By: Karen Cioffi,
on 5/29/2015
Yep. There’s another marketing term and strategy, crowdsourcing. It’s important not to confuse crowdsourcing with crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding your project through donations from people – a large number of people. Crowdsourcing does use lots of people, but to generate ideas, not funds. An article at CBSNews.com, explains, Despite the jargony name, crowdsourcing
By: DanP,
on 9/27/2014
The 400th Very Short Introduction, ‘Knowledge‘, was published this week. In order to celebrate this remarkable series, we asked various colleagues at Oxford University Press to explain why they love the VSIs:
* * * * *
“Why do I love the VSIs? They’re an easy, yet comprehensive way to learn about a topic. From general topics like Philosophy to more specific like Alexander the Great, I finish the book after a few trips on the train and I feel smarter. VSIs also help to quickly fill knowledge gaps that I may have–I never took a chemistry class in college but in just 150 pages, I can have a better understanding of physical chemistry should it ever come up during a trivia challenge. It’s true, VSIs give you the knowledge so you can lead your team to victory at your next pub trivia challenge.”
— Brian Hughes, Senior Platform Marketing Manager
* * * * *
“They’re very effective knowledge pills after taking which I feel so much better equipped for exploring new disciplines. Each ends with a very helpful bibliography section which is a great guide for getting more and more interested in the subject. They’re concise, authoritative and fun to read, and that’s precisely why I love them so much!”
— Anna Ready, Online Project Manager
* * * * *
“I love VSIs because it’s like talking to an expert who is approachable and personable, and doesn’t mind if it takes you a while to understand what they’re saying! They walk you through difficult ideas and concepts in an easily understandable way and you come away feeling like you have a deeper understanding of the topic, often wanting to find out more.”
— Hannah Charters, Senior Marketing Executive
* * * * *
“With the VSI series, you can expect to see a clear explanation of the subject matter presented in a consistent style.”
— Martin Buckmaster, Data Engineer
* * * * *
“A book is a gift. The precious gift of knowledge hard earned by humankind through generations of experience, deep contemplation and a bursts of single minded desire to push the very limits of curiosity. But I’m a postmodern man in a postmodern world; my attention span is wrecked and presented with all the information in the world at my fingertips the best I can manage is to look up pictures of cats. I don’t know what I need to know from what I don’t or even where to start. What I need is a starting point, a rock solid foundation of just what I need to know on the topic of my choice, enough to know if I want to know more, enough to light that old spark of curiosity and easily enough to win an argument down the pub. Not just the gift of knowledge, but the gift of time. That’s why I love VSIs.”
— Anonymous
* * * * *
“I love the VSIs because there is a never ending supply of interesting topics to learn more about. Whenever I found out I would be taking on the Religion & Theology list, I raided my neighbors cubicles for any religion-themed VSIs to read. Whenever I’m out of a book for the train ride home, I go next door to the VSI Marketing Manger’s cubicle, to see what new VSIs she has that I can borrow. They’re the perfect book to fit in your purse and go.”
— Alyssa Bender, Marketing Coordinator
* * * * *
“I told Mrs Dalloway’s this week that purchasing the VSIs from Oxford was just like printing money. They’re smaller than an electronic reading device and fit in my cargo shorts, I mean blazer pocket. I can’t wait for Translation: A Very Short Introduction.”
— George Carroll, Commissioning Rep from Great Northwest, USA
* * * * *
“I love the VSI series because it is so wonderfully wide-ranging. With almost any topic that comes to mind, if I wonder ‘is there a VSI to that?’, the answer is usually yes. It’s a great way to learn a little more about an area you’re already interested in, or as a first foray into one which is entirely new. Long live VSIs!”
— Simon Thomas, Oxford Dictionaries Marketing Executive
* * * * *
“VSIs allow me to sound like I know a lot more about a subject than I actually do, in a very short space of time. An essential cheat for job interviews, pub quizzes, dates etc.”
— Rachel Fenwick, Associate Marketing Manager
* * * * *
“I love the VSIs because they make such broad subjects immediately accessible. If you ever want to understand a subject in its entirety or fill in the gaps in your knowledge, the VSIs should always be your first port of call. From my University studies to my morning commute, the VSIs have, without fail, filled in the gaping holes in my knowledge and allowed me to converse with much smarter people about subjects I would never have previously understood. For that, I’m very grateful!”
