Gregor Kiczales - MOOCs and On-Campus Learning

Gregor Kiczales – MOOCs and On-Campus Learning

January 10, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Open UBC Week. What will higher education become as the MOOC innovation era plays out? Setting dire predictions aside it seems likely that students will have a vast range of resources for learning at their disposal. With MOOCs, MOORs, badge systems, learning communities and other innovations coming on line students will be able to get content delivery, active learning support, office hours and assessment from a variety of different sources. All of these will be available these at a wider range of price points and qualities than is possible today. What do we do with our on-campus courses in this environment? How can we use these innovations to offer students a better education than ever before? What will it be like running courses that make extensive use of open online resources? What will open online courses be best at? Worst? What must we excel at? These questions led us to develop a Coursera MOOC, which ran for the first time this summer. We are now offering that MOOC in parallel with an on-campus course, in a continued effort to understand the relative strengths of each modality. The talk will report on these experiences and present our current beliefs about the challenges ahead.

Speaker:

Gregor Kiczales is a Professor in the Computer Science Department. His work is directed at enabling programmers to write programs that, as much as possible, look like their design. He is best known for his work on aspect-oriented programming, and he led the Xerox PARC team that developed aspect-oriented programming and AspectJ. He is a co-author of “The Art of the Metaobject Protocol” and was one of the designers of the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS). He is an ACM Fellow and the 2012 recipient of the Dahl-Nygaard Senior Prize for his achievements in programming language design research. He is also the instructor for the Introduction to Systematic Program Design MOOC at Coursera.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Kiczales, G. (1996). Beyond the black box: Open implementation. IEEE Software, 13(1), 8-11. doi:10.1109/52.476280. [Link]

Davis, S., & Kiczales, G. (2010). Registration-based language abstractions. ACM Sigplan Notices, 45(10), 754-773. doi:10.1145/1932682.1869521

Wand, M., Kiczales, G., & Dutchyn, C. (2004). A semantics for advice and dynamic join points in aspect-oriented programming. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), 26(5), 890-910. doi:10.1145/1018203.1018208. [Link]

Hannemann, J., & Kiczales, G. (2002). Design pattern implementation in java and AspectJ. ACM Sigplan Notices, 37(11), 161-173.

UBC Library Research Guides

Learning Technology

Computer Science

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Erin Fields – The Future? Open Online Courses and the Library

January 10, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Open UBC Week. Open access to research has become a core goal of academic libraries. The growth of open access initiatives, such as digital repositories, supports a very democratic notion of openly accessible publicly funded research. However, transitioning the support of open access initiatives to courses (e.g. LOOCs, MOOCs, e.g.) has been received with mixed views by librarians. Using current examples of courses at UBC, this session will explore open online courses and the future of library practice in these environments. This session will draw on participants ideas and opinions to further develop the dialogue on this issue.

Speaker:

Erin Fields is the Teaching and Learning Librarian at UBC Library with a focus on flexible learning environments. Her current work involves collaborating on a TLEF funded open online course and supporting the flexible learning initiative at UBC.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Fields, E. (2010). A unique Twitter use for reference services. Library Hi Tech News, 27(6/7), 14-15. doi:10.1108/07419051011095863. [Link]

Fields, E. (2011). Managing gender diversity in asia: A research companion. Feminist Collections, 32(2), 22-22. [Link]

Fields, E. (2011). Feminist Podcasting: Delivering Scholarship Outside the University Walls. Feminist Collections, 32(1), 26. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Learning Technology

Gender & Sexuality Stuides

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Mary Burgess – Open Textbook Workshop

January 10, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Open UBC Week. In October 2012, the government of British Columbia announced its support for the creation of open textbooks for the 40 highest-impact first and second-year courses in the province’s public post-secondary system. This project has generated a lot of interest in open textbooks in general, the financial benefits they may have for students, and the impact such open educational resources may have on curriculum development and flexible pedagogies. This session will provide an overview of open textbooks and will specifically explore: an update on the BC open text book project; individual faculty and institutional changes in practice; benefits and challenges of adopting an open textbook; options for finding, selecting, and building on existing open educational resources. We will also share experiences to gain insights into what we should be aware of when venturing into the use of OER, including a discussion of Creative Commons licensing.

Speaker:

Mary is responsible for the portfolio of programs and services at BCcampus that includes open education programs, the Open Textbook program, professional learning and training programs, and applied research projects such as the remote web-based science labs (RWSL / NANSLO).

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Greene, J. F. (1974). The suitability of continuing education programs in open education for teachers: Instrument validation. International Journal of Continuing Education and Training.

