My A.T. Still University Experience : research

Students Paying The Copyright Tax

SteveFoerster — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:30:00 GMT

“Copyright, put simply, is a personal monopoly on an original writing, song, piece of art, or a group of any of those, for 70 years after the death of the creator. If a corporation is the creator, the copyright monopoly lasts for 95 years.” — Public Knowledge

Did you know, long suffering U.S. taxpayer, that you pay twice for federally funded research?

The first time is when you pay taxes. The federal government uses that money to fund various agencies such as the National Institutes for Health, the National Science Foundation, and others. These agencies then have a vast array of grant programs which then go to all sorts of recipients, including universities and specific academic researchers. If you want a sense of how much of your cash is flowing through this federal subsidy for higher education, you can check out Grants.gov, which was helpfully set up to make it easier for universities and others to apply for your money.

Now, let's assume for the sake of argument that this is money well spent. How do you pay the second time? Well, once that research is conducted, the way that professors and other academics make it available is by publishing it in academic journals. Most of these journals are published by big publishing corporations, they're middlemen who stand between people who want to learn and the research they need to do that learning. As a student, some of your tuition goes to pay off these publishers so that you can have access to journals online (or, if you're not an online student, in paper form in the library).

There's a growing movement, called the Open Access movement, that thinks that this is unfair. They figure that since you paid for the research to be conducted in the first place, that you deserve to actually get what you pay for without enriching corporate publishers. They say that taxpayer money for research should come with the condition that whatever comes of that research should be published online where anyone can read it without paying a second time. There's a bill in Congress right now called the Federal Research Public Access Act to make sure this policy is adopted by Uncle Sam.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Not so fast. As the saying goes, "Invest in America, Buy a Congressman," and in this instance the bought-and-paid-for legislator is Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means committee. He's shamelessly introduced a bill to ensure that you pay twice, with the upside-down name of the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.

While that's pretty nauseating, the very name of that bill showcases a more basic problem here than just corrupt legislators: copyright itself. The point of copyright, as stated in the Constitution, is supposed to be "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". But that's unnecessary in this situation, because that progress of science and useful arts is already being promoted by taxpayer-funded grants.

So what's the solution? Well, by definition, anything that's published by the federal government itself is placed in the public domain, meaning that it isn't copyrighted at all. The idea is that taxpayers have paid for it, so it should be completely available to all people. But the principle is the same with this sort of research. So to me, the Open Access people have the right idea, but they don't go far enough. If federal taxpayers are really going to get their money's worth, then not only material that is federally authored should be in the public domain, but material that is produced thanks to taxpayers' funds should be as well: not just open access, not just eventually free to view with certain restrictions, not copyrighted at all, but in the public domain.

Next up, I have an opportunity to do more course design, and I'm pretty excited about it!

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Professors, Tenure, and the Internet

SteveFoerster — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:27:00 GMT

“...if you are at an institution that believes professors have a responsibility to be public intellectuals, and if your main concern is getting your ideas out to the broadest audience possible, then this kind of Web publishing is certainly an intriguing option worth considering.” — Douglas J. Amy

Fellow eLearners, allow me to pull back the curtain a bit and let you see what life is like for some of your faculty members, at least those at traditional institutions.

I came across a very interesting article this morning, and I thought it was especially timely considering that I'm still waiting for this term's textbooks to arrive. The author, Dr. Douglas Amy of Mount Holyoke College, makes the case that more faculty members should consider taking advantage of non-traditional publishing methods in order to get their ideas out to the general public.

Most faculty members at traditional universities are on what's called the "tenure track". That means that they get hired on as full time faculty members with the idea that if they perform well as researchers (teaching is of secondary importance here) they can expect after seven years of getting a status called "tenure" which basically means they can't be terminated for any reason other than gross malfeasance. The rationale for tenure is that by protecting professors from dismissal, they don't have to be afraid to pursue research on controversial topics, and that this academic freedom will lead to better results for society as a whole because real problems will be the focus, rather than just topics that are politically correct or otherwise safe.

