When SCUP members were last surveyed, most used LinkedIn for professional networking and Facebook for personal networking. A new Facebook app might change that. We tried it, Branch Out. It's good enough that we think you should give it a try. As we "went to press" we learned of a second, similar app: In the Door, but haven't investigated it enough to say more than that it does not appear to be as fully fleshed out as Branch Out.

  

As one review of the app said:

We think building a career networking app on top of Facebook’s social network is actually brilliant because it taps into very real and vibrant connections within a social graph, not just the sometimes stale professional Rolodex stored in a LinkedIn profile.

So, we did it. It's basically another way to filter, sift, and experience Facebook data about your friends, all focused on their career profiles, no playful stuff. After a few, easy steps - very easy, maybe 15 seconds - we got what you see below.

The bells and whistles in this app are great, too. There is an activity feed that tells you when your friends make changes to their career profiles in Facebook, for example. How many companies, which, filterable, do you have friends at. Do those companies have jobs. It appears to be useful.

We think it will go wildly viral and can't imagine why Facebook is not already doing this within its own structure. It's worth the five minutes that it will take to become addicted to it. And I would take anyone's bet that the percentage of SCUPers using Facebook for business will go up a lot in the next year.

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This working paper is attracting interest for its examination of an area seen by many as difficult to examine: productivity (or not) and its causes. With the need for more productivity that is currently highlighted by federal and state governments, and by large philanthropies affiliated with higher education, this is a topic that promises to be in our top ten for the next few years.

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The entire 50-page document can be downloaded here (PDF). A discussion of it, titled "Unconventional Wisdom," can be found here. And a very nice blog post, titled "Cst-Effectiveness, or Cost?," examining the discussion of it can be found here. Its abstract reads:

Productivity in academic degrees granted by American colleges and universities is declining. While there is some evidence this is caused by an uncontrollable cost disease, we examine two additional explanations. First, few popular programs and strategies in higher education are cost-effective, and those that are may be underutilized. Second, a lack of rigorous evidence about both the costs and effects of higher education practices intersects with a lack of incentive to use cost-effectiveness as a way to guide decision-making. Rather than simply a cost disease, we argue that the problem is more a system disease—one that is partly curable.

Let us say first that SCUP is proud to note that the new president of the Arizona Board of Regents is Thomas K. Anderes, a long time SCUP member and leader who is currently the convener of SCUP's Resource and Budget Planning Academy.

The Lumina Foundation's Focus magazine for July 2010 (PDF) is focused on "The Productivity Push: System-Wide Reform Allows Arizona to Serve More Students." An excerpt:

Arizona is among a growing number of states that are expanding their capacity to graduate more students (see map, Pages 8 and 9). They’re doing this by spending money differently and by delivering education in new ways and in new places.

The plan Burnand shared with Cecilia that day — a joint initiative of the Maricopa Community College District and Arizona State University that jump-starts productivity even before a student sets foot in a college classroom — is but one piece of the statewide reform effort.

Once competitors for student minds — and public dollars — the schools in the state community college system and Arizona’s three four-year universities are now full-fledged partners. They’re working together to streamline transfer policies, expand student opportunity at “no-frills” regional educational centers, and keep costs down for both institutions and students — all in an effort to improve the system’s productivity and cre- ate new paths to learning.

The driving force behind this change is the 12-member Arizona Board of Regents, the panel that governs the state’s three research universities from its headquarters just a few miles from Alhambra High School. In a blunt comprehensive strategic plan released in 2008, the board called out Arizona for failing to keep pace with other states in the effort to recruit and retain low- income, first-generation and other 21st century students.

 

In this blog post at Inside Higher Ed, the author discusses using "bibliometrics" to measure the production and dissemination of knowledge. Kris Olds suggests that there exists a need to research "who the producers of these metrics are, how these firms and their inter-firm relations operate, and how they attempt to influence the nature of academic practice around the world." He also notes that a similar look needs to be taken at the firms which do the four main global ranking schemes.

Even though bibliometrics can be a problematic and fraught dimension of academic life, they are rapidly becoming an accepted dimension of the governance (broadly defined) of higher education and research. Bibliometrics are generating a diverse and increasingly deep impact regarding the governance process at a range of scales, from the individual (a key focus of the Nature special issue) through to the unit/department, the university, the discipline/field, the national, the regional, and the global.

Now while the development process of this “eco-system” is rapidly changing, and a plethora of innovations are occurring regarding how different disciplines/fields should or should not utilize bibliometrics to better understand the nature and impact of knowledge production and dissemination, it is interesting to stand back and think about the non-state actors producing, for profit, this form of technology that meshes remarkably well with our contemporary audit culture.

To access the original resource click on its title: "Measuring the Nature and Impact of Knowledge Production and Dissemination."

At Ohio State University, president E. Gordon Gee, and many faculty, want to rewrite the rules for tenure to essentially allow a dual track: Those who excel at research and those who excel at teaching. Scott Jaschik outlines the concept in Inside Higher Ed (lots of interesting comments):

[T]he key missing element to giving teaching and service a fair shot at equal consideration in promotions to full professor is measurement of impact, which is easier for research. He said that if good criteria could be developed, not only would teaching-related activities be rewarded, but so would research that has practical use.

"Measuring impact is always difficult, particularly when it comes to teaching and service," he said. "But it can be done if we focus on the significance of these activities as it extends beyond our own institution -- just as we expect such broad effects with traditional scholarship. Thus, indicators of impact on other institutions, recognition by professional associations, broad adoption of teaching materials (textbooks, software, etc.) by other institutions, evidence of effects on policy formulation and so on -- all these are appropriate independent indicators of effectiveness."

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Wow. Once every couple of years something comes along and demonstrates that a technical hurdle has been overcome and, as a result, the very latest in information technology has something pragmatically useful to offer, even to aging Boomers. Jott allows you to easily set up a Web-based account that then lets you dial a phone number and dictate a message into your land line or cell phone. Its voice transcription technology then translates what you said into text and sends either an email message or a text message, or both, to whoever you have designated—and it also sends a copy to you. Just the ability to send such messages to yourself can transform the way you take mental notes or set reminders for yourself. At the moment, at least, it's free.