202 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2023
    1. Introduction to Accessible Images

      This is an excellent site for instructional designers or anyone who creates content with inclusion in mind.

    1. It is also important to note that this positive evidence for low-income certificate-earners stands in con-trast to findings for other historically underserved groups; studies indicate that individuals of color and older individuals go on to stack credentials at lower rates and see smaller earnings gains relative to White individuals and younger individuals (Bohn and McConville, 2018; Bohn, Jackson and McConville, 2019; Daugherty et al., 2020; Daugherty and Anderson, 2021). Although we suspect many low-income individuals are also individuals of color, the findings suggest that there are inequities within stackable credential pipelines that might be more strongly tied to race, ethnicity, and age than to socioeconomic status. It is also possible that many low-income individuals never complete a first certificate and thus do not enter a stackable credential pathway

    2. Important note on Equity: The positive findings for credential-stacking among low-income individuals stand in contrast to findings for other historically underserved populations, such as older learners and individuals of color, which show some evidence indicating lower rates of stacking and lower returns from stacking relative to younger individuals and White individuals.

  2. Apr 2023
    1. The Medici effect is a concept that describes the way in which innovation arises from the intersection of different disciplines and ideas. The term was coined by author Frans Johansson in his book “The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation”. The Medici family of Renaissance-era Florence is used as an example of the way in which the intersection of different disciplines, such as art, science, and finance, led to a period of great innovation and cultural advancement. Similarly, Johansson argues that innovation today is more likely to occur when people from different backgrounds and disciplines come together to share ideas and collaborate. The Medici effect highlights the importance of diversity, curiosity, and creativity in driving innovation and problem-solving.

      Frans Johansson's "Medici effect" which describes innovation arriving from an admixture of diversity of people and their ideas sounds like a human-based mode of combinatorial creativity similar to that seen in the commonplace book/zettelkasten traditions. Instead of the communication occurring between a person and their notes or written work, the communication occurs between people.

      How is the information between these people crystalized? Some may be written, some may be in prototypes and final physical products, while some may simply be stored in the people themselves for sharing and re-sharing over time.

    1. Based on yesterday's discussion at Dan Allosso's Book Club, we don't include defense spending into the consumer price index for calculating inflation or other market indicators. What other things (communal goods) aren't included into these measures, but which potentially should be to take into account the balance of governmental spending versus individual spending. It seems unfair that individual sectors, particularly those like defense contracting which are capitalistic in nature, but which are living on governmental rent extraction, should be free from the vagaries of inflation?

      Throwing them into the basket may create broader stability for the broader system and act as a brake via feedback mechanisms which would push those corporations to work for the broader economic good, particularly when they're taking such a large piece of the overall pie.

      Similarly how might we adjust corporate tax rates with respect to the level of inflation to prevent corporate price gouging during times of inflation which seems to be seen in the current 2023 economic climate. Workers have seen some small gains in salary since the pandemic, but inflationary pressures have dramatically eaten into these taking the gains and then some back into corporate coffers. The FED can increase interest rates to effect some change, but this doesn't change corporate price gouging in any way, tax or other policies will be necessary to do this.

  3. Mar 2023
    1. authentic student-teacher relationships

      Social annotation and the "authentic," maybe horizontal, discussion is enables might be compared to the more hierarchical or vertical structure of a discussion forum: prompt and post.

    2. Center the lived experiences of student

      Annotation can do this simply by giving voice, but how that voice is shared is still part of how a teacher sets up an assignment. Are they asking for the student to share their experience, thinking, emotion, or simply answer a prompt?

    3. facilitators of learning2, knowledge creation, and meaningco-construction.

      Love this. It's really a different pedagogical model in many ways from traditional education structures. And it's good for ALL learners.

    1. Whose values do we put through the A.G.I.? Who decides what it will do and not do? These will be some of the highest-stakes decisions that we’ve had to make collectively as a society.’’

      A similar set of questions might be asked of our political system. At present, the oligopolic nature of our electoral system is heavily biasing our direction as a country.

      We're heavily underrepresented on a huge number of axes.

      How would we change our voting and representation systems to better represent us?

  4. Feb 2023
    1. "Physics, engineering and computer science fields are differentially attracting and retaining lower-achieving males, resulting in women being underrepresented in these majors but having higher demonstrated STEM competence and academic achievement," said Joseph R. Cimpian, lead researcher and associate professor of economics and education policy at NYU Steinhardt.

