Infomatters

Seems SU students are not alone in suing their university over the failure to deliver what was promised this semester, something’s brewing in Florida too where a class-action lawsuit against the state system is ongoing over the inability of students to obtain paid for campus services after the pandemic caused campuses to empty. One imagines these not being the last examples we’ll hear about, confirmation indeed that no matter what happens, lawyers will be involved.

More interesting, but also Florida related, the claims for productive career enhancing skills being provided by the Florida Career College (FCC… nice!). Seems students are ‘encouraged’ to take out expensive loans to pay for short certificate programs that promise secure jobs repairing HVACs and the like. Lured by the economic argument of advancement and the promise of support in the subsequent job search, it seems this ‘college’ is not quite living up to expectations. Not only do some of the teachers admit they lack experience but essential equipment for this ‘education’ is often not available. Add to this, the apparent targeting of minority students via what’s being termed a ‘reverse redlining’ approach and you start to get the picture. Personally I’m not a fan of accreditation for universities but when I see the results of slack regulation, I wish maybe we had even more lawyers involved!

Interesting development – seems the pivot to online courses is actually not to everyone’s liking.

Link to full story

What is it about a crisis that it brings up long forgotten lines and songs. Am reminded these days of the Thin White Duke’s line, ‘putting on some clothes I made my way to school, and found my teacher crouching in his overalls…’

Oh yes…..let’s forget spring break baby, it’s time to retool…and your university will send you lots of links……but no real help in ironing out the kinks…..it’s all about you dear teacher, all about you. What’s that you say David? ‘Let me collect dust….I wish someone would phone.’

The reality is most academic responses to the virus (from administrations to individuals) are rather useless. It’s like giving the soldiers at the front line who ask for support a report on the context of war — possibly correct but not really what’s needed at this moment. Right now, professional associations, university administrations, and a few advocates for IT are pushing the general listing of ‘things to consider’ and ‘possible solutions’ but offering bugger-all leadership or direction. Am sure many will be getting awards for their imaginative efforts in due course too. Plus ca change.

While panic ensues, toilet paper supples run out and gun sales increase, you might imagine that the basic lesson of crisis informatics (yes, there is such a thing) to communicate clearly would be rigorously followed. Oh dear, if only. It’s one thing that a media-mad president can’t seem to stay on script during a national address and tries to blame his political opponents for a pandemic, but one would hope for better in universities and public service organizations. Sadly, it’s not clear that we ever learn these lessons.

Last week, in the space of hours, we were told completely opposite things about the same situation. The principal at my son’s public school sent a message mid-week to all parents that there was nothing to be concerned about and we should send our kids to school unless they were ill. Our own university told us they were monitoring the situation as of Wednesday and were planning to continue business as usual. Then it all went belly up.

Wednesday evening, late, we get a note from our own administration that plans had changed, Spring Break would be extended a week and we would all be encouraged to work at home and teach offline. Cue a series of meetings Thursday across campus trying to understand what this meant. Friday morning, at 4am I awake to a rob-call from my son’s school saying they had cancelled classes for the day and would resume again after the scheduled regular spring break. Hot on the heels of this, our own university sends a note saying that campus would be open Friday, even though historically, the university and the local school district acted on concert. This was followed a couple of hours later with a correction, forget that last message, the campus would be closed and would extend closure for a week after spring break. No further word on Spring Break from the public school.

Never mind, there’s always Amazon right? Faced with long lines and dwindling supplies at local supermarket, I ordered delivery of milk and other fresh produce from their Whole Foods pantry. Yes, this can be done but earliest delivery would be the next day. Fine. I wait til next day and am told my order is being ‘readied’ and soon be on the way. A couple of hours later I get the note that delivery is delayed, no surprise, but to expect if within a later 4 hour window. OK, they’re doing that communication thing, I get it. Sadly, no delivery arises, and when I check, am told to contact them. Easier said than done, the estimated wait time for a call is 119 mins. Yikes…try ‘chat’…..that too is a problem so am told to ‘try again later’. Eventually I give up but awake next morning to two messages from Amazon. One on chat saying they noticed my delivery was made. One in mail, telling me they had to cancel my order due to storage of supplies. Only one of these was true, and I don’t have the milk.

OK, unusual times challenge the routine practices of organizations, but it has not stopped every business I ever seem to have engaged sending me an email about what they are doing to respond to the Covid-19 situation in a thinly disguised effort at getting their products pushed to my inbox.. Really? I need to know this Trip Advisor, the Alliance for the Arts, my Credit Union, etc etc. Did some MBA somewhere tell you this an opportune marketing time?

Leadership is in thin supply and the communication efforts from most make this patently clear. And please, no more pointers to articles pretending to help you deliver online education…it only adds to my workload and offers me precious little by way of solution. Lessons from crisis informatics? If only…

I have joined the senior editorial team at Information & Culture in order to help create a broader and more inclusive journal for work in information that often is pushed aside by the rush of work in IR, HCI and social media. Our aim is to provide a home for thoughtful scholarship at the intersection of social science, humanities and our emerging information culture.

There’s a new look to the cover and we’re committed to giving voice to issues of concern to all of us that do not quite fit the usual journal coverage. We still do serious, thoughtful reviews and we aim to do so promptly. Interested in submitting? Get in touch.

