Weekly Reader

I have serious computer envy; attending a campus technology meeting yesterday, two members had new HP Slate 500 Tablet PCs. Sure, they will be introducing tablets to compete with iPad later this year, but the Slate was getting rave reviews from both users. As a result, this week's wrap-up is a bit heavy on the technology, though there are library (Happy National Library Week!), and general interest items. 

Colleges Aren’t Keeping Up With Student Demand for Hybrid Programs,
Survey Suggests
"Students want hybrid programs that blend online and face-to-face experiences. But colleges don’t seem to be providing enough of them to meet the demand. That’s one message that emerges from the results of a national survey of more than 20,000 current and prospective adult students that were just released by Eduventures, a consulting firm." -- Marc Parry, Wired Campus, 4/14/11

Is Your Human Showing? Be Real and Be Credible
"A recent study conducted at Elizabethtown College, however, suggests that may not be entirely true. In order to examine the role of self-disclosure in perceived credibility, 120 students between the ages of 18 and 23 were split into three groups. Each group followed the tweeting of a supposed professor. One group saw only scholarly tweets, one group saw only social tweets and the last group saw a mix of the two. Each “professor” included the same number of tweets and hyperlinks. Students were asked to rate the credibility of the professor they followed based on the tweets they observed." -- Brains on Fire, Social Media Today, 4/14/11

Librarians: Masters of the Info Universe
"Librarians, information specialists, knowledge managers or whatever title a librarian might have -- their skills are in high demand. And, though you might not know it, they are everywhere. And so in their honor during National Library Week, we enjoy the following tidbits of information." -- Kerith Page McFadden, CNN Living, 4/12/11

YouTube Copyright Education (remix)
"Because copyright law can be complicated, education is critical to ensure that our users understand the rules and continue to play by them. That’s why today we’re releasing a new tutorial on copyright and a redesigned copyright help center. We’re also making two changes to our copyright process to be sure that our users understand the rules, and that users who abide by those rules can remain active on the site." -- Justin Green, YouTube Blog, 4/14/11

Why All the Fuss Over PhD Academic Librarians?
"While no one has called it Trzeciakgate yet, I can’t help but see some similarities between what’s happening now with his presentation at Penn State University and the whole Michael Gorman firestorm (then labeled “Gormangate”) of 2005. Are you too new to the profession to remember Gormangate? " -- Steven Bell, ACRLog, 4/13/11

Biola professor goes outside the box to explain imaginary numbers
"Right before April Fools Day, math students at Biola University in Southern California learned the difference between real and imaginary numbers from professor Matthew Weathers and his imaginary self, who appears in a YouTube video." -- Jenna Johnson, Campus Overload, 4/12/11

Pagination Comes to Google Docs
"Today, we’re doing another first for web browsers by adding a classic word processing feature—pagination, the ability to see visual pages on your screen. We’re also using pagination and some of Chrome’s capabilities to improve how printing works in Google Docs. Pagination is rolling out now and should be available to everyone by the end of the day." -- Luiz Pereira, Docs Blog, 4/12/11

7 Things You Should Know About the Modern Learning Commons
"The learning commons, sometimes called an “information commons,” has evolved from a combination library and computer lab into a full-service learning, research, and project space. As a place where students can meet, talk, study, and use “borrowed” equipment, the learning commons brings together the functions of libraries, labs, lounges, and seminar areas in a single community gathering place. The cost of a learning commons can be an obstacle, but for institutions that invest in a sophisticated learning commons, the new and expanded partnerships across disciplines facilitate and promote greater levels of collaboration. The commons invites students to devise their own approaches to their work and to transfer what they learn in one course to the work they do for another." -- John P. Lippencott, Stacey Greenwell, Educause, 4/11/11

Microsoft Shows Off Internet Explorer 10
"Just a scant four weeks after the launch of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft is back with the first platform preview of Internet Explorer 10. Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Internet Explorer, unveiled the new platform preview of IE10 at the ongoing Mix developer conference in Las Vegas."-- Scott Gilbertson, WebMonkey, 4/11/11

Taking a Closer Look at Open Peer Review
"Open peer review—which gives anyone who’s interested a chance to weigh in on scholarly content before it’s published—just got an institutional boost. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has given New York University Press and MediaCommons a $50,000 grant to take a closer look at open, or peer-to-peer (P2P), review, the press announced today. MediaCommons is a digital scholarly network hosted by the NYU Libraries and affiliated with the Institute for the Future of the Book." -- Jennifer Howard, Wired Campus, 4/11/11