      This is specific to USA. I wonder if anyone has compared performance in Canada, especially in engineering. The difference in the approaches to accreditation suggest to me that this may not be as much a problem. That is, since getting a license is harder in the US, then it may be that many students study engineering but then don't go into engineering. I'd like to see the numbers for just engineering. I'd like to see corresponding numbers for Canadian engineering. And I'd also like to know the numbers for the subset of students that then actually go on to a career in engineering. I wonder if the effect will still be present, and what the Canadian numbers would show.

  5. Dec 2022
    1. same groups that are going to makethe scale happen can also perpetuate theinequities. We have to be asking the rightquestions with the right stakeholders toensure that we are not recreating anotherinequitable system that marginalizes thepeople we are trying to support

      Holly Custard of Strada

    2. Employer associations drive consistent skills languageacross job postings in their sectors
    3. L)earners can make themselves visible toemployers around the country and around theglobe by “opting in” to digital sector recruitingnetworks for internships, gigs, and full-time jobs

      What equity looks like

    4. Equity: When we close economic, resource, and opportunity gaps acrossthe learn-to-work ecosystem, and in turn, outcomes are not predictablebased on someone’s identities

      Context-specific definition of "equity"

    1. credentials need to be enhanced with additional data aboutindividual courses/modules a person has studied, together with the learning outcomes(skills/knowledge) obtained in each of those modules and other documentation of ability.Credentials should also be used to connect to evidence of achievement such as architecturalportfolios or coding projects. Wherever possible, credentials should refer to occupational standardsor sectoral competence frameworks to increase the ability to interpret them in a specific context

      Transparency is an equity issue. Adding common language and richer data on skills and competencies to credentials means: * More data about courses/module * Learning outcomes from those modules * Connect to evidence of achievement * Refer to occupational standards/competency frameworks

    2. Multiple initiatives have tried to make various kinds of social recommendations by issuingcredentials. However, up to this point they have worked better in closed social networks rather thanas open credentials due to the ability of social networks to tie a recommendation with the profile(and identity) of the recommender. There are also several nascent initiatives to create open linkeddata around which skills, credentials and issuers are valued by employers.

      Clearly, the LinkedIn recommendations use case is an example of one of these initiatives. It has not succeeded in creating strong social signals anchored in trust models. We are wise to consider what's missing from efforts like this. An even greater concern however, and one that I believe is an essential if we are to realize the transformative potential of digital credentials, is how to design social signals built on trust models that help all people. In a world long-governed by "it's not what you know, it's who you know," the social signals and trust models are overweighted in favor of people with connections to other people, organizations and brands that are all to some degree legacies of exclusionary and inequitable systems. We are likely to build new systems that perpetuate the same problems if we do not intentionally design them to function otherwise. For people (especially those from historically underserved populations) worthy of the recommendations but lacking in social connections, how do they access social recommendations built on trust models?

    1. The myth that this was caused by Craigslist or Google drives me bonkers. Throughout the 80s and 90s, private equity firms and hedge funds gobbled up local news enterprises to extract their real estate. They didn’t give a shit about journalism; they just wanted prime real estate that they could develop. And news organizations had it in the form of buildings in the middle of town. So financiers squeezed the news orgs until there was no money to be squeezed and then they hung them out to dry. There was no configuration in which local news was going to survive, no magical upwards trajectory of revenue based on advertising alone. If it weren’t for Craigslist and Google, the financiers would’ve squeezed these enterprises for a few more years, but the end state was always failure.

      danah boyd posits that journalism in the United States didn't fail as the result of Craigslist or Google, but because of hedge funds and investors acquiring them to strip out their valuable real estate.

  6. Nov 2022
    1. Productivity drops off 20% after female faculty members become parents

      This just means that they're measuring productivity incorrectly. If they worked out productivity per work hour, they'd likely find the drop in productivity was much less, if present at all.

    1. This includes candidates whose experience has been in a different industry, andwho may not use the appropriate terminology when describing their own skills or even be awarethat they would qualify for jobs in a separate industry even though they have all the skills required

      Helping earners appropriately articulate their own skills is an equity issue.

