almost six years, the case has not been solved. Intelligence analysts and academics report that North Korea has developed anthrax, plague, and botulism toxin and conducted extensive research on smallpox, typhoid and cholera. A world-renowned bioweapons expert has confirmed that Syria has weapons grade smallpox resistant to all current vaccines developed under the cover of legitimate veterinary research on camelpox, a very closely related virus. The researcher further reports that Syria is suspected of testing the pathogen on prison populations and possibly...
Janet Ellen Levy, "The Threat of Bioweapons," American Thinker, June 8, 2007 --- http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/the_threat_of_bioweapons.html

In February, hackers laid siege to six of the 13 "root servers" that form the backbone of the Internet. Had they succeeded in disabling these servers, the Internet would have ceased to function. Fortunately, only two of the root servers were severely affected, causing only some localized slowdowns. The emerging threat of cyberattacks against vital parts of the global economy highlights the urgent need to protect the Net from criminals.
Aaron Mannes and James Hendler, "Net Attack," The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2007 --- Click Here  

...even if one understands commodity pricing, electricity is a very special type of commodity and obeys rules different even than other those of other commodities, due to its special feature of being considered to be absolutely essential....if the price of electricity spikes on a hot summer weekday afternoon in New York City, even if consumers are aware of the spike, their refrigerators will cycle as normal, their air conditioning will still be on and office buildings will not shut off either their air conditioning nor shut down their elevators, the subways will continue to run, etc. And moreover, with the current system, the consumers of electricity are blissfully unaware of price spikes in real time.
Philip Protter, "Deregulation and Power," Financial Engineering News, June 2007 --- Click Here 
As quoted in Jim Mahar's blog on June 5, 2007 --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/

Ultimately, business ethics requires that we rethink the business curriculum. Business is not a closed system with its own set of values, motivations, and rules. The curriculum should reflect this fact. First, students must be able to think deeply and critically about conflicts between wealth and other values. Second, students should know more about ordinary human psychology, especially the tendency to overestimate our own importance and the importance our goals. Third, students need a greater awareness of the interdependence of business and the rest of civil society. Unfortunately, students cannot get this kind of education from a curriculum that focuses only on the business “fundamentals.”
Terry L. Price, "How to Teach Business Ethics," Inside Higher Ed, June 4, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/06/04/price

Time Magazine, June 7, 2007, in exceptionally rare agreement with President Bush, attempts to make a case for illegal immigrant amnesty --- Click Here

Sunni insurgents remain willing and able to blow themselves up in crowded public places. The story of a 29-year-old man with a degree in accounting shows a suicide bomber in the making.
Anne Garrels, "Portrait of a Suicide Bomber," NPR, June 11, 2007 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10931837

Russia is not the only post-Communist country with a gay problem. In Poland, authorities have recently undertaken an initiative to outlaw all discussion of homosexuality in schools, and a high-level official in charge of children's rights, Ewa Sowinska, followed in the footsteps of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell by expressing concern about the sexuality of purse-carrying purple Teletubby Tinky Winky and its possible effects on young viewers. A few days before his personal experience with homophobia in Moscow, Tatchell wrote about the problem of anti-gay bigotry in Eastern Europe on the blog of the British newspaper, The Guardian. "With the demise of communism," Tatchell noted, "religious fundamentalism and ultra-nationalism are filling the void. Homophobia is the hallmark of these reactionary movements."
Cathy Young , "Anti-Gay Russia Why is a former Communist country so homophobic?" Reason Magazine, June 8, 2007 --- http://www.reason.com/news/show/120638.html 

Harvard's most famous dropout returns for his diploma, 30 years late. His final exam: Can he save the world?
Lev Grossman, Time Magazine, June 7, 2007 --- Click Here
Jensen Question
Now that he's officially among Harvard's alumni, and the richest member by far, could it be that Harvard had some ulterior motives in granting Bill Gates a diploma?

When enormously wealthy individuals give millions to enormously wealthy universities, it’s time to stop calling it philanthropy,
Walter M. Kimbrough, Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/06/12/kimbrough

Harvard's ROTC, founded in 1916, was banned from campus in 1969; and aside from the brief interregnum of Mr. Summers, who was a vigorous advocate for its return, it has since been mostly spurned by the school's administration. Cadets must commute across town to MIT for its program, and receive no course credit -- or really, credit -- for their efforts. In this Harvard echoes most of America's elite institutions of higher learning, particularly in the Ivy League. Faculties now say they object to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays, but the anti-ROTC hostility seems more owing to the sentiments of the "antiwar" movement and other ideological academic causes. Chastened by Mr. Summers's toppling, Ms. Faust is no doubt wary of upsetting this constituency, if she is not a part of it herself . . . As for the graduating members of Harvard's ROTC class of 2007, and the many others across the country: They entered college in the midst of a war for civilization, and after the onset of the conflict in Iraq, where many of them may be deployed. Every one among them is a volunteer, and their honor and service deserve better from their academic tutors.
"Faustian Bargain," The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2007; Page A16 --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
One exception among the Ivy League schools as far as ROTC is concerned is Cornell --- http://armyrotc.cornell.edu/

The failure by editors of supposedly impartial and respected newspapers to correct inaccuracies in media articles regarding the West Bank and Gaza prior to their publication, gives continuing credence to total Arab denial of any Jewish rights in those areas - and also seriously misleads and misinforms their trusting readers as to the nature of the conflict that is taking place.
David Singer, "The West Bank and Gaza, Fairy Tales and the Media," New Media Journal, June 9, 2007 --- http://www.newmediajournal.us/guest/singer/06092007.htm

Unlike the Presidential candidates, at least Swampland is talking about Social Security. Social Security is not a “poor, little, teeny-tiny” program. It takes almost 15 percent of our income and is a $12 trillion unfunded liability. Right now, we receive a paltry single digit rate of return on Social Security, and our children will receive a negative rate of return, according to the Cato Institute. Unfortunately, this issue is dominated by Republicans who don’t dare and Democrats that don’t care.
Dick Armey, "Why Do Liberals So Stridently Oppose Choice and Ownership?" Time Magazine, June 7, 2007 ---
Click Here
Also see http://www.freedomworks.org/informed/key_template.php?issue_it=15
How do the candidates stand on social security?  http://www.socialsecurity.org/