Rogers, V. R., Church, B., & Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (1975). Open education: Critique and assessment. Washington: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Rapp, D. (2011). LYRASIS program aims for open source education. Library Journal, 136(12), 18. [Link]

Bremer, A., & Bremer, J. (1972). Open education: A beginning. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

UBC Library Research Guides

Learning Technology

Learning Through Literacy and Technology

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Peter Binfield – Open Access Megajournals – Have They Changed Everything?

January 9, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Open UBC Week. The Open Access ‘Megajournal’ (a class of journal defined by the success of PLOS ONE) is a reasonably recent phenomenon, but one that some observers believe is poised to change the publishing world very rapidly. A megajournal is typically understood to be an online-only journal; covering a very broad subject area; selecting content based only on scientific and methodological soundness; and with a business model which allows each article to cover its own costs. With these attributes, megajournals are not limited in potential output and as such are able to grow commensurate with any growth in submissions. PLOS ONE pioneered this category of journal and is currently expected to publish in excess of 30,000 articles in 2013 alone – possibly approaching 3% of all STM articles published that year. Recognizing the success of this model, many other publishers (such as Nature, Springer, SAGE, BioONE, PeerJ, , BMJ, F1000 and so on) have launched similar journals and each of these publishers is seeing their megajournal grow in volume, month on month. In many ways, the growth of the megajournal has been one of the most visible successes of the open access movement. Dr Peter Binfield, who led PLOS ONE for 4 years until mid-2012 and left PLOS to co-found PeerJ, has experienced the megajournal both from within PLOS ONE, and from the point of view of starting an entirely new megajournal (PeerJ). In this keynote Peter shares some of his insights about megajournals, how they operate, how they can succeed, and whether or not this new category of journal will truly revolutionize the publishing landscape.

Speaker:

Pete has worked in the academic publishing world for almost 20 years. Since gaining a PhD in Optical Physics, he has held positions at Institute of Physics, Kluwer Academic, Springer, SAGE and most recently the Public Library of Science (PLOS). At PLOS he ran PLOS ONE, and developed it into the largest and most innovative journal in the world, publishing some 3% of the world’s literature at the time of his departure. During that time, he also championed the development of Article-Level Metrics and continues to advocate for this approach towards literature assessment.

Peter left PLOS to co-found Peer J Inc, alongside Jason Hoyt (previously of Mendeley). PeerJ, the journal, launched in Feb 2013 (with PeerJ PrePrints following in April 2013) and makes use of an Editorial Board of over 800 world class researchers, including 5 Nobel Laureates and several faculty from UBC. PeerJ provides researchers with a low cost lifetime membership (starting as low as $99) which gives them the lifetime rights to publish for free thereafter. PeerJ has been hailed as “a significant innovation” by Nature, and was named as one of the “Top 10 Tech Innovators or 2013 by the Chronicle of Higher Education” – the company aims to drive down the costs of open access publishing, whilst simultaneously raising the bar for innovation and functionality.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Binfield, P. (2012). Peer J: An open-access experiment. EDUCAUSE Review, 47(6), 104. [Link]

Binfield, P. (2014). PeerJ – more than just a publisher. Insights: The UKSG Journal, 27(1), 75-81. doi:10.1629/2048-7754.130. [Link]

Binfield, P. (2013). PeerJ — A case study in improving research collaboration at the journal level. Information Services & use, 33(3-4), 251-255. [Link]

Binfield, P., Graves, T., & Rolnik, Z. (2008). Publishing 101: The basics of academic publishing. The Serials Librarian, 54(1), 37-42. doi:10.1080/03615260801973414. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Learning Technology

Learning Through Literacy and Technology

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Joaquin Acevedo, Goldis Chami, Rowan Cockett, Colum Connolly, Jae-Yung Kwon – How Students Are Leading Open Access

January 9, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Open UBC Week. Students nationally and internationally are a major force in advocating for open access. Join five student leaders who will excite and inspire you about the impact of open access on your research and learning at UBC, Pecha Kucha style! Originally from the Japanese term chit chat, Pecha Kucha is a presentation style that allows each speaker 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each (total presentation time is 6 minutes and 40 seconds).

Speakers:

Joaquin Acevedo
Joaquin Acevedo is the Vice-President, Finance for the AMS/Student Society of UBC Vancouver. He is a third year student in the Faculty of Science, in the Cognitive Systems: Brain & Cognition program.

Goldis Chami
Goldis Chami is an Internal Medicine resident at the University of British Columbia. She has been actively involved in advocacy to promote an open access policy at UBC, and in open access initiatives more broadly. She sits on the steering committee of the Right to Research Coalition.

