APA 6: Corrections Now Available

As software is released in versions, we've become accustomed to products improving after their release. The APA Publication Manual joins that tradition. Actually, it already was in the tradition: after the 5th edition was published, APA offered a list of corrections and then inserted the corrections in subsequent printings of the book. This year, the same is being promised for the 6th edition.

The list of corrections is available on the APA Style web site. The second printing (with corrections) of the book will be available to requesters after November 2 (for a limited time). Check out the APA web site for more information.

For a much more instructive (and entertaining) introduction to APA 6, read the APA Style Blog. If you scroll to October 8, you can learn more about the corrections to the text. But the real treasure is in the informal explanations of APA rules.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Lunch at IUPUI: Unofficial Report on California Higher Ed

At the speakers' luncheon today at IUPUI Assessment Institute, I sat with colleagues from UCLA, USC, and Southern Illinois U. The conversation was lively and also instructive. The UCLA person confirmed for us much of what we have assumed from news reports about public higher ed in California. Her brief report: students are paying 30% more for 10% less... and this is not a single year of belt-tightening in terms of furloughs. She, and her cohort at UCLA, expect rough years ahead. And they are prepared to see students give up on waiting to get into the system.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Expectations for Assessment: Still Growing

To gain a quick sense of the surveys utilized in higher ed today, check out the Tool Kit: Surveys web page of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment web site.

NILOA is a new (since 2008) site devoted to highlighting assesment of student learning outcomes in higher ed. It is supported by Lumina Foundation for Education, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and The Teagle Foundation. The project is housed at U of Illinois and Indiana U.

The project's purpose statement "Making Learning Outcomes Usable & Transparent" and its sheer existence make a statement about expectations for assessment in higher ed: still growing.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Civic Engagement: College Ranking

Civic engagement is the leading criterion for a ranking of colleges published by Westfield State College (Massachusetts). In a report called Saviors of Our Cities, the 2009 Survey of College & University Civic Partnerhips presents 25 institutions, as it has done since the survey's inception in 2006. Added in 2009, is the Honor Roll of an additional 116 institutions.

The more informal descriptor of the survey is 2009 Top 25 'Best Neighbor' Colleges & Universities. The survey grew out of scholarly research by Evan S. Dobelle, who now serves as President at Westfield State.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

List of Assessment Conferences

PACAT (the folks behind the ACATs) publishes a handy list of Assessment Conferences, with links to the conference home pages. What I like: SAIR's 2010 data appear the same week that SAIR 2009 wrapped up in Dallas (Tuesday!)

Of course, the credit for that goes to SAIR because conference organizers make entries at the web page for their upcoming meetings to be included.

I have no association with PACAT. I'm just a fan of their web page. And impressed that they bought a URL for the purpose!

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Del Mar's Dashboard

For a display of a smooth-running dashboard, check out Del Mar College's interactive charts on their Institutional Research and Effectiveness web site. The site also offers Statistical Profiles (mostly in PDF files) with convenient "new" icons for returning visitors. The site provides a nice history of assessment efforts at the College with many files and links.

Among the Statistical Profiles are course survey results. Small n courses (fewer than 5 students) are excluded and identities (such as faculty names) are omitted. Otherwise the results are complete and a sound example of transparency.

Del Mar is an Associate degree-granting institution located in Corpus Christi, Texas.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Clemson's Links to Colleges' Honor Policies

Not just plagiarism falls under the umbrella of academic dishonesty although that continues to be the hot topic for most investigations into campus culture of integrity. The proliferation of plagiarism checkers (mostly driving search engines of Google and just a few more) in the past couple of years has made electronic tools not only attractive but also near requirements, either embedded in learning management systems or available in web browsers.

Today, campus policy-makers are likely to be experts on plagiarism detection (and perhaps customers of several mainstream vendors, besides). To step out of that sub-topic and into the broader topic of academic integrity, a scan of university web sites brings perspective. Clemson University's Center for Academic Integrity is a rich resource for all the topics and a handy means to branch out to more than 50 of the Center's member institutions to see how campuses are addressing academic honesty. The comparison of honor codes and policies permits a close-up view of West Point's verbiage intended for cadets as well as policies of very large institutions and very small ones, publics and privates.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Web Resources from Intel

Intel's set of web sites for Education Programs and Resources includes a curriculum-rich set for Higher Education. But the fun stuff is at Free Teaching Tools and Resources. Your approach can be classroom or training room. Either way, you'll be rewarded.

