From the Sakai folk…

Call for Entries: 2013 Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award (TWSIA)

The Sakai Teaching and Learning community is seeking submissions for the annual Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award (TWSIA) competition. The award recognizes innovation and excellence in technology-supported teaching, academic collaboration, and student engagement. (See last year’s winners.)

Award categories include:

·         Higher Education: Face-to-face

·         Higher Education: Fully Online or Hybrid Course

·         Primary and Secondary Education (K-12)

·         Project Sites & Other Uses of Sakai

·         Portfolios

We look forward to entries from those using the Sakai CLE and those pioneering the Sakai OAE (Open Academic Environment).

This year, the selection process will consist of two phases:

Phase 1: Preliminary abstract submission (recommended but not required)
Opening Date:  Feb 11, 2013      Closing Deadline: March 1, 2013

Each applicant should submit a brief description of the innovative teaching method, practice or strategy to be considered for the final award. Instructions and an example of a well-written abstract are included in the submission form.

Applicants will receive feedback on abstracts by March 8, 2013.

Submitting an abstract is not required. However, the three questions on the abstract submission form will be required for all applicants as a part of the full application process. Those who submit a preliminary abstract may edit their responses prior to submitting the final application, in order to incorporate feedback from the judges.

The responses to these three items also will be used as part of the session description at the annual conference.

Phase 2:  Final submission (required of all applicants)
Opening Date: March 1, 2013     Closing Deadline: April 5, 2013

Each applicant will submit an in-depth description of the innovative teaching method, practice or strategy submitted and how it addresses the award criteria.

Resources for applicants

·         Award categories

·         How to get started

·         Award eligibility, criteria and rubric

·         Frequently asked questions

Winners will be announced no later than April 19, 2013 and recognized at the Apereo (previously Jasig-Sakai) Conference in San Diego, California, June 3 -6, 2013.
Registration and travel expenses may be available for award winners.
Contact: Salwa Khan,  sk16@txstate.edu  Texas State University, TWSIA Committee Chair

Sam Kome (R&D Librarian) and John McDonald (CUC CIO) kindly let me know about the Amazon Education Grant Program, under which educators, researchers and students can be granted free usage credits on Amazon Web Services “to tap into the on-demand infrastructure of the Amazon Web Services cloud to teach advanced courses, tackle research endeavors, and explore new projects – tasks that previously would have required expensive up-front and ongoing investments in infrastructure”.

So if you’re feeling the need for a server, take a look into this.  I’d be very interested in learning about your experience.

FAQ is at https://aws.amazon.com/education/faqs/

The Cambridge digital library posted more than 4,000 pages from its collection of Sir Isaac Newton’s papers this week. The collection includes his college notebooks and the “waste book” where he developed much of his work on calculus.

Read more in the Chronicle

Visit The Cambridge Digital Library site

Posted by Prof Willard McCarty, King’s College London on the humanist listserv:

March 2012 sees the launch of a major new publishing initiative from Oxford University Press – Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO) – the first phase publishing online the complete text of more than 150 scholarly editions of material written between 1485 and 1660. Oxford Scholarly Editions Online will provide an interlinked collection of authoritative Oxford editions of major works from the humanities. This content constitutes the cornerstone of research in the fields of English Literature, as well as Philosophy, History, and Religion.

 Each title within the collection presents the full text of the work,  as established by an authoritative editor, accompanied by the  editor’s record of important variations in that text, and  interpretative and explanatory notes. Most also have introductions placing the work and the author in a historical context, and  explaining the editorial principles and the history of the text.  Online publication of these essential scholarly resources facilitates  navigation within and between editions, whilst retaining the  traditional elements familiar to users of the printed editions. The more flexible online presentation opens up new possibilities for search and comparison.

For more see www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com.

The following note came through on one of the mailing lists…

Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2011 16:01:07 +0100 

From: National Academies Press <NationalAcademiesPress@nas.edu>

Subject: All PDF Books Free to Download

As of June 2, 2011, all PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press (NAP) will be downloadable free of charge to anyone. This includes our current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports published by NAP (www.www.nap.edu).* Free access to our online content supports the mission of NAP–publisher for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council–to improve government decision making and public policy, increase public education and understanding, and promote the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in matters involving science, engineering, technology, and health. In 1994, we began offering free content online. Before today’s announcement, all PDFs were free to download in developing countries, and 65 percent of them were available for free to any user. Like no other organization, the National Academies can enlist the nation’s foremost scientists, engineers, health professionals, and other experts to address the scientific and technical aspects of society’s most pressing problems through the authoritative and independent reports published by NAP…. Sign up now. It’s quick, easy, and free.

