CIT 2008

TRACKS

Digital Scholarship Challenges and Opportunities

Our abilities to access, create, distribute, preserve content in digital formats is revolutionizing how we use and present scholarly content. This track is offered to discuss issues related to our ability to recognize, utilize and present authoritative research in digital formats. The “Web 2.0” boom has afforded us great opportunities to leverage digital assets and has challenged us to address and consider new forms of scholarly publication and dissemination. A wide variety of questions are raised as we seek implications for transfer of knowledge in digital formats both within the classroom and in our professional pursuits.

Examples of discussions on digital scholarship may include:

• How do we assure “authority” of digital content? As digital content is transmutable, does that negate or enhance acceptance as “scholarly”?
• Can “user created” digital content (blogs, wikis, forums, etc.) be scholarly?
• “Digitally born” vs “paper born” - Is one format more valid?
• Are digitally enabled algorithms such as citation cross-linking, “popularity” and reader weighting valid measurements of “authority”?
• What new opportunities are available for digital analysis of scholarly content (linguistic, numeric, data mining, etc.)?
• What are the issues related to permanency, storage, and archival concerns? And what are the roles and responsibilities of libraries and publishers?
• How might we retrofit an archaic paper-centric publishing paradigm?
• What new models can/should be developed to accommodate digital scholarship?
• How do we regard audio, visual and multimedia content in scholarship?
• What are the implications of copyright on digital scholarship? Should/could scholarship be free as in the Creative Commons model?
• What are the implications of digital scholarship in promotion and tenure deliberations?

New Modes of Knowledge Creation

The way in which new knowledge is created, consumed, and distributed has changed significantly over the last several years. Additionally, the involvement of individuals who were previously isolated from this creation process has shifted substantially. Web-based applications such as blogs, YouTube, iTunes, and Flickr have enabled users to quickly create, store and easily categorize media and content. Several Web 2.0 technologies such as social bookmarking and tagging simplify activities such as sharing, categorizing and rating information. These tools impact the ways in which information is delivered and shared, both in academic and social environments (e.g. MySpace and Facebook). This track is intended to explore many of the new modes for knowledge creation, the application of these tools to the classroom and other academic areas, and the implications of their use in teaching and learning.

Technology Deployment, Use, and Support: the Politics and Policies

Due to the tremendous growth in online learning over a relatively short period of time, campuses implemented procedures and policies as needed, but they have not necessarily become official policy, nor is it always clear where the responsibility lies for making, approving and enforcing the various grassroots policies that have sprung from necessity.

What policies does your campus have in place that address Strategic Plans, Future Vision or Quality Assurance? Is “policy” a controversial word for online learning on your campus? Who’s in charge of making policy? Who should be? How are policies documented and communicated? Examples of topics that may fit within this track:

• The Changing Face of Intellectual Property and Fair Use Strategic Plans
• 5-Year Plans
• IT and Digital Policy Design and Implementation
• Technology and Ethical Considerations
• Fighting Plagiarism in a Digital World
• Enrollment Control Issues and Policies in Distance Learning
• Quality Assurance Procedures
• End/Beginning of Semester Procedures and Storing of Data
• Online Student Service Policies and Practices for Distance Learning
• Faculty Union Panel – Issues of Course Load, Class Time, Faculty Teaching Time, and Other Campus Policy Initiatives

Discipline-Specific Technologies

Many new academic software products frequently appear on the market. Instructors and students alike benefit from knowing which ones are truly useful. If you have found and are using good software specifically designed for your area of expertise, this session is for you. Show how your chosen software enhances your teaching and your students’ learning experience. While you may wish to demonstrate or report on new products, your use of established software products in new ways will also be of great interest to your audience. Professors of all academic disciplines are encouraged to present and/or participate.

Teaching in a Virtual Space

The idea of using virtual worlds for education is not new, but recently there has been a great increase in interest by educators. In part, this is because there are more virtual worlds available, including open systems, like There, ActiveWorlds, and Neverwinter Nights, and closed systems, like Harvard University’s River City. Probably another reason for this increased interest is the widespread publicity surrounding one of these worlds, Second Life. This exposure, in combination with a management that is unusually supportive of education, has caused hundreds of colleges and thousands of faculty to join Second Life and explore what opportunities it offers for teaching and learning. This track invites presentations about educational experiences in Second Life and other virtual worlds as well as attempts to predict what techniques will be most effective in these environments.

Strategies for Teaching, Learning and Assessment

Sound pedagogical principles to reach the deepest level of student learning are at the core of what we do in Higher Education. This track will serve to reexamine our teaching and learning strategies, spanning from the traditional face-to-face classroom environment to the new digital/online learning environments.

This track will also engage us in integrating assessment strategies into our teaching. We will share those methods we use to assess our effectiveness and demonstrate that learning has occurred.

• Hybrid, Blended Pedagogy – Teaching Methods
• The Use of Humor in Teaching
• Active Learning Strategies and Student-Centered Learning in both the Online and Face-to-Face Learning Environments
• Learning Communities
• Learning Outcomes and Assessment
• Designing and Using Rubrics for Effective Assessment
• Pedagogy in the Asynchronous Learning Environment
• Faculty Development
• Faculty Mentoring
• Teaching the Millennial Generation
• Technology and Student Advisement
• Activities of Campus Centers for Teaching and Learning/Centers for Teaching and Learning with Technology

Developed by the SUNY FACT Advisory Council--June 2007