2009 Archives

The Alt-MBA is:

The Alt-MBA program is a group of motivated and connected learners, leapers and agents of change who want to build better brains with other likeminded people from around the world. The group was originally inspired by the Alternative MBA program created by Seth Godin in December 2008.

A handful of applicants that were not selected to work with him in New York decided to launch their own version of the program. Two of the founding members put the idea out to the pool of unaccepted applicants on December 15th and since that time the group has grown to 100+ members (including Seth Godin).

Having read this, and Seth Godin's original offer I am thinking "I wonder how it might work here in New Zealand".

Recently there has been much debate on the future role of Business School. In the face of rise of corporate universities (Blass, 2005) and consulting firms doing high quality research (e.g. MckKinsey & Co), it is easy to imagine that Business Schools are under threat (Tinker, 2004). As typified by Mintzberg (2003) the problem arises because of the seeming lack of relevance in what Business Schools typically do.

In the face of a "I want it now" generation, something that sounds like an MBA and yet only takes 6 months, with credible mentors must be attractive (to some niche in the market). Much of what has been written has been directed at MBA and MBA-like education. However, one has to consider if the forces at work at that level might also be evident at undergraduate level (which, for the University of Auckland Business School, is the largest part of what it does). The simple answer seems to be yes, these forces are at work. The example I would give are the rumours about NZICA (The New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants); currently NZICA require accountants to do a four year degree followed by two years of professional training (on-the-job training, followed by PAS-Professional Accounting School--then assessed through PCE2--Professional Competence Exam 2). Back to the rumour: the change would move from this 4+2 model to a 3+3 model (i.e. a three-year degree and three years of professional training). No doubt such a move would make a noticeable dent in income stream for universities. Of course some universities or polytechnics would be better off; they do training/coaching for people undertaking PCE2, but overall one can imagine a nett decrease in revenue for the sector.

I'm sure if I spent some time looking I could find more evidence that undergraduate business education is under some threat. Given the vocational nature of much undergraduate business education, one shouldn't be surprised that some students/employers don't necessarily believe that three or four years at university is the only mechanism for delivering greater economic wealth.

References

Since moving to Zotero, I've found my 'work flow' to be much smoother. These few tips have made things even easier. I particularly find it useful when I've found a link to the full-text of an article, just to drag the link to the item in Zotero (and have Zotero auto-magically download into my library).

In writing my piece on referencing, I just Googled 'apa referencing' and here are the first page of search results.

I was surprised by the results. First, I used google.co.nz instead of google.com (I normally use the later), and secondly the University of Auckland's referencing resource Referen©ite didn't feature at all on the first page.

I see:

• www.waikato.ac.nz
• www.aut.ac.nz
• www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz
• library.ucol.ac.nz
• library.curtin.edu.au
• library.canterbury.ac.nz
• library.manukau.ac.nz
• www.southernoceansoftware.com
• owl.english.purdue.edu
• aut.ac.nz.libguides.com (again)

But there is no sign of Referen©cite. I wonder google doesn't refer to Referen©ite on the first page (that's a rhetorical question; I know how search engines rank sites).

As I look back at my last entry it occurs to me that I use two distinct approaches to citing and referencing ideas, works, etc. Specifically, I use a mixture of hyperlinks and APA referencing.

My habit seems to be that for non-academic works, I tend to use hyperlinks that go to appropriate sources. This seems consistent with normal practice of web-based publishing.

For scholarly works I follow APA conventions for citing and referencing. This seems more consistent with the academic expectations and practices. In acknowledgement of the fact this is electronic or web-based publishing I use COinS to ensure there is enough information so that programmes such as Zotero or LibX can scrape/find all the information they need to quickly locate an electronic copy/source of the document.