— Daniel Parker, Social Media Executive
The post Why do you love the VSIs? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: DanP,
on 9/4/2014
Entry to the UK police force is changing. With Policing degrees are now available at over 20 universities and colleges across the UK – and the introduction of the direct entry scheme in a number of forces – fewer police officers are taking the traditional route into the force.
We spoke to officers, students, and course leaders to get their opinions on the relationship between theory and practice. Does a Policing degree make you a better officer?
On a personal level, a degree can help some students put their own career and practical training into context. Richard Honess had a “positive experience” in completing his Bachelor’s degree in Policing. “I now have a greater understanding of why we do what we do and the context of where our powers and policies originate; and why senior officers make the decisions they do. I have been able to merge my love of the job with my interest in science and scepticism with the development of ‘Evidence Based Policing’.”
“I have been bitten by the academic bug and I about to commence a Masters by Research in Policing, the ultimate in career development with a view to becoming a research ‘pracademic’!”
Experienced officers can also learn a thing or two. Darren Townsend operated as a Constable with 22 years’ service before deciding to take his degree. “The course opened my eyes completely around how policing worldwide operates, decision making processes especially in the wake of political interference, miscarriages of justice, [and] theory behind certain techniques of crime control.”
“In addition to all the operational aspects it has provided me with some fascinating ahandbook fro cademic reading which has generated an even greater interest in my chosen career which I believe will lead me to a greater professional performance and be far more open to opposing ideas, embrace positive change, and understand the difference academia and research can make to my already wide expanse of operational policing knowledge.”
However, some question whether academic study is really the best way to achieve the necessary skills. One contributor, who asked to remain anonymous, challenged the application of degrees in the field. “I personally do not possess a degree of any sort. My qualifications both within the police and previously in electrical engineering are more vocational. I have yet to see the benefit of policing degrees within policing and will be interested to see if, over time, they do improve policing. At lower levels of policing (up to inspector) I cannot foresee their worth: it is about communication and common sense at the front line.”
Paul Connor is series editor of the Blackstone’s Police Manuals and is a Police Training Consultant offering support for those sitting promotion exams. “Possession of a degree in any subject illustrates an ability to apply oneself and to learn but this does not equate an automatic right to pass every examination that follows in your life. This certainly applies to the OSPRE® Part I examination.”
“College of Policing research indicates that there is a correlation between the possession of a degree and success in OSPRE® Part I but a significant number of candidates without a degree pass the examination just as a significant number with a degree fail.”
The relationship between university research and its application in the field has also been put under scrutiny. Emma Williams is the Programme Director of the BSC Policing (In Service) degree at Canterbury Christ Church University. “Conversations about collaboration between universities and policing have never been so rife. Austerity and the need for resources to be used effectively have resulted in the College of Policing supporting the evidence based policing agenda and the commissioning of research by universities. Having spent eleven years in the Metropolitan Police as a senior researcher I am fully aware of some of the barriers that prevent research findings being fully implemented.”
“Officers can sense a loss of professional judgement when research further drives operational delivery and it can be seen as prescriptive and top down. Our degree programme fully encourages officers to use research and academic knowledge to assist them in their own decisions but to use it alongside their own experiential knowledge. Having knowledge of both the political and social context in which policing has developed and an understanding of theory and how it can assist them in their roles is in my opinion critical for this relationship to develop.”
The variance between theory and practice also raises questions about the structure of the degrees themselves. Susie Atherton previously worked on a police and PCSO training programme at De Montfort University. “It was very clear which were the ‘academic’ modules vs the ‘police training’. I do think there could have been better integration. We had to adapt and respond to their needs to make sure the academic modules did fit with their role, but this weakened their credibility as academic social science modules.”
“The new BA programmes promise employability through combining a three year policing studies degree with the Certificate in Knowledge of Policing. My worry is students who want to be police officers could leave after gaining the CKP, as undertaking this alongside 4 academic modules will be onerous and challenging. Students will perhaps question why they need to gain a full degree to get a job as a police officer, incurring 2 more years of fees, unless they wish to take advantage of direct entry. I am also aware of how valuable life experience, working in schools, military service and other roles are to the police service – transferable skills and knowledge about the world which cannot be gained doing a degree.”