This means that tenure track faculty members, those who don't yet have it, but are trying to get it, have every incentive to do as much as they can that will earn them tenure, and not to waste any time on things that won't. The things that tend to have a lot of importance when the tenure decision is ultimately made are whether the professor had a lot of articles published in academic journals (which are arcane publications that no one other than professors actually read, and often not even them), and to a lesser extent whether they presented papers at academic conferences.

The idea is that by writing these sorts of articles and presenting at these conferences, the professor is becoming noteworthy in his or her field. If they succeed in developing this noteworthiness, they're worth granting tenure. If not, then they're not. That's why the system is often referred to as "publish or perish".

One of the problems with this system is that there's no emphasis on actually reaching everyday people with useful information. Dr. Amy had every incentive to write a special kind of academic book called a monograph, one he knew from past experience that nearly no one would read. Instead he took the same material and put together a web site that had the same information, but in a way that anyone who's online would be able to access.

The problem is that these sorts of projects, however useful, don't carry much weight for those faculty members who are trying to get tenure. Higher education has done a pretty poor job adjusting its tenure system to account for the rise of the popular Internet when something that will be read by tens of thousands of people is less important than something that will be read by a few hundred, if that.

As an eLearner, an interesting aspect of this to me is that many schools that have online programs do so through the use of adjunct instructors — people who actually do stuff in the real world but also teach on the side. For them, this sort of project makes a lot more sense. They're not playing the tenure game in the first place, so they have nothing to lose by sharing their expertise through accessible means rather than behind the closed doors of academic journals. Could it be that our often maligned adjunct instructors might be more useful for advancing ideas than tenured and tenure track faculty at traditional universities?

Next up, I try to clear things up about those law schools in California that offer distance learning.

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Q&A: Finding Committee Members

SteveFoerster — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:50:00 GMT

A reader recently asked me, “I am strongly considering the Doctor of Health Education program and would like to know how you went about finding two committee members. I really like the format of the program with the integrated dissertation and all, but I am not so sure about finding two people who I can rely on for the next two years. What is your experience like with this issue?”

One of the great things about the Doctor of Health Education program is that you start working on your dissertation from the first week you're in the program. The flip side of this is that it's like learning to swim by being thrown into the pool.

Because of this, I think the best way to approach the program is to go in already having a pretty clear sense of what sort of research project you want to do. During the first course you'll get this starting point idea stretched around a little, and that's okay, but if you have a reasonable sense of what will interest you then you can think ahead of time about who your two external reviewers might be.

In other words, if there's a topic that already interests you, I don't think it's premature to look for external reviewers now. What I did was put together a spreadsheet where I listed people whose descriptions online made them seem not only qualified but also having a compatible research interest to mine. When the time came to ask for external committee members, I had a set of email addresses ready so that I could reach out to possible committee members right away.

Note that this was a list of people I didn't already know. That can be a little strange, it's basically saying, “Hi, I realize you don't know me, but I'd like to work with you for the next two years. What do you say?” But, if you don't ask, you don't get, and it turns out there are people out there happy to help with this sort of thing.

The other approach is to shake your tree of personal contacts. You may find that someone you know peripherally is actually perfectly suited to help oversee your research. While I found one of my committee members through the spreadsheet/cold call method I described, I found the other by taking a closer look at colleagues from work and realizing that one was perfect.

So I suppose the bottom line is that it's sort of like looking for a job — you tell all the people you know what you're looking for, and you also network as much as you can beyond that.

A final bit of good news is that the school will help you look for external reviewers if you really get stuck and can't find ideal people to help you. I didn't have to take them up on it, but it was reassuring that the option was there.

Next up, I comment on a legal victory for educational fair use of copyrighted materials.

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Sailing the sea of red ink

SteveFoerster — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:11:00 GMT

“If your conclusions are refuted, blame the reviewers for letting the article get through.” — C.Nothing

Just yesterday I was basking in the near triumph of having my first chapter ready to send to my external reviewers. All I had to do was get a clean bill of health from the Writing Center that all of my APA citations and references were styled properly and I'd be good to go. So right around the time that I made yesterday's chirpy little post I received my reply from the Writing Center, and not just from anyone there but from Dr. Ade Anast, the director herself. This didn't bode well either, as the paper she emailed back to me had almost as much red ink on it as a federal budget.