Starting December 1, bloggers are required to disclose any relationship (or "material connections") with companies whose products the bloggers review. And bloggers must also substantiate or advise about claims about the products (such as, "results may vary"). The FTC is aiming to increase transparency on the web as well as other media. Such requirements demand compliance. But also invite humorous musings. Mine would be: (a) my only material connection with Intel is the money I've spent over the years on Intel Inside computers, (b) I would hate to have to substantiate "fun" in today's post although anyone who knows me would recognize the likelihood of me having had fun with the free teaching tools, and (c) will the FTC rule affect product placements in movies? (I like the new FTC rule, by the way.)

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Center for Language Education and Research

Resources for foreign language educators include evaluation and assessment projects from the web site CLEAR, Center for Language Education and Research. The "store" is a good starting point because it moves you quickly to the mostly free resources such as rich Internet applications (RIAs). For people in a hurry, go straight to the page with All Products.

CLEAR is a U.S. Department of Education Title VI Language Resource Center. Obviously, the emphasis on content is languages. The RIAs and other technology resources are for everyone, with user-friendly interfaces to support use of Flash word processors, game creators, mashup creators, etc. The talent behind the works: Michigan State University.

There are 15 Department of Ed language resource centers, accessible from another web page at Michigan.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Plagiarism Policies in Higher Ed

For an international perspective on plagiarism by students, see the JISC research report on how the matter is handled at higher ed institutions in the UK. An investigation into plagiarism policies uncovered 25 different penalties across 153 institutions. Common ground: 99% include the possibility of expulsion.

Similar range of penalties and policies exist in U.S. schools. Among the more informally written is this phrase from the Rutgers explanation of consequences: "University policy will kick in, regardless of the feelings of either the students or the instructor."

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Student Authentication: Resource within WCET

Higher ed has its horror stories on who can get an online degree. They range from the dog (whose owner mailed in the check) to the family who appeared at graduation to collect their, um, collective diploma because they had all worked together to accomplish the course work. Somewhere in between are the known and guessed-at scenarios of "farming out" a course or an assignment, maybe for pay or maybe just enlisting a friend or relative who's better at.... well, a Stats course might be a common choice.

Online instructors are not so suspicious. Most claim that they develop a sense of who their students are, especially if they teach in a program that permits repeated contact over several semesters. It's harder to accept the familiarity claim by instructors who meet students in a single class. (As an online adjunct, I am in this category. But when I was on regular faculty working in an online program, I also served as an advisor and taught several courses. In that setting, I felt very confident that I knew my students as well as their work.)

Being certain of an online student's identity is a hot topic for at least another year as institutions decide how to meet that expectation. A good guide to the topic is through WCET's web page on Academic Integrity and Student Authentication.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Supports from UConn: Assessment Primer

UConn publishes an extensive support for internal and external communities on its Assessment web site. The Assessment Primer provides a logical progression though the major concepts and graphics are interspersed in what is usually a text-heavy approach to learning about assessment. The illustrations are simple but drive home points such as how assessments flow from an institutional mission statement while presenting hierarchical relationships among Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes in an Outcomes Pyramid.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Tech Note: Online Edu Readiness

The Student Online Readiness Tool (SORT) is a self-assessment for student use before making the choice of taking online classes. The free access web site is sponsored by the University System of Georgia. Students are invited to take the self-quizzes in any order (and not necessarily in one sitting) to receive immediate feedback on their suitability for distance learning. While the content is standard, and the immediate scoring produces "profile" information with suggestions, the real power of all such screening tools is to place the issues before the prospective student. Just by being exposed to the concepts, students begin to make the self-assessment of how they will adapt to the online environment. Probably not a design decision, but one that occurred to me when exploring the site, is the requirement that the student actually click through a lot of radio buttons (much like they will find in a course's online quizzes and tests). If that's a time-consuming task, or a confusing one in terms of keeping track of the mouse focus on the buttons, students will tire of it and... self-select out of distance learning.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.