Hizbullah has amassed an undisclosed number of Fatah-110 rockets, which could theoretically be fired at Tel Aviv, according to a report in Britain's Sunday Times. The projectile, an upgraded Chinese assault rocket, has a 500-lb warhead and a range of 200 kilometers. According to the report, close to the Israel-Lebanon border, under the noses of United Nations peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon, the guerrilla group has built a network of underground military bunkers that can withstand air strikes. The Times said that Hizbullah had replenished its weaponry and cited IDF intelligence estimates that it had stockpiled a total of 20,000...
"Report: Tel Aviv within Hizbullah range," JPost, June 11, 2007 --- Click Here

Contrary to What You Hear in Cocktail and Dinner Party Conversations
In a review article in the Journal of Social Issues last year, sociologist David Finkelhor and clinical psychologist Lisa Jones document that rates of crime have dropped by as much as 70%, depending on the nature of the offense. The authors conclude: "the era of continually rising numbers of child maltreatment and crime victimization cases is probably over." Consider these facts. Youngsters are far less likely to be murdered today than they were in the early 1990s, according to U.S. Justice Department statistics. Since 1993, the juvenile homicide rate dropped by 50%, and the drop was even steeper for kids between the ages of 14 and 17. The improvement is not confined to homicide. Things have improved since 1990 for nearly every category of child victimization . . .
Richard J. McNally, "Kids Today," The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2007; Page A12 --- Click Here

Question
What are some of the features of UserView from TechSmith, including features that facilitate testing online and teaching of handicapped students?

Some of the reviews of the revised “free” Sound Recorder in Windows Vista are negative. It’s good to learn that Richard Campbell is having a good experience with it when recording audio and when translating the audio into text files --- http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/2006/05/24/windows-vista-sound-recorder 

For those of you on older systems as well as Vista there is a free recorder called Audacity that I like --- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ 
I really like Audacity. There are some Wiki tutorials at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/tutorials 
Some video tutorials are linked at http://youtube.com/results?search_query=audacity+tutorial&search=Search 

I have some dated threads on speech recognition at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/speech.htm  Mac users can find options at http://www.macspeech.com/ 

In addition, I like Camtasia (recording screen shots and camera video) and Dubit (for recording audio and editing audio) from TechSmith --- http://www.techsmith.com/ 
TechSmith   products are very good, but they are not free downloads.

UserView --- http://www.techsmith.com/uservue/features.asp 
TechSmith has a newer product called UserView that really sounds exciting, although I’ve not yet tried it. It allows you to view and record what is happening on someone else’s computer like a student’s computer. Multiple computers can be viewed at the same time. Images and text can be recorded. Pop-up comments can be inserted by the instructor to text written by students.

UserView can be used for remote testing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#OnlineOffCampus

Userview offers great hope for teaching disabled students such as sight and/or hearing impaired students --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped

June 10, 2007 reply from Richard J. Campbell [campbell@VIRTUALPUBLISHING.NET]

Bob:

Actually, the “Sound Recorder” is an entirely different utility from the speech-to-text utility in Vista. The Sound Recorder converts your speech into a wav file and is quite limited in comparison to the more full-featured software editors on the market like Audacity, Sound Forge, and Audition.

Richard J. Campbell
mailto:campbell@VirtualPublishing.NET 

It seems to me that the university crossed the line for this professor pleading for our help!
AECM (Worldwide Accounting Educator ListServ)  --- http://pacioli.loyola.edu/AECM

Can you help our AECM friend with helpful thoughts or useful references?

June 10, 2006 plea from an anonymous friend

Bob, for the AECM,

I swear that trouble keeps following me around. There is no need for me to look for it. It is always there and eager to zap me.

The computer that my university provides is four or five years old. After the hard drive went out for the second time this year (it had gone out at least two times previously), after the zip drive fried my disks, after the usb port fried my flash drives, after the computer inexplicably turned itself off again and again and again, I turned in the computer and bought my own so I could get my work done.

I thought everything was great. I now had a wireless card that worked, I now had a battery with more than 15 minutes of power, and the programs I used hummed along at a nice pace.

I took this computer with me when I proctored a final exam in May. Somehow, a student walked away with my flash drive. OK, I had recent backups of everything. Since it had some current and older grade files on it (I was working on grades during the exam), I decided to report it to Information Technology Services. Isn't that what you are supposed to do?

What I've learned so far. There is a data breach on several levels. I am solely and personally responsible for this data breach, and will be publicly identified as so, when my university makes its announcement. The university attorney says that what I did was illegal. My university has exercised its right of ownership over anything and everything I have written during my 17 years of university employment. I am no longer allowed to have a copy of any document/file I've produced during this period, or any document in any way related to the university. IOW, nothing university related or my work as a professor can be in my possession at all. They took my personal laptop, home desktop, old home desktop, old floppy disks, papers at home, papers in the office and my personal cell phone (it has some voice mails related to university business). My wife begged and they didn't take my son's desktop (even though I have occasionally used it for backup). Since I'm out of town now for the next ten weeks, they have my laptop, desktops and cell phone for an extended period of time. Could any AECMer go ten weeks without a computer? Or a cell phone?

Obviously, my university has adopted a policy of razing everything--burn it now and ask questions later. I'm loyal to the university, I'm cooperating. My 110 page syllabus for second semester intermediate (and the genesis for a new textbook)--gone. My web site--gone. My e-mails and their attachments--gone. I think that any software involved in creating a document or file related to the university is also gone. Certainly the business computer games that I'm studying for a paper are gone. My complete and work-in-process papers-- gone.

I wonder what this means for my family and myself. I reason that the university wants every scrap of my intellectual creations so that when they turn me out, I have nothing to take with me. I reason that since I've been informed that I've done illegal activities, I better get a lawyer. If I'm out of a job (or suspended at the U), the university's tuition waiver program will be unavailable to them for continuing their education. And of course, my bill paying ecological system is very fragile. My hoped-for-benefits from the university pension plan are now frozen. How much is this going to affect me during retirement?

Lessons for the future.

My university does not provide any means for backing up a professor's work files, hence my use of floppy, zip and flash drives. It now recognizes that it better have something in place (either automated or at least a policy).

Where is the internal control over grade files that a professor creates and uses? I suspect that the university's external auditor will be taking a look at this next year (and this should be done so for all colleges and universities).