Her primary concern was that I was making assertions and claims that I wasn't backing up with peer reviewed sources. When I got my chapter back from her it looked like a bad Wikipedia article, you know, those ones that have ^{[citation needed]} all over the place. And at first I'll admit I was unhappy about this. I mean, if my dissertation chair was saying everything looked okay, who was this new person coming in to say otherwise, right? But by the time I reached her by phone to discuss her advice, I'd chilled out and remembered that the idea here is that this work needs to be as tight as it can be, and that the best thing to ensure this is to have as many people read it as possible who are willing to call things as they see them.

The good news is that I'm not saying anything particularly controversial in this chapter, and shoring up my assertions with scholarly sources shouldn't be too difficult. I also appreciated additional the additional insight I received about A.T. Still University from my conversation with Dr. Anast, who was really friendly, even relaying a few stories from her own experience writing a doctoral dissertation. Most importantly, it reaffirmed for me that everyone who is involved with this program is dedicated to ensuring that it's academically rigorous and that the work we students do will truly earn us the degree. And it's awfully tough to be upset about that.

Next up, I take a break to answer a reader question about my experience finding committee members.

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More Q & A on My First Semester

SteveFoerster — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:26:00 GMT

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” – Matthew 7:7

I recently heard from reader Chris White, who emailed me a number of insightful questions the answers to which expand on my last post, so with his okay I thought I'd edit our conversation and share it here.

I have been reading your blog on your A.T. Still experience. How are the classes and what are the assignments?

I took two courses my first term, the first of two I'll do on Finance in Higher Education, and the first course on Research. Both of these were good. The coursework so far is geared toward two things, first getting you active in your dissertation process literally from Day One, with the rest focusing on developing skills useful for university administration.

In the Research course we decided first thing what our research topic would be for the dissertation. Just like that! That sounds intimidating, but during the admissions process I was sent information about this and what to expect, and it let me know to consider this even before class began. This was also less of a deal for me because I had the topic before I even applied. We then put together a problem statement with subproblems, did an initial review of the literature,
recruited committee members, and did an initial research proposal. It was intense, but not unmanageable.

The Finance course revolved around a series of assignments that culminated in development of a five year budget for a university department. It required competent use of a spreadsheet, but not prior Accounting or Finance coursework.

Both courses required a lot of interaction through discussion boards. As doctoral students, we were expected to be useful enough to comment helpfully on our colleagues' research proposals and department budgets, and I indeed found that my classmates had good ideas that I hadn't considered. Both courses also featured experienced instructors who were supportive and fair graders, and who didn't micromanage their courses the way one might find in an undergraduate course.

The only thing I didn't really understand was that in the Finance course there were two times when we were assigned to write about the first chapter of our dissertations. As a first term student I didn't even know what mine was going to be at that point, so that was a little confusing. Also, while I understand that the idea is to incorporate the dissertation process within the coursework -- and that's part of what attracted me to the program in the first place! -- I didn't find that particular assignment was very confluent with the flow of a Finance course.

Next term I'll be taking two courses again. One will be on proposal writing, which means how to apply for grants, a very useful skill for a university faculty or staff member. The other will be a seven semester-hour Dissertation course, about which I actually don't know very much, and which I think at this point I'm equally excited about and dreading! It's the first of four I'll take throughout the program, and I know it's where I'll do the bulk of the research and writing for my dissertation.

I realize you are also starting the dissertation, is there a lot of writing during the week as well?

There's a pretty good amount of writing, but it's not an overpowering amount. Although, I have an advantage here that I do a lot of writing and when I get going I can write a lot of material pretty quickly. Of course, at this level just writing a lot of stuff isn't enough. One's responses must be researched, at least those on the assignments.

Just curious to how much time you have been spending a week for class.

I'd say I spend about fifteen hours per week on classwork. It was a lot, but not unworkable. I was okay with the two courses, but I wouldn't want to try three at a time. In fact, I could tell that I was at capacity because once or twice I had something happen at work or at home and it meant assignments coming in a few days late as I worked to catch up.

Anyway, the next term will start on Monday, so next up will be a look ahead at what's to come.

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