  7. Sep 2022
    1. We will also examine wealth inequality. This is analogous toincome inequality but is looking at the distribution of economic assets ratherthan income. Net worth refers to all of one’s assets minus all of one’s debts.Financial wealth is exactly the same but does not include the equity that onehas built up in a home.6

      compare with income inequality: https://hypothes.is/a/_JLGuj3HEe2dJFdOJRcvaQ

    1. The need for students to participate in the larger conversations around subject mattershelps writers creating more intellectual prose, but this becomes difficult in a “culture

      prone to naming winners and losers, rights and wrongs. You are in or out, hot or not, on the bus or off it. But academics seldom write in an all-or- nothing mode” (p. 26).

      Our culture is overly based on the framing of winners or losers and we don't leave any room for things which aren't a zero sum game. (See: Donald J. Trump's framing of his presidency.) We shouldn't approach academic writing or even schooling or pedagogy in general as a zero sum game. We need more space and variety for neurodiversity as teaching to the middle or even to the higher end is going to destroy the entire enterprise.


      Politics is not a zero sum game. Even the losers have human rights and deserve the ability to live their lives.

    1. Astructured approach to reading the primary literature creates a moreequitable learning environment when integrated into existingcoursework and learning activities.

      There doesn't seem to be any evidence in this paper to support this assertion.

  8. Aug 2022
    1. ReconfigBehSci. (2021, November 26). vaccine equity has been a disaster, but I do wonder whether the exclusive focus on donations does the US/EU comparison justice. The EU allowed the export of huge numbers of EU produced doses at a time when the US did not (and EU itself was struggling to meet demand). [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1464255575416520749

    1. In an academic article published in the Journal of Consumer Research, leading experts define inclusion as follows: “Inclusion refers to creating a culture that fosters belonging and incorporation of diverse groups and is usually operationalized as opposition to exclusion or marginalization.”2 This definition is chock-full of great terms to unpack, but one of the most essential is belonging.
  9. Jul 2022
    1. Their value lies intheir diversity - companies exploit the fact that thesepeople make different sense of the same phenomenaand therefore respond in diverse ways.

      Humans make sense of information in different ways and as a result respond to it and their environments in diverse manners, a fact from which companies can derive direct value.


      This idea is becoming more commonplace now, but here it is in print in 1994. Are there earlier versions of this in the literature?

  10. Jun 2022
    1. I’ve also learned, thanks to my doctoral training in sociology, that one must expand one’s personal problems into the structural, to recognize what’s rotten at the local level as an instantiation of the institutional. Our best public sociologists, like Tressie McMillan Cottom and Jess Calarco, do this exceptionally well.
  11. May 2022
  12. Apr 2022
    1. Even as he was critical of overabundance, Gesner exulted in it, seeking exhaustiveness in his accumulation of both themes and works from which others could choose according to their judgment and interests.

      Note here the presumed freedom to pick and choose based on interest and judgement. Who's judgement really? Book banning and religious battles would call to question which people got to exercise their own judgement.

  13. Mar 2022
    1. Refinement is a social process

      The idea that refinement is a social process is a powerful one, but it is limited by the society's power structures, scale, and access to the original material and least powerful person's ability to help refine it.

    2. There is a growing risk that advancing technology will widen the gap between rich and poor, and produce further disadvantages for poorly educated citizens.

      Nice that he takes this sort of inclusive approach so early in the evolution of the internet.

  14. Feb 2022
    1. But the coverage, as our editorial page later noted in 2018, “deplored the inhumanity of the perpetrators without ever really acknowledging the humanity of the victims” or the community terrorized by their brutal deaths. The ire was directed at the “poor, white trash” killers, as Mencken put it; there was no empathy for — or even real interest in — the Black victims.
    2. Pretending we were all the same never worked, because it ignored the fact that we’re not all given the same opportunities to succeed or fail on our merits; some are privileged, others are oppressed. Refusing to recognize that only prolonged difficult conversations and much-needed soul-searching, dooming more generations to repeat the cycle.
    1. First, consider who gets to make the rules. Tenured scholars who, as we’ve noted, are mostly white and male, largely make the rules that determine who else can join the tenured ranks. This involves what sociologists call “boundary work,” or the practice of a group setting rules to determine who is good enough to join. And as such, many of the rules established around tenure over the years work really well for white scholars, but don’t adequately capture the contributions of scholars of color.

      Boundary work is the practice of a group that sets the rules to determine who is and isn't good enough to join the group.