Professors still have a need for having files in their possession. Since thefts/losses can occur at any time (and should be expected), perhaps the university should have some sort of centralized file storage that professors can access whenever they have a need for the file.

If the university truly owns any intellectual property that I create, is it responsible for getting my papers published? After all, if I seek a particular journal outlet for a paper, can I be held responsible if later on an administrator thinks I should have submitted it to a better or different journal? What If I seek and get publication for a junk paper, and the university is embarrassed by its low quality? What about a textbook? Will the author royalties now go to the university? If I use a syllabus one semester, what permission do I need in order to use any verbage from it again? Do I now need permission for working on any project?

The university still won't give me a computer for the coming year (it had already been decided prior to the start of this mess). I won't be allowed to use my personal machine for work (if I get to keep my job). How does a professor survive in 2007 without any technology?

The investigation and remedy for this data breach are in its early stages. I may have misunderstood something, and anyone of the several individuals could have told me something in error.

Turning yourself in is like pissing into the wind.

Oh yeah, how do I get a job for 2007-2008 at this late date?

I'll try to mooch some computer time off someone so I can read the AECM archives.

Joe AECM,
ADF State University

June 10, 2007 reply from Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU]

Bob:

That is a terrible story. I would have recommended contacting his own personal attorney first, who could have contacted the university authorities under an attorney-client privilege and made a deal for him as an anonymous professor..

On a practical note, it encouraged me to buy the following product for my flash drives --- http://www.roboform.com/pass2go.html  

And on a related note in respect to university attorneys:
About 7 years ago our university attorney (from Baker and Hostetler) gave us our annual mandatory seminar on avoiding sexual harassment. The attorney ended the session in discussing what would happen if a faculty member was accused of sexual harassment. Her statement was that “We fire the faculty person first and worry about a wrongful termination suit later!”

I like remind my colleagues about that statement on occasion, particularly when we are negotiating a contract.

So the next thing your friend should do is get a LABOR attorney.

Richard J. Campbell
School of Business
218 N. College Ave.
University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH 45674
Voice:740-245-7288
http://faculty.rio.edu/campbell 

June 10, 2007 reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]

Bob,

It is a sad, but quite prevalent situation.

I used to store most of my important stuff on my university provided unix workstation. Once, while applying a security patch, a novice IT person by mistake reformatted my hard drive, and I lost close to a few gigabytes of valuable research data, drafts of papers, grades, rosters,... The university asked me is they should retrieve them from backups. Since I am fairly close to retirement, I told them that it was ok. The poor culprit lost his job even though I, in some way, pleaded leniency for him.

The lesson is: if you are doing official work use official media for storage. When you sign a contract as a professor you do not sign also to serve as a sys admin, sys security admin, ... We are teachers, not systems people.

I think there are ways we teachers can protect ourselves, and there are things universities should be doing:

WHAT WE CAN DO:

1. Use encryption on drives if possible

2. Put as much info as possible on university servers; that way, if there are breaches due to their negligence we can tell to hang themselves

3. ALWAYS use secure flash drives and use complex passwords (with special characters, upper and lower case letters, numbers)

WHAT THE SCHOOLS CAN DO:

1. Provide physical security by locking down computers (a bunch of laptops were stolen on our campus last week, but fortunately most of sensitive data resides on mainframes and servers))

2. Insist that faculty use only secure flash drives

3. Encourage awareness of vulnerabilities and threats by faculty

4. Hang those who are caught violating university security/usage/privacy policies

5. PROVIDE MASS STORAGE TO FACULTY FOR BACKUP OF ALL THEIR OFFICIAL WORK AND INSIST THAT THEY WORK EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH UNIVERSITY VPN AND SAVE ALL WORK ON SUCH STORAGE WHEN EVER THEY WORK OFF CAMPUS

I am lucky that my university does everything above except 2 and 5.

I have been complaining about 5 for years, but the solutions are very expensive.

It is precisely this clamour for "personal" computing that started this whole thing. It is like a cute little rabid puppy that bites you when you least expect it.

Shame on the university that hung out a Professor out to dry.

I really would like to know the name of the school.

Unless irresponsible schools are flogged in public they will continue to shirk their responsibility, or worse, pass them on to the faculty.

Regards,
Jagdish

 

June 10, 2007 reply from Bob Jensen

I've never heard of anything like this. It's truly absurd. Your university is apparently running very scared of being sued for not doing enough to protect student privacy information, but it seems they've gone a bit overboard in this respect. It's more like the university is on a hunt to find some added reason to terminate you.

I suggest that you carefully read the ITS policy statements and the Faculty Handbook. If faculty were never warned about what has happened to you I think you have the makings of a very good lawsuit.

I seriously doubt that ADF State University has the right to your family's own privacy information that is not on the university's hardware. I think that only the courts have a right to issue a search warrant your family's private property, and I doubt very much that the courts would issue a search warrant in this instance if there is no highly criminal suspicion such as child porn suspicion. Your university might claim that you did something illegal, but ADF State University did not ask the courts to issue a search warrant your private property. My guess is that the courts would've refused to issue a search warrant in this instance.

If it came down to it, your attorney would have a lot of fun with this one. My guess the threat of being sued by you would wake your university up to what this might cost them due to damages to your family and your reputation and mental stress. But hopefully it will not come to that.

Even if you voluntarily allowed ADF State University to take over you family's private property, you volunteered under duress (e.g., fear of job loss). Once again your attorney would have a field day. At a minimum, ADF State University should've provided you and your family with computers to use while they investigated your property.

The first thing I would do is consult representatives in your Faculty Senate (or union although I doubt that ADF
 State University has a union). I would also ask for a private appointment with your Provost (Academic VP) or even the President of the university. You should investigate what ITS did in previous instances of lost grade files such as files on lost laptop computers. Are they making an exception out of you? At all times stay informed, firm, calm, and cool.

You might also consider taking your case to the AAUP. A friend/acquaintance on campus who is active in the AAUP might also be able to help. What happened to you could happen to any other faculty member at ADF State University. AAUP would be most interested in such circumstances.

You could certainly post this message in your own name, but it may be a bit too sensitive at this early stage of your negotiations with your university.

I do suggest that you commence looking for the best attorney you can find, I mean a labor attorney who eats nails for breakfast. Whether or not you actually use such an attorney depends a great deal on how soon ADF State University returns your computers.