However, I feel mildly uneasy about this situation. Should I use only APA (albeit with COinS); afterall it does have citation styles for blogs etc? Or should I only use hyperlinks; after all, this is the web? For some things, such as blog entries, APA seems entirely sensible for paper-based writings. However, for this (and other e-media), APA feels out of place. I am use to clicking hyperlinks to take to "more information". I think I can live with the mixed method of referencing. At the end of the day, I do try and acknowledge my sources, and perhaps it doesn't matter what means I do that by, providing most people recognise that I am doing it; i.e., most people recognise the practices that I am using.

The Chronicle of Higher Education led me to an interesting article on learning styles by Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, and Bjork (2009).

The summary of the article outlines the idea of learning styles:

The term ''learning styles'' refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals' learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and/or what kind of mental activity they find most engaging or congenial (e.g., analysis versus listening), although assessment instruments are extremely diverse. The most common--but not the only--hypothesis about the instructional relevance of learning styles is the meshing hypothesis, according to which instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner (e.g., for a ''visual learner,'' emphasizing visual presentation of information).

The learning-styles view has acquired great influence within the education field, and is frequently encountered at levels ranging from kindergarten to graduate school. There is a thriving industry devoted to publishing learning-styles tests and guidebooks for teachers, and many organizations offer professional development workshops for teachers and educators built around the concept of learning styles.

The article, commissioned by Psychological Science in the Public Interest, goes on to question what evidence there is to support these type of practices; i.e., is there evidence that attending to learning styles has a material impact on learning?

I think my first exposure to the notion of learning styles was through Darl Kolb who gave me David Kolb's (1976) classic article to read. One take-away I had from that article was, that although we might have preferences (in our style of learning) it is generally a good thing to be able to draw on all the styles. In particular Kolb (1976, p. 30) says "When one perspective [learning style] comes to dominate others, learning effectiveness is reduced in the long run. From this we can conclude that the most effective learning systems are those that can tolerate differences in perspective". For Kolb (1976) and for Pashler et al., (2009) there is clear--if not undisputed evidence--that people have preferences as to how they learn. The question remains as to how much those preferences should be accommodated in the educational process; is learning ineffective, or less effective if learning styles are not taken into consideration?

Having considered the evidence the conclusion Pashler et al., (2009) draw is that, generally, the nature of the content should determine the style of learning adopted. For example, the Chronicle of Higher Education describes how learning about the structure of molecules is better for most students (independent of learning styles) by building ball-and-stick models. Even those students who have a preference for verbal learning will do better if taught in this kinesthetic manner (rather that catering to their preference). The Chronicle says "teachers should worry about matching their instruction to the content they are teaching. Some concepts are best taught through hands-on work, some are best taught through lectures, and some are best taught through group discussions".

The fallacy that the authors seem to uncover is the argument that "student X didn't do well because the teaching didn't accommodate their particular learning style". If the learning style matches the content (rather than the students preference) then usually the student will do better.

Returning to Kolb (David not Darl), the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that he says:

that the paper's bottom line is probably correct: There is no strong evidence that teachers should tailor their instruction to their students' particular learning styles. (Mr. Kolb has argued for many years that college students are better off if they choose a major that fits their learning style. But his advice to teachers is that they should lead their classes through a full "learning cycle," without regard to their students' particular styles.)

So whither learning styles? For me, it means that the content should determine the means of teaching.

References

For sometime, the Instructions to examiners and assessors has said the following about group projects:

2 Group Projects
a The inclusion of any group project as part of the contribution to the final coursework percentage in a course should be restricted to relevant fields at higher levels.
b Assessment should be on an individual basis, wherever possible.
c Assessment criteria should be established and project supervisory staff should be able to assess individual contributions to the project.
d Each group working on a project should be of a limited size and not exceed a membership of four.
e Where marks allocated for group projects are part of the final percentage, such marks should not normally constitute more than 20% of the total marks for the course.

The new (2010) instructions takes a very different tack, saying:

2 Group Projects
a Group projects may contribute to the final coursework percentage awarded in a course.
b Assessment should be based on a combination of a group mark for the completed work and an individual mark for contribution to the process. The individual mark may come from peer or peer-moderated self-assessment.
c Assessment criteria should be established and cover both the output of the group project and the process by which it is produced, including the contribution of individuals.
d Each group working on a project should be of a limited size and not normally exceed a membership of four.