Rowan Cockett
Rowan Cockett designs open-access web-based tools for geoscience education that have been used for teaching and learning around the world. In his spare time, he is a PhD student researching large-scale numerical simulation and optimization in geophysics.

Colum Connolly
Colum Connolly is the Vice President Academic and External of the Graduate Student Society of UBC Vancouver. He is also a 4th year PhD candidate in the Department of Medical Genetics.

Jae-Yung Kwon
Jae-Yung Kwon is a registered nurse, an author, and a graduate student in the school of nursing at UBC. He is currently editor-in-chief of the UBC nursing student journal.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Shields, P., Rangarajan, N., & Stewart, L. (2012). Open access digital repository: Sharing student research with the world. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 18(1), 157-181. [Link]

Feldstein, A., Martin, M., Hudson, A., Warren, K., Hilton, J.,III, & Wiley, D. (2012). Open textbooks and increased student access and outcomes. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, (2). [Link]

Signor, L., & Moore, C. (2014). Open access in higher Education–Strategies for engaging diverse student cohorts. Open Praxis, 6(3), 305-313. doi:10.5944/openpraxis.6.3.132 [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Learning Technology

Learning Through Literacy and Technology

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Celebrate Science 2013 Making Science Fun

January 8, 2014

This year’s celebration of science took place in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. The featured scientist was Dr. Andrew Trites, Professor & Director, Marine Mammal Research Unit, Fisheries Centre at UBC whose research on pinnipeds (Steller sea lions, northern fur seals, and harbor seals) is designed to further the conservation and understanding of marine mammals. In 2007 as part of the Big Blue Project team, he unearthed a blue whale skeleton in PEI. This experience plus his driving passion to resolve conflicts between people and marine mammals are compelling. “I don’t know what questions will raise their heads tomorrow, that’s partly what makes this so interesting”. Find out more about this awesome scientist. A panel of BC science writers highlighted their works and talk about why they love science and how to make science fun for kids.

Featured BC Science Writers

Claire Eamer, author The World in Your Lunch Box, Lizards in the Sky, Spiked Scorpions and Walking Whales and more

Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone, hands-on science writers with over 70 science books including the Dirt Book, Kitchen Science, and Hockey Science

Carol McDougall, creator of Salmon Sky View

Lori Sherritt-Fleming, artist, aRYTHMetic poet

Ashley Spires, illustrator of Scary Science and Blinky the Space Cat books

Paul Zehr, writer of books using superheroes to improve scientific literacy, Becoming Batman and Inventing Iron Man.

Special Tribute to science educator, Gordon Gore and founder of the Big Little Science Center in Kamloops.

Select Articles and Books Available at UBC Library

Wilson, G. (1994). Researcher Andrew Trites takes fat measurement from captive sea lion pups at the Vancouver aquarium. Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library.

Bowles, E., & Trites, A. W. (2013). Faecal DNA amplification in pacific walruses (odobenus rosmarus divergens). Polar Biology, 36(5), 755-759. doi:10.1007/s00300-013-1296-6 [Link]

Benson, A., & Trites, A. (2002). Ecological effects of regime shifts in the Bering sea and Eastern North Pacific ocean. Fish and Fisheries, 3(2), 95-113. doi:10.1046/j.1467-2979.2002.00078.x [Link]

Trites, A. W. (1991). Does tagging and handling affect the growth of northern fur seal pups (callorhinus ursinus)? Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 48(12), 2436-2442. doi:10.1139/f91-285 [Link]

UBC Research Guides

Fisheries

Biology

Science Guides

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Izak Benbasat – HCI Research in the Context of E-Commerce

January 7, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by HCI@UBC. Given that an ecommerce web site is a company’s “window to the world”, customers interact directly with a number of information technology artifacts provided by the company (such as, product recommendation software, videos for product presentations) as well as entities within that company (such as, sales assistants) and other customers (such as, collaborative shopping) via information technology mediated channels. HCI design and evaluation in this specific context have two major components: 1) the first resembles traditional HCI work in that a customer has to interact with a computer interface to reach the online company, and 2) the second is about communication between the customer and the company that is necessary for trading to occur. The first type of interaction is designed to enhance customers’ efficiency, effectiveness and shopping enjoyment by providing high quality information technology-based services, and the second type of interaction, or more correctly communication, is intended to improve customers’ trust in online merchants, reduce their perceived risks of buying on the web, and increase their loyalty to web merchants and commitment to online shopping. We have conducted over 20 studies with my colleagues and graduate students over the last decade investigating a wide range of topics that included: how to improve product understanding on the web; how to provide services to customers via IT support; improving customers’ purchase quality via recommendation agent use, designing product recommendations agents that are trustworthy, and designing social interfaces to such agents; collaborative shopping; and reducing risk and deception in electronic commerce. The talk will provide a brief summary of these studies and their findings, and describe their practical implications for HCI designers and users of electronic commerce for improving the online shopping experiences of customers.