By the way, it would seem that, if ADF State University has such restrictive policies regarding grade file storage, ADF
 State University should provide faculty with storage space on the ADF State University network combined with a policy that grades and other personal information about students not be stored in university computers, especially laptop computers that are typically taken off campus for various reasons. If this policy is not already in writing then you have a pretty good case.

Most universities provide faculty with private space on the university computing network. This space is password protected and usually backed up daily or in real time by a RAID or comparable system in case the network computer crashes.

ADF State University may have the right to share in the royalties of intellectual property you created, but ADF State University has no right to deprive you of access to your intellectual property. Also there is not even a right to share in the royalties of all your intellectual property. Rarely, for example, does a university claim a right to share royalties for textbooks. (There are some exceptions like the University of South Dakota.) Generally, universities exercise the rights to royalties only on patents and not copyrights. If ADF State University claimed a right to all your intellectual property then ADF  State University would probably have to show precedent and/or written policy in this regard.

I think it's time to bring pressures to bear on ITS. But don't do anything that would make it easier for ADF
 State University to fire a tenured professor. Thus far it would seem you've not done anything that constitutes grounds for dismissal. At all times stay informed, firm, calm, and cool. If it comes down to it, let your attorney turn up the heat.

Bob Jensen

June 10, 2007 reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]

Unfortunately, in case of most state schools, you are a sort of officer of the state. When things go wrong, the book that is thrown at you is a lot heavier.

As to family private information, we are not so lucky. Each year, I am FORCED to divulge all my (and my spouse's) assets to the state. One year that I delayed, I was threatened that my pay would be stopped and also fined unless I divulged the information by a certain date.

Only a sense of public service can entice a person to state schools.

The university and their state police probably got a court order for the search & seizure in the case you posted..

Jagdish

June 10, 2007 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]

This situation serves to illustrate several points which I've made before. I hate to say "I told you so", but by our own stubborn inaction (lack of open rebellion) against public opinion, we are complacent co-conspirators and thus must share in the guilt of fostering the sad experience of our unfortunate colleague.

1. Information is nothing more than "knowledge".

2. Knowledge should not be subject to restriction, especially restriction to just a few elite individuals. (This lesson was supposed to have been learned by the problems of the Dark Ages.)

3. There is no such thing as privacy when it comes to knowledge (information). Nor should there be.

4. We accountants are partially at fault for the current social morass. (If we would design accounting systems properly -- to accurately and reliably capture the data we need: resource identity, event identity and AGENT identity --then a criminal could not engage in fraud merely by obtaining information, and thus the public would be far less interested in trying to restrict knowledge.)

5. Fear about public disclosure of performance measures (e.g., grades) is irrational and indefensible in a civilized society. There should be a difference between ego and injury, especially in a society which pays lip service to liberty in expression.

6. Using knowledge to commit a crime or tort should be treated the same as using a baseball bat, a knife, or a sock with a rock in it to commit a crime or tort. (The commission of the tort or injury should be illegal, not possession of the instrument used to engage in the action. In this case, theft of the flash drive should be the only theft which has occurred. If the thief uses the information to commit further tort or crimes, those should be prosecuted. The whining that "it is too hard to find and prosecute perpetrators so therefore we outlaw possession of knowledge" is as ridiculous as the whine "it is too difficult to find and prosecute perpetrators so therefore we outlaw possession of socks". Most important of all, in this case, the university seems to be punishing the owner of the socks which were stolen, even though they haven't yet been used to commit injury or tort. How rational is this?

Under point 6, it sounds like someone at the ADF State University has terribly overreacted. I had a school laptop stolen while in my possession, and none of the draconian measures described were even contemplated, let alone implemented. The laptop was later recovered, and the perpetrators are presently serving jail time. I am still trusted with school computers, school information, etc. Is there any possibility of some other reason existing for the seemingly-irrational actions of the university authorities?

(For newcomers to the list, this post should introduce me as being one who is thought of (by some on the list) as the purveyor of the some of the most outlandish controversial tripe found on the Internet. Enjoy...)

David Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
Professor of Information Security
James Madison University

Need for Increased Protection of Laptops and Less Protection from the ACLU
Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been meeting with university officials in the Boston area, warning them that foreigners may be trying to steal research and offering to train faculty members on how to protect their work, The Boston Globe reported. Among the FBI suggestions are that professors never leave laptops in hotel rooms unless they are in safes, and that researchers report “unnatural or unexplained interest” in their work. An official of the American Civil Liberties Union questioned the campaign, telling the Globe that students or researchers might hesitate to ask legitimate questions if they fear that their queries could get them reported to the FBI.
Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/12/qt

"IRS Draws Lines for Political Advocacy," Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/12/irs

As the 2008 campaign begins to heat up, the Internal Revenue Service — which is responsible for carrying out federal tax law that restricts political activity by nonprofit organizations — has issued guidelines aimed at giving colleges and other tax-exempt organizations practical advice about where the lines are and how not to cross them.

The guidance, which comes in the form of a revenue ruling that has formal legal standing, lays out 21 actual situations, in areas such as voter education efforts, candidate appearances and issue advocacy — that raised questions about whether the activity a charitable organization engaged in should be considered inappropriate participation in a political campaign. Although the underlying laws and regulations are longstanding, the IRS document is an effort to formalize what have been “pretty subjective” standards about what’s allowable (or not), said Bertrand M. Harding Jr., a tax lawyer who specializes in nonprofit issues. “These offer insight into the question of ‘Does this cross the line or not cross the line?’ in fairly helpful fashion,” Harding said.

Three of the case studies — which as is typical of IRS publications, do not identify the involved parties — directly involve colleges or universities.

In one, a university president wrote in his monthly column in an alumni newsletter ("My Views") that “[i]t is my personal opinion that Candidate U should be reelected.” Although the president used personal funds to pay for the cost of his column in that one issue, “the newsletter is an official publication of the university. Because the endorsement appeared in an official publication .... it constitutes campaign intervention” by the university, the IRS concludes.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's tax helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation

"Google files antitrust complaints against Microsoft: report," PhysOrg, June 11, 2007 --- http://physorg.com/news100791987.html

Google Inc. sent a roughly 50-page white paper to the US Justice Department and state attorneys general in April, alleging that Microsoft Corp.'s latest version of its market-dominating operating system violates Microsoft's antitrust settlement, the Journal reported, citing lawyers close to the matter.