These changes have been signalled for some time. However, I think it worthwhile to highlight a few features of the new policy. First, the prohibition on groups of over four members has been considerably softened. Secondly, the limits on the amount of marks that can be allocated to group assignments has been removed. Finally, the use of peer-review or self-review to moderate group marks has been formally recognised. Of course, the University has allowed such practices in the past; but only on a case-by-case basis. Now, these very useful pedagogical tools more 'usable' for teaching staff.

As one who has used many of these techniques in my teaching, I think this policy change is a "very good thing".

Lisa Callagher, Andrew Eberhard, and I have been wrestling with how we can do some of the mechanics of peer-review in a more systematic/automated manner so that students can get timely and accurate feedback on how their peers see their performance. I hope we can get some tools in place before I teach again next semester.

Here we tend to use nVivo for qualitative research/analysis. It's pretty robust, but the handling of PDF files leaves a lot to be desired. What nVivo seems to do is to convert the PDF into some sort of RTF-like format. Unfortunately the fidelity of the converted file isn't that good. In fact, it can be darn difficult to work with most converted files if they are anything more than plain-old-text.

The problem is so bad, and I am so keen to analyse/work with PDF files I'm thinking of changing to Atlas/ti. That programme handles PDF files in their native format ... there is no loss of fidelity when working with them.

What I can't decide is whether the learning curve/downtime is worth the change.

Sometimes, it is really necessary to display a complex formula; such as this:

I use MathTran to achieve this, rather than doing a complex server-side install of Latex. Then I can use a URL like the one below to dynamically display the equation above:

That reminds me, there is a Google API for doing charts on the fly. The simple example they give is:

Although much more complex graphs¹ are possible:

¹ Thanks to http://www.felipebarone.com/plot-function-google.php [now defunct] for this example.

Jo Badge talks a bit about her personal learning environment, and so I thought I'd draft out mine. I'm really web-centric and spend most of time 'in' Firefox (I sometimes think about switching to Chrome, but I'm hooked on Zotero).

I found it interesting to consider what is missing here ... there is no Powerpoint. I so rarely use 'slides'; often all I have is a single slide so students coming into class know they are in the right place. Increasingly, when I need slides I'm trying/learning to do them using Beamer. Having said that, for the odd complex set of ideas I do use MindManager in presentation mode to show how I see the connections between things.View image

Since writing this, I've come across Hull, Pettifer, and Kell (2008). They present an interesting figure, which seems to show how much I can actually do in Zotero (which is most of it).

Figure 4. A typical workflow for using a digital library representing a subset of the literature. Tasks represented by white nodes are normally performed exclusively by humans, while tasks shown in blue nodes can be performed wholly or partly by machines of some kind. The main problematic tasks that make digital libraries difficult to use for both machines and humans are ''GET'' (publication) and ''GET METADATA''. These are shown in bold and discussed further in the Identity Crisis section of this paper. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000204.g004

References

Jo Badge and Jon Scott have produced a very interesting paper entitled Dealing with plagiarism in the digital age.

In their concluding remarks, they argue that there is "little solid empirical evidence to show the effectiveness of these [plagiarism detection] tools in improving student practices". However, experience here is that the use of Turn It In makes a significant difference. I recall that a few years ago I did some pretty sound analysis of levels of plagiarism in MGMT 191/192 and in MGMT 101 and there was clear evidence of changes in behaviour ... as manifested in levels of plagiarism.

I do agree with Badge and Scott that the use of electronic detection tools are only a "first step" in addressing plagiarism. We (Lisa Callagher, Lynne Mitchelle, and I) developed a very good on-line tutorial (called AHA, Academic Honesty Assistance) that was used in MGMT 191/192 and MGMT 101 for many years. I think it was the combination of Turn It In and AHA that made the difference in the levels of plagiarism. Perhaps that is what Badge and Scott are meaning, it wasn't just the use of the detection tool that made the difference; it was the combination of factors.