      Link to Groucho Marx quote, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

  15. Jan 2022
    1. The goal of an equity-focused research agenda is to use research to help ensure everyone, especially people from historically excluded and/or marginalized communities, has fair and equitable access to resources and opportunities, and the capacity to take advantage of those resources and opportunities.

      Exactly aligned with my own beliefs and values! How about you?

  16. Dec 2021
    1. A related risk is that the coverage will have gaps. California is a choice spot for installing chargers, but is anyone keen on investing in Nebraska?

      Again, the question of energy equity. What about infrastructure in the global south?

    2. Today’s mostly wealthy owners can often plug in their EV at home or at work. But many less-well-off EV drivers will not have a drive in front of their house or a space in the executive car park.

      One of the main questions we need to address in the energy transition is equity of access to the infrastructure that enables the transition.

  17. Nov 2021
    1. “You can’t close the digital divide with just pipes and wires,” Huffman said. “You have to also address the human side of the equation.”

      The Scandinavian countries, for that matter the European Union does not have the monopoly issue with Internet access, which in the U.S. turned into the battle for “net neutrality.” However, a related fight in the U.S., regrading digital inclusion, is much better and successfully fought in the Scandinavian countries by not only effectively establishing awareness, but by enabling relative digital equity in their countries, something, which Biden’s plan is just starting to aim

    2. “You can’t close the digital divide with just pipes and wires,” Huffman said. “You have to also address the human side of the equation.”

      the human side

    1. Increasing inequality

      Although remote work was not unfamiliar in the Netherlands (Bishop, 2020) and Dutch schools for social work already had gained some experience with online learning, the situation that arose was quite unfamiliar for most teachers and studen Less

      Increasing inequality

    1. The fact that these countries are still not on track to reach the 1.5⁰C per capita level by 2030, and have still not delivered the minimal commitment to mobilize $100bn per year in international climate finance by 2020, is a double indictment of their moral and legal failure in view of the equity principle at the heart of the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement.

      The facts reflect the truth that developed economies are essentially unwilling to cede their way of life. The people of these economies want to cling to their high carbon way of life.

    1. I created a social justice metaphor library to help explain concepts like why you can't just create a "level playing field" without acknowledging the economic impacts of history (see, even saying it like that is complicated).

      I love that Dave has started a list of these useful social justice metaphors.

      I got side tracked by the idea this morning and submitted a handful I could think of off the top of my head.

      • Baseball fence
      • Parable of the Polygons
      • Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

      I'm curious if there are any useful ones in the neurodiversity space? I feel like I need more of these myself.

    1. There’s a tendency to refer to people, or a person, as “diverse.” Even with the best intentions, referring to people this way feels a lot like euphemism for “outside the majority,” or “different from the dominant group.”
  18. Oct 2021
    1. Around 1700, the Virginia House of Burgesses declared:The Christian Servants in this country for the most part consists of the Worser Sort of the people of Europe. Andsince . . . such numbers of Irish and other Nations have been brought in of which a great many have been soldiers inthe late warrs that according to our present Circumstances we can hardly governe them and if they were fitted withArmes and had the Opertunity of meeting together by Musters we have just reason to fears they may rise upon us.It was a kind of class consciousness, a class fear. There were thingshappening in early Virginia, and in the other colonies, to warrant it

      This is a powerful example that class consciousness and class fears have driven the building of America since its inception.

      It's been built into our DNA and thus will be difficult to ever stamp out fully so that people will enjoy greater equality, equity, and freedom.

  19. Sep 2021
  20. Aug 2021
    1. we know the point of taxes is not actually to raise revenue, the point is to reduce consumption to decrease demand in the economy.

      This is a good general statement, but it ignores the fact that taxes on the "rich" also serve the function of recapturing wealth that has been acquired through rent-seeking behaviors. The bulk of income to those with the highest "earning" is actually unearned income resulting from rents.

  21. Jul 2021
    1. But in identity politics, equality refers to groups, not individuals, and demands action to redress disparate outcomes among groups—in other words, equity, which often amounts to new forms of discrimination. In practice, identity politics inverts the old hierarchy of power into a new one: bottom rail on top. The fixed lens of power makes true equality, based on common humanity, impossible.
  22. Jun 2021
    1. More points were awarded to candidates with master’s degrees and more years of experience in similar fields. While this approach seemed to provide a neutral method for evaluating candidates based on qualifications, it soon became apparent that the process, with its reliance on education and experience to the exclusion of other important qualities, was deeply flawed and created barriers to hiring talented, diverse candidates

      Historical inequity is fueled by historical practices. "The way we've always done it" can feel perfectly innocuous while at the same time actually be massively harmful. We know things aren't right, inquiry into what is wrong is our path to a more just world.

