[Dr.G.]

CubaMark touches upon a dangerous point in his posting re hot laptops, and I do NOT refer to the danger to reproduction. When he tried to access the British medical journal, The Lancet, he was seemingly denied access. More often, the "ownership" of academic journals is falling into the hands of publishers that want individuals and universities to pay for access. University libraries are increasingly cutting back on their budgets to purchase journal subscriptions. Now, while I support the use of e-journals to save the environment from chemically treated paper, I do not support restricted access to academic journals. I even ran for the editorship of the International Reading Association's e-journal Reading OnLine. The IRA has a membership of 300,000+ persons worldwide, but they maintain a free and open website. This might not worry many of you, but when the academic content in various areas is held in the hands of "for profit" publishers, the whole notion of academic research for the public good is lost. Thus, if I want to write an article and have it published in the Lancet, I lose the copyright to this article, and the likes of Macdoc might never be able to read this article.

It CAN happen here!!!!!!!!!

 

[RicktheChemist]

.

 

[Dr.G.]

RtC, there is the "catch". It IS less expensive to produce a website that has these journal articles, and it is easier to access these articles than in their published format. As well, some e-journals are far more comprehensive than a print journal. However, it is also easier to restrict my access to these online journals. In a university library, even though I might not be able to take these books out of the library, at least I can go in and read these articles. If I am blocked from access to a site, then this restricts the free and open exchange of ideas and knowledge, which is critical for a university to survive.

 

[CubaMark]

This is a troubling issue... at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, e-journals have become the standard. Paper copies? Forget it. I've personally subscribed to several of them.

The difficulties for me were apparent when I was asked to dig up an article that appeared in Monthly Review. The university had stopped receiving the hardcopy a few months earlier. No problem -just fire up the browser, and get an e-copy, right? Wrong. The e-edition of that month's issue did not include all of the articles available in the print version... possibly because, as Dr. G. noted, the author may not have wanted to surrender copyright (?).

Much as I despise killing trees for my education, I have to have my bimonthly issue of NACLA! http://www.nacla.org

M.

 

[Dr.G.]

CubaMark, academic freedom and copyright issues will the next battleground for many in the academic community. Many universities are getting profs to develop web courses and then "farming out" these courses to per-course sessionals. I have created six web courses, and sold the copyright to five of these courses. However, my courses are not the typical online text and test format, but rather a collation of short essays and ideas. It takes my online forum to tie all of these seemingly diverse pieces together. When my associate dean wanted to see if someone else would teach my web course, she went around and asked people to see if they wanted to teach this course. "What course?" was the most common reply. Thus, my personal connection with the course is the value added piece that makes the course actually happen. However, many profs are making stand alone web courses, that don't need a prof to undertake anything other than the initial construction of the course.

Mount Saint Vincent Univ. in Halifax has set up a masters program in literacy, which they offer here in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, they can't understand why I refuse to teach two of my literacy courses for them. Personally, I view this as a conflict of interest. Then they suggested that I teach the course and include their students along with MUN students. I did this one semester, and my enrollment soared to 37. Never again! Still, I feel badly that there are NL teachers being shut out of taking MUN courses because they chose to take an easier and weaker masters program (in my opinion).

 

[Dr.G.]

I just realized something on this site, even though I have used the function often. As I was editing my last post to clear up a spelling miscue, I realized that this function might be utilized in many ways. I might call Macdoc a "jerk" in a post. He then reads it and comments back that I am too a jerk. I then go back and edit my original post, and subsequently call him a genius. I then take offense at his calling me a jerk after I have just paid him a compliment. I guess this is why the UBC folks that created WebCT do not allow for editing unless you erase the entire post. Interesting...........................at least it is for me since I contend that the written word has the permanence that is not found in the immediacy of the spoken word.

 

[MacDoc]

CAN you edit a post after it's been sent??? I'd love to get off the worst spelling list due to just being careless and posting a comment too quickly.
Not sure I approve of the feature but it would mean cleaning up some comments for clarity.

BTW it would be nice to have a larger writing window Mr. Mayor....anyone seen hizhonor lately??



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[MacNutt]

I regularly edit my repiles after posting them on this forum. I seem to have a propensity for not hitting the shift key hard enough when I capitalise the beginning of a sentence and consequently end up with the diminutive lower case letter when I'd meant to hit the upper case.

Or...it could be because I type with my left pinky finger and my right index knuckle. (due a tragic nose-picking accident when I was a lad...don't ask).

I've even gone back in the next day and edited a spot or two on a particular post that didn't look quite right. With the reaction I've gotten from some of them, I think I should have deleted the whole darn thing sometimes.

I also agree with you about the size of the print window. I often don't spot spelling errors until after the post is up at ehMac.

 

[ehMax]

Still here... just in ultra busy mode again.

I'll see about larger posting windows when I do upgrade to new UBB. Should be out in about a month or less.