As a something of an aside, Badge and Scott point out there is a CiteULike group of plagiarism articles. It contains many of the 'classics' to which I often refer, especially the Good practice guide from Oxford Brookes.

One blog I always find myself going back to is by Thomas Basbøll, who is the Resident Writing Consultant at Copenhagen Business School. He calls his blog Research as a second language.

I was promoted to mention it now as I was reading his article Free Time, Blank Pages, and other Catastrophes. As I hurtle/stumble towards the end of my thesis, I find myself wondering about the practices associated with "doing" a PhD. Here, at the University of Auckland Business, or at least in this part of the Business School, a thesis seems to be a largely individual exercise. And yet it doesn't have to be that way. A colleague has some theses from a renowned Swedish institution. The detailed structure of each PhD thesis is very similar to each other ... down to the number of paragraphs per section. Clearly there has to be a greater level of congruence between practices there than, say, where Saku Mantere did his thesis (which exhibits some lovely ideosyncracies).

It seems that I don't really understand the way that Movable Type handles styles and templates. I've (yet again) made a total mess of this site in the process of setting up my academic journalling.

No doubt this will take me sometime (over the weekend) to sort out ... but I might wait until after the 8th December 2009, when Movable Type version 5 comes out.

I do like the approach taken by the Ministry of Type. When I redo my own style sheet, I'll have to bear in mind some of the principles that are evident on that elegant site.

I've set up a new blog for those activities related to my academic life. This blog will continue, but the focus will be on less academically related items.

I found this place by accident, but others have known about it for some time. Great coffee (albeit organic). Nice atmosphere. I'll be back (especially as I've given up on Spicer's).

I had a nice trot around the Domain today with Winnie O'Grady . If Gmaps Pedometer is to be believed, we did about 4.5 Km.

I've just finished reading Cathy Davidson's blog entry on crowdsourcing grades and her reflective followup on grading.

Surprise, surprise, the doc says my blood pressure is now 110/75. It hasn't been that low for several years. The doc thinks that my BP isn't 'bad' but could be lower. Okay, says I; I think I can do that. Having lost 21Kg, I guess I just need to loose another 14 or so (to get to my target of 70Kg).

Fred (born 6 Oct 1997), gone but not forgotten.

• Fitting into a photocopier box (with Ginger and room to spare).
• Walking along the fence for the first time with question-mark tails, and wondering if they'll every come back.
• Chasing around in a circle after a stick.
• Being hit by a car, and wondering if he'll survive. He was so wet and bloody.
• Sleeping on the bed (and especially on top of Lisa)
• Laying on the couch back.
• Sitting in the window looking at the world.
• Catching some sun. He always knew where the heat was.
• Spending time (days) at Maureen's. She misses him too.
• Being very quiet and stealthy.
• Catching birds and rats. A skilled and efficient hunter (when he wanted to be).
• Catching worms (just the once), his (and Ginger's first catch).
• Making us worry; waiting for days for him to turn up (around Maureen's probably); but only in summer.
• Taking over Ginger's place in the letter tray.
• Sleeping on Lisa's in-progress quilts.
• Trotting across the grass; watching him from the living-room window.
• Splashing water all over the place when drinking; dewy droplets on his nose.
• The little scar by his eye.
• His black, black paws.
• His super fine fur that was almost un-combable.
• The funny little trill he would make when hungry.
• Standing on his rear legs, at the bench when food was being served.
• Eventually deciding that sitting on/with people was okay (only in the last eight months).
• Being a old gentleman, and climbing onto furniture, rather than jumping.

You're sadly (and fondly) missed Fred.

A few people have noticed that I have lost some weight, and that's true. I'm also getting a few questions about the how I did it ... so here it is.