  23. May 2021
    1. Right now, fewer than half a dozen tech firms concentrate huge resources on a small number of global post-graduate AI programmes around the world. They directly and indirectly influence the training and content of those programmes, especially through access to data-sets. Compliance of senior academics is easy to gain, however they individually rationalise it.

      The dominant culture being in a position of power and wealth makes it far easier to direct the future to ensure that the dominate culture stays in power and wealth.

      How does one "break this wheel" of power?

    1. She reminded us of the challenging but extremely important truth that there are some things as instructors and even administrators that are absolutely within our control when it comes to improving equity

      I feel like many of us can relate to this! Equity is uncomfortable, it can be silencing. This reminds me of some Brene Brown (https://debbiedonsky.com/embracing-discomfort-in-equity-work-lessons-from-brene-brown-on-shame-triggers-from-an-anti-oppression-lens/) writings on diving into equitable work. Anti-oppression work requires people to feel deeply and sometimes uncomfortable - as long as they are learning from that discomfort.

    2. We need to first understand how systems of power and oppression influence how students experience college, engage with the learning process, and build knowledge before we can understand how to better assess their learning.

      Power and oppression exist in our interactions with students everyday in our instructor/student relationship. This is one of the many reasons I try to be aware and reflection on my privilege everyday in lessons, marking and conversations. Reflection on power and oppression is ongoing and we need to be mindful of this in our leadership positions.

  24. Apr 2021
    1. Darius Kazemi randomly tweets out pages from books in the Internet Archive as a means of creating discovery and serendipity.

      Library Futures, Jennie Rose Halperin @Library_futures @little_wow

      Idea of artificial scarcity being imposed on digital objects is a damaging thing for society.

      Ideas to explore:

      Libraries as a free resource could be reframed as a human right within a community.

      Librarians as local community tummelers around information.

      Joanne McNeill

  25. Feb 2021
    1. Between mass evictions, unemployment numbers soaring, unemployment benefits ending, there's a lot of people lucky to have any place to sleep. They're certainly not worrying about new clothes, or matching curtains, they're just trying to find any job and find any place to sleep, take care of their children, take care of their own mental health, etc. According to the social contract, they haven't earned the right to self-expression if they haven't even earned the right to a stable place to live.
    1. Wiley  

      Similar to CUP and IOP, Sage, and Springer Nature, many UK institutions have signed a contract to fund Wiley's publishing activities for four more years as a result of Plan S, regardless of how many authors accepted manuscripts (AAM) are openly available in repositories. This fact undermines the arguments made above by the STM Association about the rights retention strategy (RRS) undermining financial sustainability.

      Furthermore, the financial credit cap for the Wiley deal is operationally low, resulting in additional expenditure for institutions at the end of the calendar year when open access support funds are running low. This additional cost is not sustainable for many institutions and unintentionally creates inequitable access to no-additional-cost publishing.

    2. work against the shared objective of a more open and equitable scholarly ecosystem

      Again, it is not at all clear what is meant by this statement. Equity in academia is an incredibly important goal. This statement currently reads like unsubstantiated rhetoric. Libraries, Institutions and funders have found that the unintended consequences of deficient deals with publishers supported by their funds can include inequitable access to no-additional-cost publishing. However, the intention of the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) is to arm all authors with detailed knowledge of their rights to ensure they have the same minimum opportunity to widely disseminate their work. Furthermore, by providing a version of an output with a CC BY license there is greater equity around accessing the research and therefore greater opportunity to build on it for public benefit, making a more equitable environment for all. The version of record (VoR) remains important in this scenario, so more equitable access should not undermine the sustainability of journals and platforms which are valued.

    1. By focusing on the condition of the looking glass, Joyce suggests the artist does not start his work with a clean slate. Rather there is considerable baggage he or she must overcome. This baggage might include colonial conditions or biased assumptions. Form and context influence content.

      This seems a bit analogous to Peggy McIntosh's Backpack of White Privilege I was looking at yesterday.

      cf. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack' and 'Some Notes for Facilitators' | National SEED Project