About the Speaker

Izak Benbasat is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and CANADA Research Chair in Information Technology Management at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada.

His current research interests include: investigating the methods for customer service provision on the Internet (business-to-consumer, business-to-business, and citizen-to-government); evaluating product recommendation agents used in electronic commerce to support consumers including those for social shopping networks; designing methods to help reduce risk and deception in electronic commerce; and safeguarding users’ privacy in social shopping networks. This work is supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the University of British Columbia Hampton Grants.

Select Articles Available at UBC

Benbasat, Izak, (2013). A contingency approach to investigating the effects of user-system interaction modes of online decision aids. Information systems research. 24 (3), pp.861 – 876. [Link]

Benbasat, Izak, (2013). Integrating service quality with system and information quality. Information systems research. 24 (3), pp.861 – 876. [Link]

UBC Resource Guides

Economics

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Mark Anielski – Towards an Economy of Genuine Happiness: Creating flourishing communities of wellbeing

January 7, 2014

Author of “The Economics of Happiness” and happiness economist Mark Anielski explores what makes communities in both Canada and abroad flourish and experience the most happiness. His research and consulting work in Canada, China and Tahiti evolved into what he calls Genuine Wealth, providing individuals, businesses and communities with a practical roadmap for achieving a balanced life that optimizes wealth, health and happiness. Mark believes that wellbeing will become the new bottom line of business and communities, and that progress will be measured in terms of genuine happiness. Mark Anielski is President and CEO of Anielski Management Inc. (AMI) located in Edmonton, Alberta. As an economist, he works with communities, businesses and governments to help them assess, measure and manage their genuine wealth – the things that matter most to well-being, quality of life and sustainability.

About the Speaker:

Mark Anielski is President and CEO of Anielski Management Inc. (AMI) located in Edmonton, Alberta. As an economist, he works with communities, businesses and governments to help them assess, measure and manage their genuine wealth – the things that matter most to well-being, quality of life and sustainability. Mark is the author of the best-selling book The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth, which was published by New Society Publishers in May 2007, with a second printing in 2009. In 2008 his book won two awards; the gold medal in the category of Consciousness Business Leadership at the Los Angeles Nautilus Book Awards and a bronze medal in the category of Economics at the Axiom Book Awards in New York. In January 2010, it was released in China. The Economics of Happiness provides a roadmap for building a new economy of well-being using Mark’s Genuine Wealth model to assess the resilience of human, social, natural, built and financial capital assets.

Alberta Venture magazine named Mr. Anielski as one of Alberta’s 50 most influential people of 2008. Mark is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta, School of Business and teaches a course in Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship. He is also a founding faculty member (sustainable economics) of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington, which was the first MBA program in the US dedicated to sustainable business practices and ethics.

Select Books Available at UBC

Anielski, Mark , (2007). The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth. 1st ed. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers. [Link]

UBC Resource Guides

Economics

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Student Leadership Conference 2014

January 6, 2014

January 11, 2014 at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

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Barbara Herrnstein Smith – Dis/Integration: On the New Interdisciplinarity

December 19, 2013

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the UBC Philosophy Department’s Stephen M. Straker Memorial Lecture. Professor Smith (Duke University) is a leading literary theorist and critic, and also a major contributor to Science and Technology Studies, bringing together insights from literary and critical theory with those from history and philosophy of science. Among her honours are visiting appointments at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the US National Humanities Center, and the Rockefeller Foundation Center at Bellagio. She is also the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Smith, B. H., & Ebrary Academic Complete (Canada) Subscription Collection. (2009). Natural reflections: Human cognition at the nexus of science and religion. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press. [Link]

Smith, B. H., & Ebrary Academic Complete (Canada) Subscription Collection. (2005). Scandalous knowledge: Science, truth and the human. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [Link]

Smith, B. H. (1997). Belief and resistance: Dynamics of contemporary intellectual controversy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Smith, B. H. (1988). Contingencies of value: Alternative perspectives for critical theory. London, Eng; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

UBC Library Research Guides

Philosophy

History of Science and Medicine

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