I really only did did two things. First, I began tracking my weight daily on Physics Diet. Secondly, I everything that I ate through Live Strong (and in particular the Daily Plate function there). Putting my managerial hat on, I would say that we know "you get what you measure", and so I measured.

The background information that kept me on the straight and narrow came from John Walker's the hacker's diet

The result, so far, is I've lost about 20 Kg, and I think I have about another 10 - 15 Kg to go. That would put me bang in the middle of normal body mass index range for my height. Having said that, the people choice ideal weight for me would be about 77 Kg.

Anyway, the journey continues...

It's hard to believe that its been over two months since my post on A vision of students today . Well I have been somewhat pre-occupied with my thesis. Anyway, today I read Revisiting 'A Vision of Students Today' by Michael Wesch

It has re-invigorated me. I'm started to finalise my teaching outlines for MGMT 716, INTBUS 202, and BUSADMIN 768, and as I do so I am keen not to fall into the trap of making those classes high-tech information dumps.

No. What I hope to do is to help the students in my class to develop better judgement in the topics I am teaching (Extending software engineering, Foundations of strategy, and Strategic Management). In a practical sense, that means I have to find ways to connect those topics to real world concerns for the students. Only then, can I (and they) hope to break out of the "getting by" game can pervade students' experiences of University.

[Of course, there are big links here to my research topics, and in particular the notion of communities of practice]

I think for MGMT 716, Extending software engineering, the current structure of course will pretty much achieve those goals. Having students help real firms apply the Cambridge 'fast start' technology road mapping model, whilst working with senior management should be a recipe for success. Of course the devil is in the detail.

For INTBUS 202, Foundations of strategy, the move to Team-based learning has the potential to succeed in those goals. But, I need to spend a week or two sorting out the detailed structure--otherwise I'm likely to meet my first goal but not the second.

Probably, the biggest challenge (for me) is BUSADMIN 768. Traditionally, I would do this as a pure case course. However, I need to spend time considering how I connect it to the students real-world concerns. This is a similar problem to that with INTBUS 202--event though the teaching methodology is different (TBL vs. case-based teaching). Perhaps I should consider using TBL in both classes.

I was wondering if my students see the world in a similar way to these students ...

My host here at my writing retreat has two dogs, Katie and Lizzie. To get a break from writing I talk them for a little walk / jog. It's a little over 4Km there and back.

Does one need an academic brand that is independent from ones current institution? Some say yes. and it certainly shouldn't be like Facebook or LinkedIn.

Alas, I've yet to find a really good vehicle for maintaining my teaching portfolio. research portfolio, etc.

I've just moved to beta version 1.5 of Zotero. It was a trial.

1. My database wouldn't convert, so I had to upload it to their db repair tool.
2. Upgrading the Word add-in irrevocably changes your documents so you can't go back to 1.0. That isn't a problem in its self, but it looked as if the upgrade was hanging--it took 20 minutes to upgrade a 144 page, 220 reference document.
3. The sync option often gives errors ... but it always manages to sync in the end.

Now, all I have to do is figure out how to use webdav with Amazon's S3 to back up all my PDF files (Yes, I know I could use Jungle Disk, but I like my solutions more open source than that (generally)).

Anyway, it is working fine now and its nice to be able to share my bibliography.

Like many other people, I'm concerned about the recent changes in Facebook's terms of service. Especially, when I read how their terms of service compare

This is doubly true now that I've read the New Yorker article on the subject.

So, being unable to delete my Facebook account, I've:

• turned off as many "applications" as possible
• limited my visibility to others as much as possible
• deactivated my account

Facebook is dead to me, and hopefully, I'm dead to Facebook.

There is a really nice four minute presentation of the SCP framework at McKinsey.

Other enduring ideas can be found here.

All the enduring ideas aren't 'in place yet', but McKinsey are slowly rolling them out.

I've taken the plunge and moved to gmail for all my email. I've exported all my email, contacts, and calendar, and notes and then imported them into gmail.