In its white paper, Google alleged that Vista makes it difficult for consumers to use rival desktop search applications, such as the applications provided by Google and others.

Desktop search is software that allows users to scan the contents of their computer hard drives, emails and other data. Internet companies view it as a key tool in building customer loyalty.

Google's allegations are under review by the Justice Department and state attorneys general who were parties to a consent decree that resolved the US government's antitrust case against Microsoft in 2002.

Microsoft rejected Google's allegation that the Vista desktop search violates the settlement.

Continued in article

Kevin J. Delaney, Robert A. Guth, and John R. Wilke, "Google Intensifies Microsoft Fight:  Complaints Spur Review Over Whether Vista System Violates '02 Antitrust Pact," The Wall Street Journal,  June 11, 2007; Page A3 --- Click Here

2007 Update on Soaring State Taxes

"Flush States," The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2007; Page A12 --- Click Here

The Census Bureau has released data on state and local finances for the 2005 fiscal year, and here are a few findings that tax-happy politicos might prefer to keep under wraps.

Total state and local tax collections were $1.1 trillion in 2005, or 8.5% higher than 2004 and 2.5 times the rate of inflation. Lucky New York led the way with a per capita state and local tax burden of $5,770, or 56% above the national average and 7% above second-place Connecticut. Governor Eliot Spitzer will help New York hold its top spot with his 6.3% increase in spending.

Nationwide, personal income tax collections rose 12% in 2005, and sales and property levies were up 6.3% and 5.5%, respectively. The problem, as usual, has been on the spending side. State and local expenditures overall rose by 4.7%, with health care and education outlays accounting for much of the increase.

Robert Ward, the Rockefeller Institute's director of fiscal studies, says states can't use the common excuse that more spending was necessary to make up for federal cuts and "mandates" like No Child Left Behind. "Federal domestic spending has been relatively constant in the last few years, as a share of GDP," says Mr. Ward. "In other words, the most recent increase in state and local spending is not offsetting net cuts at the federal level."

These columns have reported on the record receipts to the federal Treasury in the wake of the Bush tax cut, and the states have done nearly as well. If state budgets aren't balanced, don't blame taxpayers.

Jensen Comment

The Census Bureau tables are at http://www.census.gov/govs/www/statetax.html

Excel spreadsheets by year are available.

In 2006 Maine and Vermont lost the highest honors
"Tax-friendly places 2005 Top honors go to Alaska, New Hampshire and Delaware. Most unfriendly? Maine, New York, D.C.,"  by Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money, February 16, 2006 --- http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/08/real_estate/tax_friendly/index.htm

Academic Fraud as Usual in College Athletics
Coaches at colleges in the Maricopa Community College District offer courses without textbooks, homework or exams, but in which almost everyone earns an A, according to an investigation by The East Valley Tribune. The newspaper reported that many coaches encourage their athletes to take the courses, which raise their averages. In at least one of these credit courses, class work included fielding drills and pre-game stretches. After the newspaper gave its findings to Rufus Glasper, chancellor of the Arizona system, he ordered a full study of the classes.
Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/12/qt

Just Don't Call It Education:  Is there fraud in academic assessment of top college athletes?
Three newspapers this weekend explored the academic compromises universities make in the name of athletic success. The New York Times reported that an internal audit at Auburn University revealed that an athlete’s grade had been changed without the professor’s knowledge, to bring the athlete just over the minimum average needed for eligibility. Auburn isn’t talking. The Athens Banner-Herald reported that in 1999 and 2000, the University of Georgia’s president, Michael Adams, authorized the admission of 119 athletes who did not meet academic standards, and that 21 of them left because of academic problems. And The San Diego Union Tribune reported on the percentages of scholarship athletes at many Western institutions who are “special admits” (translation: they don’t meet admissions standards). The newspaper found that special admits are rare in the student body as a whole at the institutions studied, but quite high (70 percent at the University of California at Los Angeles, 65 percent at San Diego State University) for scholarship athletes.
Inside Higher Ed, December 11, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/12/11/qt

Bob Jensen's threads on college athletics controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Athletics

Fraud as Usual in the United Nations

"Kim's U.N. Banker," The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2007; Page A12 --- Click Here

The case of the United Nations and North Korea gets curiouser and curiouser. Only a week ago, the U.N. was claiming that a preliminary audit of its programs in North Korea showed "irregularities" that were no big deal. But now the U.S. has new evidence that U.N. funds intended to help the people of one of the world's poorest countries were diverted to prop up Kim Jong Il's regime.

The latest chapter in the Cash for Kim saga shows how the United Nations Development Program operated as the North Korean dictator's private banker. The U.N. agency facilitated Pyongyang's purchases of high-tech equipment that could be used for military purposes, as well as property in France, Britain and Canada. The outlines of the scam were reported over the weekend in the Chicago Tribune and Washington Post.

The details are worth studying, however,

. . .

The U.S. has also raised concerns that North Korea used the UNDP to cover up its counterfeiting. The UNDP often paid for foreign travel for North Korean officials. In a number of cases, North Korean employees of the UNDP appear to have abetted a money-laundering scheme involving real dollars and fake dollars and the UNDP's euro account at the Foreign Trade Bank in Pyongyang. The real dollars were pocketed by the government, while the fake ones were distributed by North Korean officials on their foreign travels.

We're told that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon claims to be "shocked" by these latest U.N. findings. We hope that means he's finally motivated to buck the U.N. bureaucracy and insist on the independent, external audit of U.N. operations in North Korea that he promised in January. As these revelations show, there's a long way to go before we get to the bottom of the Cash for Kim scandal.

Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Technology is no substitute for bad works
Podcasts are becoming popular for educational purposes. Increasingly students in K-12 and in higher education are creating podcasts to demonstrate what they are learning. The technology is becoming so important that online course management systems, such as Angel Learning, are now incorporating features enabling content providers to include podcasting. However, many of those I've heard appear to be created by individuals experimenting with the technology and suffer from poor quality in the audio, content, and speaker presentation....
Patricia Deubel, "Podcasts: Where's the Learning?" T.H.E. Journal, June 2007 --- http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20764

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

Trends for the First Generation College Graduates in Families
Those who are the first in their families to go to college are more likely than other students to be poor, Latino, foreign-born, from rural areas, and to have less than optimal high school preparation or test scores. That general picture remains accurate, but a new report provides additional context as well as comparisons over time. “First in My Family: A Profile of First-Generation College Students at Four-Year Institutions Since 1971″ provides a glimpse into the shifting attitudes and priorities of those on the educational frontier, as well as how they compare with their peers from families with a history of postgraduate education. The data come from the well-known Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey, administered yearly and nationally by the University of California at Los Angeles’s Higher Education Research Institute.
"Trends for the First in the Family," by Andy Guess,  Inside Higher Ed, June 8, 2007 --- http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/07/firstgen

"Higher Ed’s Conflict of Interest Problem," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, June 6, 2007 --- http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/06/conflicts

As revelation after revelation about real and potential conflicts of interest wrongdoing has battered the student loan industry in recent months, college leaders and higher education groups have largely responded (when they have done so at all) by acknowledging problems — and proposing possible solutions — in and around financial aid offices.

Numerous higher education associations, of financial aid administrators and university presidents, are at work on new codes of conduct and other policies aimed at governing the relationships between loan providers, student borrowers and the campus financial aid officials who are charged with serving as objective third-party intermediaries between them.

Overdue as such policies may be, they may be little more than a finger in the dike. Virtually every practice and perceived conflict of interest that has been questioned in the unfolding student loan controversy can be found to occur elsewhere on often highly decentralized campuses where the interests of corporate vendors and students increasingly intersect, with college and university officials at the intersection.

Many technology companies have advisory boards of college IT administrators that closely resemble the bank panels that have drawn New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s scorn. Food service and beverage companies, cellular telephone providers and numerous other vendors seeking to reach a campus’s students and employees sometimes offer revenue sharing arrangements or other sweeteners (like refurbishing a cafeteria) that primarily benefit the colleges, much like the various “inducements” that Congress and the Education Department are vowing to prohibit in financial aid. Accounting and auditing firms, like banks, often make contributions to college fund raising drives or sponsor tables at campus events in the course of doing business.

And many if not most higher education associations help pay for their annual and other meetings in large part from corporate sponsorships and memberships of the sort that has put the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators in hot water. The American Council on Education’s corporate alliance program offers members of the “president’s circle” the chance to meet with college presidents, among other benefits, for a contribution of at least $200,000, and provides other benefits at lesser donation levels. The several dozen corporate partners of Educause, the higher education technology association, pay anywhere from $20,000 to more than $100,000 over the course of a year for a series of benefits that include the opportunity to make presentations to the association’s members at the group’s annual meeting. And the National Association of College and University Business Officers, for instance, has 11 “diamond” sponsors for its annual meeting next month — technology, bookstore and other companies that agreed to pay at least $30,000 for various forms of visibility at the conference. (Inside Higher Ed is among six “friends of NACUBO” that paid $1,000 each.)

It can be argued that in none of these other areas are college officials so directly in a position to make decisions that could negatively affect students, as Cuomo and Congressional critics of the loan industry (from a consumer protection standpoint) argue that financial aid officers are when they choose a lender to which they refer prospective borrowers. But a technology administrator who chooses one vendor over another or a chief financial officer who has a hand in selecting the food provider can affect what students pay and the quality of the services they receive.

Given the widespread existence of such perceived conflicts of interest across campuses, college leaders risk reacting too narrowly and ignoring the underlying problems if they limit their response to the student loan scandal to their financial aid offices, a broad chorus of higher education leaders and experts on conflicts of interest say.

Don’t merely draft codes of conflicts that apply to financial aid offices; ensure that colleges and universities have strong and clear conflict of interest policies that apply broadly to anyone with authority or influence over campus spending decisions — and that the institutions monitor and enforce those policies, for example. Only by acknowledging that potential conflicts exist across many campus departments and programs, these experts say, can higher education avoid having today’s student loan scandal become tomorrow’s damaging controversy elsewhere.

“I don’t think we serve our institutions well ... if we try to look at this as simply a student loan issue,” says John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, whose organization has its own annual meeting sponsorships.

Continued in article

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is today releasing a report, “Corrupt Schools, Corrupt Universities: What Can Be Done?” The report says that educational institutions worldwide are losing billions of dollars because of various corrupt practices.
Inside Higher Ed, June 6, 2007 --- http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/06/qt

Bob Jensen's threads on conflict of interest problems in higher education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Accountability

Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Percentages Versus Absolutes

"Challenging the Measures of Success," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, June 6, 2007 --- http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/06/rates

F. King Alexander, president of California State University at Long Beach, wants to change the way people evaluate what a college contributes. “I like to ask people: Do you want Princeton or Cal State Long Beach in your economy?”

To those who live by U.S. News rankings, or SAT scores, or prestige, or Nobel Prizes, or graduation rates, the answer is a no brainer: Princeton. But to Alexander, there’s a simple way to change the equation. Instead of thinking about graduation rates, which are an easy proxy for SAT scores, competitiveness, and all kinds of other factors that relate to the wealth or prestige of an institution, he wants people to think about how many students graduated. In other words, focus on the raw numbers, not what percentage met the federal definition for graduating.

“We will have more graduates this year than Princeton has students,” Alexander said. (Long Beach graduates more than 8,000 students a year, while Princeton’s total enrollment is about 6,700.) “And we’re going to have 500 engineers who graduate this year, and 300 nurses, and 1,100 school teachers and they are all getting good strong degrees and are getting very good jobs.”

In contrast, when you look at graduation rates, Princeton comes out on top, with a rate of 97 percent, compared to 48 percent at Long Beach, using the federal definition, which looks at first-time, full time enrollees who earn degrees within six years (or three years for a community college).

While such rates mean something to many people, Alexander said that they actually reflect a specific set of incentives, which even if appropriate for Princeton aren’t appropriate for most places. “If you focus on a rate, you drive public universities away from their public missions. Everyone knows that to get your graduation rate up, the best way to do that is turn away all the academically challenged students and there is evidence of this all over the United States.”

