Per Reuters, SOPA won't address international piracy, could devastate Internet industries

Online Piracy is a problem, but SOPA would only address the issue in the U.S., it would not address international piracy. On the other hand, the effects of SOPA on the Internet industry could be devastating, according to Reuters video on SOPA
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/01/13/reuters-tv-online-piracy-war-hollywood-vs-silicon-v?videoId=228671511&videoChannel=117772

The DSM-5 and its Discontents

A controversy has arisen over the draft of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (called the DSM-5 for short). Of interest to the students and faculty in the Health Services Management Program as well as the Psychology Program, The DSM classifies mental disorders, its code numbers serving as a kind of numerical language between practitioners and insurance companies. A diagnosis classified in the DSM determines whether the insurance company will reimburse for medication.

The recent drafts of the DSM-5 have provoked a revolt among practitioners. David Elkins, professor emeritus at Pepperdine University and president of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, a division of the American Psychological Association, posted a petition online last October, which gathered over 3,000 signatures within three weeks. The the British Psychological Society posted an open letter to the DSM-5, detailing its objections. Allen Francis, the person who chaired the task force which produced the 4th edition of the DSM has compiled numerous blog posts documenting the reaction against the DSM-5 and voicing his objections to it in no uncertain terms. American Counseling Association president Don Locke wrote his own letter to the APA (link uncertain).

Critics of the draft contend that its new diagnoses will lead to over-medicating patients. For example, here's a quote from the British Psychological Society's letter: “clients and the general public are negatively affected by the continued and continuous medicalisation of their natural and normal responses to their experiences.”

You can read The American Psychiatric Association response to Dr. Locke's letter.

If you are interested in investigating this issue further please feel free to ask the librarians in the University Library for assistance.

Special report on Online Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education has release a special report on online education featuring two white papers on lecture capture plus 10 Faculty Perspectives on What Works in Lecture Capture.

Go to this link to download the white papers

The University Library has ordered a copy of the full report. Please call or e-mail us if you are interested in reading the report when it arrives.

New Features on PrivCo database

New features on PrivCo Database

Dan Gingert, Manager, Academic Subscriptions, for PrivCo, LLC
alerted us to new features on PrivCo Database. Excerpt from his e-mail of December 5, 2011 follows:


1. Data export to Excel: All of PrivCo's private company financial data tables, as well as search results, are now easily exported to Excel, making it very easy to analyze a private company's financial data, create graphs and tables in Excel, as well as to integrate PrivCo financial data into your own existing data sets.

2. Research reports available in PDF format: All PrivCo private company research reports and investor profiles are now available in PDF download format for cleaner viewing, printing, and PDF sharing with colleagues.

3. Added investment firm principles and direct contacts: We have added a list of key management with individual contact information to thousands of our investor profiles, from venture capital firms to angel investment groups to university business incubators.

4. Company revenue growth rates added: In addition to location, revenue size, and employee size, PrivCo has also added 1 and 3 year revenue growth rate as a criteria when conducting an advanced search of private companies, and for company-to-company analysis, comparison, and valuation.

Message from Dan Gingert, Manager, Academic Subscriptions, for PrivCo, LLC
PrivCo LLC

Wikipedia redactions

According to a news item in the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Wired Campus" Wikipedia has started removing not only content but also the history of that content ever having existed on the site. (Read What Wikipedia deletes, and why).

Two researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have completed a report redacted content during 2010 : What Wikipedia Deletes: Characterizing Dangerous Collaborative Content. (.PDF, 4 p.).

Wikipedia has had to resort to the same human-labor-intensive work that characterizes scholarly publications due to the libelous nature of the offending content, in addition to blatant violations of copyright law.

My favorite comment on the Chron's Wired Campus story: "Plagiarism in Wikipedia - Do not copy and paste stuff into the place that everyone copies and pastes from."

Gartner's 10 most strategic tech trends of 2012

In Tech Republic's Tech Sanity Check "Look out: The 10 rising tech trends of 2012," October 17, 2011, Jason Hiner alerted us to Gartner's list of the 10 most strategic tech trends of 2012:

1. Media tablets and beyond
2. Mobile-centric applications and interfaces
3. Contextual and social user experience
4. Internet of Things
5. App stores and marketplaces
6. Next-generation analytics
7. Big data
8. In-memory computing
9. Extreme low-energy servers
10. Cloud computing

Gartner analyst David Cearly explained how IT leaders should think about the “strategic technologies” on this list:

“A strategic technology is one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise during the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment or the risk of being late to adopt… Companies should use the list as a starting point and adjust based on their industry, unique business needs, technology adoption model, and other factors.”
Information and quote above is from
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/look-out-the-10-rising-tech-trends-of-2012/9470?tag=nl.e053, retrieved October 19, 2011

See also Gartner's Press Release, http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1826214

Higher education leads to fewer job losses, per OECD Education at a Glance 2011

Excerpt from OECD article re Education at a Glance 2011 begins:
"People with university degrees have suffered far fewer job losses during the global economic crisis than those who left school without qualifications, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance. Good education and skills are crucial to improving a person’s economic and social prospects.
Unemployment rates among university graduates stood at 4.4% on average across OECD countries in 2009. But people who did not complete high school faced unemployment rates of 11.5%, up from 8.7% the year before. This adds to the huge problem of youth unemployment that today exceeds 17% in the OECD area."

Excerpt above is from
http://www.oecd.org/document/21/0,3746,en_21571361_44315115_48651029_1_1_1_1,00.html, retrieved September 13, 2011


The full report is available via http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf
OECD (2011), Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2011-en
ISBN 978-92-64-11420-3 (print)
ISBN 978-92-64-11705-1 (PDF)

Inside Higher Ed Sep 13, 2011 alerted us to the annual OECD report.