For all my non university email addresses, I've set up forwarding so it goes straight to my gmail account. The IT wonks at the university are in the process of setting up the forwarding of their email to my gmail account. In the meantime I have a rule that moves my university email to gmail via imap folders. Once the proper redirection is in place, it will be interesting to see if my university email still gets processed by the University's spam filters (they just tag email as spam, allowing the recipient to decide what to do with it).

One little thing I have yet to solve has to do with filters. Gmail allows one to apply filters to messages (to label them, move them, delete them, etc). However, one can only match ordinary text (i.e. not the email message headers per se). Also, the "*" is a wild card. But the university tags spam with "***SPAM***".

Now ideally, I would like to filter messages that have "***SPAM***" in subject line. Alas, I can't (because of the wild cards). If I just match on "spam", then I also select messages where I'm writing about spam; e.g., "How much spam do you get". Maybe in the future gmail will allow one to match on email header information such as "X-Spam: yes".

But really, that is a minor thing. So far I am really impressed with gmail, and as I learn the shortcut keys I am even more impressed.

Previously, I kept all my email in a series of folders (e.g. 2001, 2002, 2003, ...). But with gmail I've found the search so fast an powerful that I've done away with those somewhat arbitrary categories.

Having downloaded my emails from gmail (so I can have a backup), how do I read them (in case gmail goes down).

We'll I've elected to use mutt, which is a nice piece of software based on the "Worse is better" principle. As the author of mutt says:

"All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less." -me, circa 1995

Most of the conifguration for mutt can be done through the .muttrc file. Mine is like this:

set mbox_type=Maildir
set folder="~/Gmail-archive"
set spoolfile="~/Gmail-archive"
set mbox="~/Gmail-archive"
set mask="!^\\.[^.]"
set record="+.Sent"
set postponed="+.Drafts"

set reply_regexp="^(((\*\*\*SPAM\*\*\*[ \t])|[rR][eE]:[ \t])*)+"

set pager_index_lines=9
color index brightgreen  default    ~p    # To me (personal)
color index yellow       default    ~N    # New
color index yellow       default    ~O    # Old
bind  pager   <up>     previous-line
bind  pager   <down>   next-line
bind  pager   <left>   exit
bind  pager   <right>  view-attachments
bind  attach  <left>   exit
bind  attach  <right>  view-attach
bind  index   <right>  display-message
macro index   <left>   "c?"
bind  browser <right>  select-entry
bind  browser <left>   exit

The little regex bit remove the ***SPAM*** heading from messages (that is attached by our mail system to suspect Spam) if I decide to reply to it. I.e., if a mail item is incorrectly classified I don't want the send to be bothered by the fact it was labeled as Spam.

I tend to keep all my email. In fact, I've been doing that since 1999.

The University of Auckland Business School uses Exchange and puts quotas on the amount of mail that each individual can store. Although, over the years, the size of the quota has increased, it isn't enough to allow me to keep all my email. So, I've been using a PST file to keep all my old mail (i.e., mail that isn't current for this year). That PST file is now over 3Gb (which I suppose isn't much in the scheme of things), but it is a constant source of worry to our IT folks.

I"ve often wondered how else I might store the messages, and I think I might put them all up on gmail. Although gmail is reliable, it isn't 100%, so if I do use it as my mail archive, I also want a separate backup.

Having looked around, I think I might use getmail to copy my email from gmail into a maildir

Roughly, I followed the instructions from George Donnelly

I tweaked a couple of things. My rcfile (getmail.gmail) looks like this:

[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3SSLRetriever
server = pop.gmail.com
username = myname@gmail.com
password = mypassword

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~/Gmail-archive/

[options]
# print messages about each action (verbose = 2)
# Other options:
# 0 prints only warnings and errors
# 1 prints messages about retrieving and deleting messages only
#verbose = 2
verbose = 2
received = false
delivered_to = false
message_log = ~/.getmail/gmail.log

Now all I need to do, is decide if I really want to upload my whole email archive to google ...