As we enter the usual strategic planning cycles brought on by new presidencies and annual meeting plans, I note a spate of depressing news for some of the major associations in the information space. ALA report a $2m shortfall in operating budget, tied to various but not well-explained factors, none of which appeased the members. You can read the gory details here. In that, you’ll also notice that the midwinter gathering had a significant 11% drop in attendance, posing questions about its purpose, while some librarians questioned the value of an association that seems more intent on supporting the institution of libraries than the workers within them. Fair question.

In parallel, I note from other online discussions that SLA now reports it has lost 54% of its membership since 2014, which suggests some real challenges ahead while they consider (again) a name change and a further dues increase. I know from my time as ASIST president, membership numbers are a constant concern, and one has to imagine that the time is soon approaching, if we’re not there already, when the idea of joining or retaining membership of an association will seem alien rather than routine.

I always ask myself now, why drop $200+ every year to be a member of any group. Some provide journals (good and, let’s be honest, not so good) that I can probably access anyway through work, some discount annual meeting attendance for members by the equivalent dollars, but more than this, what value do I get from joining? It used to be more obvious, and surely related to identity and community, but one development perhaps unforeseen of the new information infrastructure is the rather poor effort at harnessing this we see from any professional association and the rather easy way that other channels provide similar sense of involvement.

Of course, size matters, and maybe in the medium term, mergers of a few related associations would make some sense. I’ve often suggested (to the horror of some) that ALISE be made a special interest group of ASIST, and now I wonder if SLA might consider something similar. After all, there’s more uniting than dividing some of these players. Maybe the alternative is the opposite move – keep associations small, virtual and affordable, but allow them to combine for important gatherings. Or align associations around particular tasks (conferences, virtual resources, publishing) rather than replicating each within every group. I mean how many treasurers, officers and chairs do we need in a tiny discipline or professional community?

No solution makes sense though until we rethink the purpose and value of professional associations in the most basic sense. I still try to believe, but I’m beginning to wonder if the form has served its purpose, at least as currently implemented. Instead of strategic planning cycles, maybe it’s time for something far more radical, temporary, tech-mediated community structures that we can enter and leave seamlessly and cheaply grouped according to particular goals, clustered intelligently by interest rather than name. Worth a try?

The best parts of my job are usually the students and I am delighted this semester to be running another writing studio for graduates here in the iSchool. This is a hands-on, write-review-write and repeat meet up/support group for those grappling with their own challenges in getting ideas down on paper. So far so good.

The worst parts of my job are the continual demands for administrivia that the system seems to endlessly foist on faculty here. From the outside you might think faculty spend lots of unstructured time doing what they like, you know, such as research. The reality is we spend immense amounts of time reviewing each other. Every faculty member here has to have their productivity reviewed annually by their colleagues. Their teaching has to be formally evaluated by other faculty every two years (though they get continual reviews every semester by the students in their courses). On top of this, every junior faculty member has to be formally reviewed at year three, as well, and this must be handled by senior colleagues. The latter, in turn, must have their continual productivity evaluated again every six years on top of the annual reviews that they already undergo. Throw in the continual requests to write letters for each other for even the smallest internal grants, review requests for papers, external requests for other university promotion and tenure reviews and you can imagine that reviewing is a full-time job. And yes, this is just one part of the reviewing cycle. We also have continual committee service work that reviews the curriculum, the doctoral program, the admissions, the awards etc. and, heaven help us, accreditation reviews.

Want to become a professor? Learn to review. How else can anyone know that we’re doing our job!

Was pleased to read a statement from Alan Leshner from the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the silly deflection of citing mental illness as the source of gun violence in this country. It’s a cheap rhetorical device, akin to offering victims ‘thoughts and prayers’ to aid recovery. It tries to create the impression of responding, understanding and working to address the problem while actually doing nothing. The real challenge is enabling some serious research on the topic and enacting solutions which the evidence tells us produces results. Read it here:

Stop Blaming Mental Illness

Actually, you don’t have to do much, just wait around and get invited by the predatory junk conference organizers. Apparently I’m considered a live prospect to serve as the keynote at a forthcoming Nanomaterials conference. Who knew? Not me….but take a look at this very personal and touching invitation:

Dear  , Warm Wishes! As Conference Executive Director, it is my great pleasure to invite you as a Plenary Speaker to the International conference and Expo on Nanotechnology & Nanomaterial’s (Nano 2019), held in Osaka, Japan on 14-15 November 2019. Nano 2019 sessions include both marquee personalities and topical experts to set the tone for the meeting and underscore the theme of Conference. Keynote and Plenary session include four to six individuals who each present a talk and then participate in a question/answer session. Post-talk panel sessions have also been successfully used to help speakers interact with the audience and with each other on a broad range of issues. Nano 2019 Scientific Program: https://www.coalesceresearchgroup.com/conferences/nano/programschedule I am honoured to steward this broad based conference, and I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in collaboration, partnershiptogether, we are changing Research and Development and ultimately, the world. With anticipation, curiosity and pride, I look forward to joining you as we embark on our journey together.

Remember Project 2021, UT’s much heralded effort to reinvent education through technology? Don’t worry, everyone involved would rather you forget it now.

Read all about it….

https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/Project2021?cid=wsinglestory_hp_1a