Sincerely,

Barbara Kline Pope

Executive Director for Communications and The National Academies Press

*There are a small number of reports that never had PDF files and, therefore, are not available for download. In addition, part of the “Nutrient Requirements of Domestic Animals” series is not available in PDF. Future titles in this series will also not have PDFs associated with them.

In November 2010, CUC provided the Presidents’ Council with a comprehensive report on Payroll software options.  It was a part of my holiday reading in December.  The report summarizes options available to the Consortium and recommends the adoption of Ultipro by Ultimate Software.  Ultipro is delivered in a SaaS (“software as a service”) model, so it is not run on servers housed locally.

In January the Presidents’ Council approved the recommendation, with a target “go live” date of 1/1/2012.  Taxes are an important part of payroll software, so it is a good idea to go live at the start of a calendar year.

The new software will allow for a significant amount of self-service via the web for employees and managers. Many of our paper based processes will be replaced.  Moreover, benefits (currently Aliquant) and time reporting (currently eTime) will be integrated in the new system.   Based on everything I’ve heard from users, this is all good news!

The report is available upon request by contacting Ken Pifer, CUC VP/Treasurer, at 909-607-0809

Fascinating article in the Chronicle (http://chronicle.com/article/Facebook-of-Science-Seeks-to/126087/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en) about Vitek Tracz, who founded Biomed Central publications (and sold it to Springer).  His latest idea:

Now, the man described by his colleagues as one of the most innovative and mercurial forces in publishing wants to reinvent the basics of scholarly communication. Mr. Tracz plans to turn his latest Internet experiment, a large network of leading scientists called the Faculty of 1000, into what some call “the Facebook of science” and a force that will change the nature of peer review. His vision is to transform papers from one-shot events owned by publishers into evolving discussions among those researchers, authors, and readers.

What do you think about this?

Another interesting post from a listserv:

The American Council of Learned Societies invites application for the
sixth annual competition of the Digital Innovation Fellowships.

This program supports digitally based research projects in all
disciplines of the humanities and humanities-related social sciences.
It is hoped that projects of successful applicants will help advance
digital humanistic scholarship by broadening understanding of its nature
and exemplifying the robust infrastructure necessary for creating such
works.

ACLS will award up to six ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowships in this
competition year, including one project on which two scholars are
collaborating.

Stipends up to $60,000
Project costs up to $25,000

Deadline: September 29, 2010.

For more information visit: http://www.acls.org/programs/digital/

During the 2009-10 cycle, ACLS awarded over $15 million to more than 380
scholars based in the US and abroad working in the humanities and
related social sciences.  Visit the Fellows & Research section to view
recent awardee http://www.acls.org/research/digital.aspx?id=798
listings and profiles.

American Council of Learned Societies
633 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
fellowships@acls.org<mailto:fellowships@acls.org>
__________________________________
Steven C. Wheatley
Vice President
American Council of Learned Societies
633 Third Avenue
New York, New York 10017-6795
tel:  212 697 1505, ext. 128  fax: 212 949 8058
swheatley@acls.org<mailto:swheatley@acls.org>
www.acls.org http://www.acls.org

I thought this was a very interesting announcement.  It came through on a Digital Humanities list.

The Bentham Project at UCL seeks the assistance of willing participants
in an initiative to transcribe the manuscripts of philosopher and
reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).

Today sees the launch of the Transcribe Bentham Transcription Desk, an
online tool designed to harness the efforts of all Bentham fans –
whether schoolchildren, history enthusiasts, academics or armchair
philosophers – to bring his work into the digital age and the world at
large.

The Transcription Desk allows participants to transcribe material from
facsimile images of Bentham’s previously unpublished manuscripts. The
resulting transcripts will be included in a freely-accessible database
of Bentham’s Manuscripts at UCL, and will assist in the preparation of
future printed volumes of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham at the
Bentham Project.

For further information on Transcribe Bentham, visit:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/
To start transcribing, visit the Transcription Desk:
http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/

Transcribe Bentham is a joint initiative of the Bentham Project, UCL
Centre for Digital Humanities, University of London Computer Centre, and
UCL Library Services, and is supported by the AHRC.

– Dr Justin Tonra Research Associate, Bentham Project University College London +44 (0)20 7679 3607