“Fundamentally, if such programmes are to work, like any programme, they need proper investment, leadership and to respond to student feedback. Any weakness in these areas would jeopardise the continuation of programmes, but I do think policing programmes are vulnerable, simply because there are other options available”
The post Policing by the book appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/19/2014
Since debuting last month, the fan-made episode of "Sailor Moon," entitled "Moon Animate Make-Up!," has garnered over 1.2 million views. Cartoon Brew interviewed the organizer of the project, Kate Sullivan, to learn more about how the project was produced.
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By: Beth,
on 7/30/2014
Name: Leafsnap
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
Leafsnap has languished for years on my phone. The app represents the sort of big audacious online project that we as librarians need to know about. Merging geographic location with image recognition, it combines reports from the field to produce an interactive electronic guide.
For the end user, Leafsnap is designed to make a “best guess” about the species of a plant, based on an image of a leaf you upload or input through the camera. I hadn’t been able to use it before last week. It’s limitation? Spearheaded by the Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution, Leafsnap is crowd-sourced, and a caveat warns that the database best reflects the northeasten U.S. for the time being (though there is a U.K. version, too). When I heard someone speculating about the name of a specific tree while I was in Massachusetts, I was happy to put the tool to work.
One word on technique: I had better success when I photographed and cropped around a leaf beforehand, and you will need a “true white” background — the reverse side of an index card works fine. The app converts your image into an “x ray” of the leaf, queries the database and returns with a series of options, all of which contain Leafsnaps as well as more holistic images of matching plants.
Using the apps involves creating an account in Leafsnap’s user-driven botanical database to track your scanning and positive identifications. Inside the app, you’re creating your own log book, marking each species with a swipe, with a geographic distribution as well.
The process of collecting and marking specimens can be addictive; even your most tender-hearted teen will respect the do-no-harm approach to nature the app represents. Within the database, the specimens link to the Encyclopedia of Life, another ambitious, crowd-sourced online project, and there’s an integrated program designed to improve your recognition skills.
It only occurred to me after the fact that leafsnap enables a twenty-first century manifestation of the very nineteenth century impulse for classification among amateur botanists. For contrast, you can see a digitized version of Emily Dickinson’s old school herbarium here.
Leafsnap offers a fun, mobile way to involve the natural world in your summer STEM programming. And while the geographic scope of the database might seem to limit its utility, I’ve found that it works just fine beyond the specified region.
Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog’s App of the Week Archive.
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 2/15/2012
‘Charlotte’s Web’ tops the list of the 100 best books for kids (according to Scholastic’s Parent & Child magazine. Many of our favorites made the list, including the classics “Goodnight Moon” and “A Wrinkle In Time.” Did your... Read the rest of this post
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By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 3/1/2011
Maroon 5 is teaming with Coca-Cola (to crowdsource the band’s next song. In the 24 hours of March 22, the band will gather lyrics, riffs, and rhythms and whip them into a new track during a live session streamed online. The band’s... Read the rest of this post
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 2/10/2011
Fallen (Guitar) Hero (Activision pulls the plug on its "Guitar Hero" franchise, canceling the release of the sixth edition of the game. PSFK, via the Guardian, offers theories for why the billion-dollar franchise failed: selling out and lack of... Read the rest of this post
By: Lauren,
on 11/15/2010
Editor’s note: I love being right. I really, really love it. In July, I guessed that “refudiate” would be named Word of the Year, and TA-DAH! I was right. What Paul the Octopus was to the FIFA World Cup, I am to WOTY (may he rest in peace). But that’s enough about me because what’s really important is that…
has been named the New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2010 Word of the Year!
refudiate verb used loosely to mean “reject”: she called on them to refudiate the proposal to build a mosque.
[origin — blend of refute and repudiate]
Now, does that mean that “refudiate” has been added to the New Oxford American Dictionary? No it does not. Currently, there are no definite plans to include “refudiate” in the NOAD, the OED, or any of our other dictionaries. If you are interested in the most recent additions to the NOAD, you can read about them here. We have many dictionary programs, and each team of lexicographers carefully tracks the evolution of the English language. If a word becomes common enough (as did last year’s WOTY, unfriend), they will consider adding it to one (or several) of the dictionaries we publish. As for “refudiate,” well, I’m not yet sure that it will be includiated.
An unquestionable buzzword in 2010, the word refudiate instantly evokes the name of Sarah Palin, who tweeted her way into a flurry of media activity when she used the word in certain statements posted on Twitter. Critics pounced on Palin, lampooning what they saw as nonsensical vocabulary and speculating on whether she meant “refute” or “repudiate.”