As a result of his views, Alexander is working with officials of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities to try to change federal policy and national perceptions about graduation rates and whether they are a good measure. While the project is still in the idea stage, it comes at a time that other groups are also considering proposals to change the way graduation rates are calculated. And while the federal definition has long frustrated some educators, there appears to be more discussion now about seeking change than has been the case previously.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

There are some huge snags in the SOX of whistle blower protection
"First whisteblower unprotected by SOX," AccountingWeb, June 8, 2007 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=103603

Bob Jensen's threads on weaknesses in whistle blower protections are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#WhistleBlowing

From the University of Arizona
Getting Started With Excel --- http://www.studyfinance.com/lessons/excel/index.mv

Bob Jensen's video tutorials on Excel and MS Access --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm
In particular, the videos are listed at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/

Introduction to C Programming --- http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/tutorials/c/

Question
Is Glade (and any similar electronic air fresheners) a fire hazard?

Here' s an example of an urban legend. I was a bit suspicious since in our litigious society, the product would've disappeared long ago --- http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/glade.asp

This is one of those e-mails that if you don't send it, rest assured someone on your list will suffer from not reading it. The original message was written by a lady whose brother and wife learned a hard lesson this past week.

Their house burnt down.. nothing left but ashes. They have good insur ance so the house will be replaced and most of the contents. That is the good news.

However, they were sick when they found out the cause of the fire. The insurance investigator sifted through the ashes for several hours. He had the cause of the fire traced to the master bathroom. He asked her sister-in-law what she had plugged in the bathroom. She listed the normal things....curling iron, blow dryer. He kept saying to her, "No, this would be something that would disintegrate at high temperatures". Then her sister-in-law remembered she had a Glade Plug-In, in the bathroom.

The investigator had one of those "Aha" moments. He said that was the cause of the fire. He said he has seen more house fires started with the plug-in type room fresheners than anything else. He said the plastic they are made from is THIN . He also said that in every case there was nothing left to prove that it even existed. When the investigator looked in the wall plug, the two prongs left from the plug-in were still in there.

Her sister-in-law had one of the plug-ins that had a small night light built in it. She said she had noticed that the light would dim and then finally go out. She would walk in to the bathroom a few hours later, and the light would be back on again. The investigator said that the unit was getting too hot, and would dim and go out rather than just blow the light bulb. Once it cooled down it would come back on. That is a warning sign .

The investigator said he personally wouldn't have any type of plug in fragrance device anywhere in his house. He has seen too many places that have been burned down due to them.

Jensen Comment
But it did set me to thinking. These things are pretty flimsy and when something else is plugged into them (using the air freshener as a current bypass), it would seem that some danger might lurk. Especially dangerous would be to interject a cheater plug (one that has a useless grounding pin hole) so that appliances that have ground wires are no longer grounded.

At one time there was a hoax about wireless electric power. I don't recollect the source of the hoax, but possibly from the funny folks at Google who like to do such things. Now it seems to be for real and not a hoax.

A Wirelessly Powered Lightbulb
"Researchers at MIT have created a revolutionary device that could remotely charge batteries and power household appliances," MIT Technology Review, June 8, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18836/

Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/book8/book8int.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on free mathematics and statistics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

Australian Broadcasting Corporation  Science Podcasts --- http://www.abc.net.au/science/programs/podcast.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on free science and medicine tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science

Irrational Investors and Imperfect Capital Markets
"At the foundation of finance is the idea that investors and managers act rationally, so that capital market prices reflect fundamentals and managers respond to incentives in predictable ways,"...But investors don't act like computers in financial models. Behavioral finance replaces these idealized decision makers with real and imperfect people who have social, cognitive, and emotional biases. My work focuses on how the resulting inefficiencies in the capital markets can create opportunities for investment managers and firms.
Julia Hanna, "Behavioral Finance—Benefiting from Irrational Investors,"  Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, June 6, 2007 --- http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5648.html

"The Role of Small and Large Business in Economic Development,"  by Kelly Edmiston, The Kansas City Federal Reserve, June 2007 --- http://www.kansascityfed.org/PUBLICAT/ECONREV/PDF/2q07edmi.pdf 

Bob Jensen's small business helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness

My Child Doesn’t Test Well

June 4, 2007 message from Lee S. Shulman

My colleague Lloyd Bond is one of the world's most respected experts on educational measurement and testing. He has published widely on research issues in psychometrics, and is called upon to advise many test developers; however, he is also one of the most persistent and incisive critics of the testing movement. In the world of educational testing, Lloyd Bond is unquestionably a "critical friend."

In this month's Perspectives, "My Child Doesn't Test Well," Bond examines a variety of reasons why test performance may not be a valid measure of a person's competence or potential. Although the standardized test is one of the most important inventions of the past century, it remains a special setting, fundamentally different from those contexts in which we confront the challenges of the world. At times, it provides an uncannily accurate portrait of individual and group capacities. At other times, tests may distort and deceive. Lloyd Bond helps us think about why.

Carnegie has created a forum—Carnegie Conversations—where you can engage publicly with the author and read and respond to what others have to say about this article at http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/june2007

Or you may respond to Lloyd privately through carnegiepresident@carnegiefoundation.org

If you would like to unsubscribe to Carnegie Perspectives, use the same address and merely type "unsubscribe" in the subject line of your email to us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Lee S. Shulman
President The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Jensen Comment
The issue is not whether standardized tests are flawed measures of aptitude and performance. The issue is that the better measures in theory (grades and personal evaluations by instructors) have become so highly inflated and non-comparable with other students or other school systems that they are virtually useless in practice. The issue came to a head when high numbers of students who could not even read or do basic arithmetic were getting high school diplomas in the United States.

Honest evaluations by instructors are also compromised by the tort system in the United States where unhappy students can sue instructors and schools at will. Standardized testing has unhappily become the most popular form of performance evaluation, although a few colleges no longer require standardized testing for admission. The 10% rule also does away with standardized testing for admission to state universities in Texas for students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class.

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

Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation

Bob Jensen's threads on the Texas Top 10% Law are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#10PercentLaw

Admissions Controversies --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AffirmativeAction

Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing America’s Older Industrial Cities ---  http://www3.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20070520_oic.pdf

Congress is weighing whether to lift a prohibition on Internet taxes, and one senator warns an e-mail tax could happen by this fall.
The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful. State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail. At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying...
Declan McCullagh, "Net taxes could arrive by this fall, c|net, May 23, 2007 ---
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6186193.html

Global Corruption (in legal systems) Report 2007 --- http://www.transparency.org/content/download/19093/263155

BYU's PhD Prep Masters Degree in Accountancy

June 4, 1007 message from Glen Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU]

Last Thursday was our graduation ceremony. One of our undergraduate accounting students graduated summa cum laude with a 3.99 GPA. She was not in any of my classes, but she was introduced to me because she wants to go on and get an accounting PhD and I was asked to give her some advice on what she could do to improve her chances of acceptance into PhD programs. The application deadline for the school year starting fall 2008 is essentially January 1, 2008 (about 6 months from now).

