Jeffrey Young, Professors Give Mixed Reviews of Internet's Educational Impact, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 12, 2005 (accessible only to subscribers). A May 2004 survey by Steve Jones and Camille Johnson shows that a majority of professors believe the internet has improved their research, improved their teaching, and improved their communication with students, but degraded student performance. The survey results have been presented at conferences but not yet published.
Excerpt: 'The survey shows that most professors log plenty of hours in cyberspace. Forty percent of participants said they spent 20 or more hours each week online, while 60 percent said they were online 4 to 19 hours per week. The survey was conducted online, however, which could have skewed it toward tech-savvy professors....Browsing library stacks could soon be seen as old-fashioned. Most of the professors surveyed, 83 percent, said they spent less time in the library now than they did before they had Internet access. But professors said that online journals, e-mail lists, and other Internet tools had become critical for keeping up with news and research in their disciplines. Ninety-four percent said they allowed their students to cite Internet sources in their papers.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/08/2005 09:15:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