From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used “refudiate,” we have concluded that neither “refute” nor “repudiate” seems consistently precise, and that “refudiate” more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of “reject.”
Although Palin is likely to be forever branded with the coinage of “refudiate,” she is by no means the first person to speak or write it—just as Warren G. Harding was not the first to use the word normalcy when he ran his 1920 presidential campaign under the slogan “A return to normalcy.” But Harding was a political celebrity, as Palin is now, and his critics spared no ridicule for his supposedly ignorant mangling of the correct word “normality.”
In alphabetical order, here are our top ten finalists for the 2010 Word of the Year selection:
By: Neil Gaiman,
on 11/4/2010
By: jeff,
on 5/12/2010
It’s an exciting time here at MJM Books… we have added another customizable kids’ book to our catalogue. It’s a coloring book entitled I’m An Artist and even if we do say so ourselves, it’s Fantastic. Check out the preview if you dare.
Our problem is: how do we let people know how fantastic it is? You, faithful reader, know how super-special-awesome we are so we’re asking you for ideas. How should we get the word out? There are no bad ideas, throw them out in the comment section or let us know what you think of the ideas we already have come up with.
Idea 1: Create giant t-shirts and give them to every city-smashing monster we know. Every time the news cameras capture another attack, free advertising!
Idea 2: Use a botnet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet of zombie computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_computer (see, this site is educational) to hack people’s computers, then upload the I’m an Artist http://mjmbooks.com/store/im-an-artist.html cover as their new wallpaper.
Idea 3: Select a fortune 500 web company, lets say Ebay.com. Become elected chairman of the board: pay each player $50. Then as chairman, insist that the company change its name to www.you-should-shop-at-mjmbooks-instead.com.
Idea 4: Use lasers to write logo on moon… permanently.
Idea 5: Hold a contest asking for video testimonials from satisfied readers and putting those testimonials on late night TV.
Idea 6: Send free printable PDFs of our new book with a small and cute MJM books watermark to every blogger we know and have them offer them to their readers.
Idea 7: Destroy the competition.
We’re pretty sure the last one is going to work…
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 9/16/2009
I have a friend who often hosts "Couch Surfers" here in San Francisco and has used the site while traveling as well. I remember chatting about it with him and asking that predictable question, "Is it safe?" Last night I saw the documentary Us Now,... Read the rest of this post
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By: Beth,
on 5/26/2009
Today I read a blog post about The Smithsonian crowdsourcing its vision on YouTube. As Beth Kanter writes on her blog:
The Smithsonian has opened the conversation up to the world and is inviting people to submit a one-minute video sharing their vision for the Institution’s future. The question they’re asking: Given the news ways of acquiring and sharing knowledge through technology: the internet, social networking, video sharing, and cell phones—where do you see the Smithsonian’s museums and websites going in the future? How can we make education more relevant to you in a digital age?
When I read that I first thought, “What a great idea.” Then I thought, “I wonder if any libraries are doing this?” Then I asked myself, “Isn’t this at least in part what teen librarians try to accomplish with youth participation? If so, are there differences between crowdsourcing and youth participation? Do we want to employ aspects of crowdsourcing into youth participation? Should we start to call youth participation crowdsourcing?”
As usual, I had a lot of questions. The difference I see between traditional youth participation and crowdsourcing is in the number of possible participants in each. Usually libraries that implement youth participation work with a finite number of teens on planning, implementing, and problem-solving. But, crowdsourcing is different in that the number of participants is open. As the Wikipedia article on crowdsourcing says, “Problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions.” (I love that phrase “open call for solutions.”)
Opening up teen services planning and implementation to crowdsourcing could have many benefits to the library and to the teens in the community. First, if this is an “open call for solutions” then it’s possible that the responses will be from a wide-variety of teens and not just those who are already using the library. Thereby making it possible for the library to better serve the entire teen community. Also, it’s likely that crowdsourcing will make it possible for more people in the community to know how the library is serving teens and what the library is trying to accomplish in order to meet the needs of teens successfully.
Social media is perfect for crowdsourcing. If you want to get started I have some ideas:
You can definitely crowdsource all aspects of planning and implementation of library services to teens. The ideas above include programming, space, and collection development. Once you start to think about it, you might come up with more ways to crowdsource your services. If you have some thoughts, add them to the comments.