My spur-of-the-moment advice was get yourself invited to research forums at local schools (e.g., UCLA, USC, etc) in the fall and, in the near term, try to find a faculty member who might let you get involved in a research project. She is not going to be doing any statistical analysis, but I find honor students can do pretty good literature searches.

What other advice should I give her?

Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA
Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business & Economics
California State University,
Northridge Northridge, CA 91330-8372
818.677.3948
http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f

June 9, 2007 reply from Bob Jensen

There are many ways to prepare for most doctoral programs in accounting that are now tantamount to social science doctoral programs that require no accounting going in and no accounting going out --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms 

If she can afford it or get financial aid of some kind from Brigham Young University, BYU has an award-winning masters of accounting program that has two tracks. One track is for students who want to go into practice. The other track is for students who want to prepare for a doctoral program in accountancy. I suggest that she look into BYU’s accounting doctoral program preparation masters degree (Called the PhD Prep Track) --- http://marriottschool.byu.edu/soa/curriculum/phdprep.cfm 

The SOA offers a specialized PhD Prep Track as part of the MAcc degree. The program is designed to prepare students to enroll in a PhD program in accounting at another university after finishing their master’s degree at BYU. Students in both the five-year integrated program and the two-year graduate program are eligible to apply to the program. The program involves PhD-style seminars to learn about research and academic work, as well as other coursework in mathematics, econometrics, and statistics. However, this track does not require additional credits beyond those required in the MAcc program. Students who have participated in this program have been highly successful in placing at top PhD programs. Those who complete their PhD in accounting are able to enter fields where there is high demand, and it is projected that this will be the case for the foreseeable future. Starting salaries for new professors in accounting range from two to four times higher than starting salaries for MAcc graduates.

Bob Jensen

Next Chapter on Textbooks

In the June 5, 2007 edition of tidbits, I provided a module called "Next Chapter on Textbooks."
See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals

These are some of the replies that followed:

June 4, 2007 reply from Glen Gray [glen.gray@CSUN.EDU]

Sorry, but I have not been following this thread too closely, so somebody made have already mentioned this, but many of my students are buying "foreign" paperback versions of popular textbooks. Many of the students in my auditing class had the foreign paperback version of the Aren's et al auditing book. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think the U.S. hardcover version was around $150 and the foreign paperback was around $60. This is the first semester that I noticed a significant number of students carrying paperback textbooks both in my audit course and my IS course.

I asked some of book reps what are the differences between the two versions? They kind of hem and haw and say things like the end of chapter questions "might" be different.

Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA
Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business & Economics
California State University,
Northridge Northridge, CA 91330-8372
818.677.3948
http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f

June 4, 2007 reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]

I forgot to say in my previous message that in almost all cases that I have examined, the books by the international students are counterfeits and not international editions. The quality of paper and printing is quite poor, and one finds some stuff in local languages.

And the cost of the books are not half, but a lot cheaper than the American editions.

Jagdish

June 9, 2007 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Jagdish,

I think "almost all cases" is a bit too strong. It may be the case from selected countries where some pirated copies are produced..

But in many instances the copyright holders themselves publish foreign editions that are virtually the same (with some possible differences in sequencing of material) and set prices in other nations much lower than U.S. prices. In this regard, the practice is much like the pricing of prescription drugs in foreign nations versus the U.S.

I had students import European editions of my textbooks, and as far as we could tell the material was identical and the publishing quality was identical. The covers were different as I recall.

Students who do this may have more difficulty selling the foreign editions back to U.S. bookstores and to other students.

Bob Jensen

June 5, 2007 reply from Elliot Kamlet [ekamlet@STNY.RR.COM]

I am trying something new this summer and it seems to work. The textbook I am using comes in a 3 hole punched format. The retail price is $75 compared to $129 soft covered. A used book costs $96.

If the soft covered is sold back to the book store the student might get (depending on the condition) as much as $65. For an extra $10 they keep the 3 hole punched version.

When it comes to bringing the book to class, they have always complained about the weight of books. With this version, they only need to bring the chapter or two chapters for the day.

They can also take notes on a sheet of loose leaf paper placed next to the page I may be talking about.

On the whole, it seems that the students really prefer this version. They can also buy the book from a website on a chapter by chapter basis. I didn't think that would work well but I like this 3 hole version a lot.

Elliot Kamlet
Binghamton University

June 5, 2007 reply from Alan Sangster, The Robert Gordon University [a.j.a.sangster@BTINTERNET.COM]

This is interesting! This is the way printed (text)books in Pacioli's day were sold -- as unbound books. This enabled pupils/students to take to school/university only those pages they were going to study on a particular day. This is one reason why anyone who dismisses Summa as a textbook on the basis of its size is incorrect. The concept of loose leaf textbooks is so obvious, i find it hard to believe publishers have waited so long to reintroduce it. But, then, it didn't occur to me until i read Eliot's post so, i can hardly complain,

Alan

From the Stanford Graduate School of Business
"10 Ideas For Entrepreneurs Facing Personnel Issues" May 2007 --- http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/entrep_firing.shtml

Do Free Downloads Impact Sales of Print Copies?

From the University of Illinois Issues in Scholarly Communication Blog on June 3, 2007 --- http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/

Tim O'Reilly presents a case study of downloads versus sales of the book Asterisk: The Future of Telephony, by Leif Madsen, Jared Smith, and Jim Van Meggelen, which was released for free download under a Creative Commons license. Read about it in his blog O'Reilly Radar (6/1/07). "The quick answer from this experiment is that we saw no definitive correlation, but there is little sign that the free downloads hurt sales. More than 180,000 copies were downloaded from Jeremy's mirror (which is one of five!), yet the book has still been quite successful, selling almost 19,000 copies in a year and a half. This is quite good for a technical book these days -- the book comes in at