Guys, just wanted to let you know that my brother Steve just came out with a new app called Scrush!  It’s basically a Tinder concept for schools and Facebook events.  I helped design the GUI.  It’s currently live on the App Store and soon we’re going to have an Andriod version.  If you have an iPhone, download it and let me know what you think!  Maybe your suggestion will be used in the next version!  Thanks

When you are searching in a database, sometimes there is a checkbox you can use to limit your results to peer-reviewed journal articles. There is also sometimes an indication next to each article whether or not it came from a peer-reviewed journal. As a librarian, I’d like to say that these databases are entirely to be trusted in helping you filter out just those articles that came from peer-reviewed journals, but in truth I can’t say you can trust the databases 100% of the time.

Whenever I am trying to know for sure whether a publication is a peer-reviewed one, here’s how I figure it out: I go to the website of the publication itself and see if I can tell whether it’s a peer-reviewed scholarly journal or a magazine based on the info I can see on the publication’s own website. While I may not be able to read the articles on the website of the publication, I can probably find enough clues on the site to tell.

Here’s how I proceed:

• Google the name of the journal to see if I can find its home page on the web. Here are some for example:

Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology

Knowledge Management Research & Practice

KMWorld

• Sometimes right on the home page, it says that it is a magazine or a peer-reviewed journal. In other cases, it doesn’t, and you have to do some digging on the website to learn more.
• I look for a page on the site that is labelled something like “about” or “about us” to see if they tell me magazine or journal. For example, on the “About Us” page for KMWorld, they refer to it as a magazine.
• If there is no “about us” or “about page” I look for pages that are written to let prospective authors know about submission guidelines. These pages tend to be labeled with words like “instructions for authors” or “editorial guidelines” or “submission guidelines.” If the journal is peer-reviewed the guidelines for authors page will explicitly mention peer-review as part of the submission process. For example, on the website for Knowledge Management Research & Practice is an “Instructions for Authors” page that describes how peer review works at that journal.
• Sometimes a quick glance at the table of contents for a recent issue tells me all I need to know. If most of the articles in an issue have long page counts (5-6 pages at a minimum), then it is also likely a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. If all the articles are 1-2 pages, then it’s likely a magazine. If you look at the table of contents for the current issue of Knowledge Management Research & Practice you can see that many of the articles are very long, a indicator that this is likely a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.
• You can also search for the name of the publication in a special database the library subscribes to called Ulrichsweb. When you find a listing for the publication in the database, you can see whether or not it is “refereed,” as you can see in this example:

The due date for this assignment has been moved back to Tuesday, May 13, at the start of class.

It seems like some of you are having a hard time finding a book review from a magazine or newspaper that has much in the way of criticism of Shirky’s book. It’s often the case that book reviews in publications aimed for a mass audience tend to just give an overview of the book and not much in the way of criticism. But if you dig enough, you should find one eventually.

Regarding book reviews in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, keep in mind that book reviews there are not usually peer-reviewed (and that’s find for this assignment). The main articles in a scholarly journal are peer reviewed because they are trying to present the findings of some original research conducted by the article’s author. It makes sense that you’d want a community of experts to review articles like that. In a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, though, there are usually other kinds of articles that are only looked at by the editor of the journal (and probably a copyeditor who is checking grammar and spelling). These kinds of articles tend to be short–from a single paragraph in length to several pages at most–and typically are things like:

• editorials
• news announcements about a conference of scholars & researchers
• book reviews

The reasons why I want you to find a book review in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal are:

• so I know that you are able to identify a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
• so that you can find a review of Shirky that was written by someone who is more likely to be an expert on the topic than someone who wrote a review for a newspaper or magazine
• so that you can find a book review that will take more of an academic approach to Shirky’s book (a magazine or newspaper is written for a mass audience and may offer a more superficial reading or review)

As you look for two book reviews about Clay Shirky’s book, it is essential that the book reviews meet the following criteria:

• one review is from a magazine or newspaper
• the other review is from a peer-reviewed scholarly journal
• each review is more than a single paragraph long (if it is too short of a review, it is unlikely to have anything in it that you can respond to in the essay that you will be writing)
• each review must contain some criticism of Shirky or the book itself (if the book is just an overview of the ideas in the book, then it’s useless for this assignment)

The point of this assignment is not for you to summarize book reviews or to show me that you can find book reviews. Instead, the point is to find some criticisms that people have made of Shirky and his book and, in our own words, respond to those criticisms. Book reviews are a likely source for finding these kinds of criticisms of Shirky.

Here’s the lowdown on the quiz for next Tuesday, May 6:

• At the start of class, I will give each of you the same news article
• You read it and look for points of connection with the ideas in Clay Shirky’s book
• You write an essay (paragraphs, please, no random sentences or bulleted lists) for the rest of the class session in which you tell me about how the book connects up with the ideas in Clay Shirky’s book (if it helps, pretend that you are Clay Shirky when you read it and think about how he’d interpret the story)
• Your grade will be determined the quantity of ideas in Clay Shirky’s book that you can intelligently apply to your reading of the news article and the quality of your writing
• This is an open book exam. You may use Shirky’s book, your notes, our wiki, the web, anything you want with the obvious exception what your classmates are writing for this quiz.

The final exam on May 20 (3:30-5:30) will be run the same way.

The CUNY libraries have worked together to find funding for all CUNY students, faculty, and staff, to access the New York Times at nytimes.com for a full year. All you need to do is to go to this page and in the section for “Browse/Read NYTimes.com with an Academic Pass” follow the directions to start the registration process (you must use your cuny.edu email address when registering).

Please note that once registered you will be able to:

• read the New York Times at the nytimes.com site on any browser for 52 weeks from the date of your registration
• install and set up the New York Times smartphone app (this service won’t work on the tablet apps, though)

Tomorrow, in our first day of class back from spring break, we’ll have our first group presentation: team 1 will present on chapter 7. Next Tuesday, we’ll hear from teams 2 and 3, and the Thursday after that from teams 4,5, and 6.

I’ve clarified some details about the presentation on the course website. Specifically, when you add a page to the wiki for your chapter that details the sources that Shirky refers to, please make sure you are creating your own version of the source notes at the back of the book. Do not copy and paste Shirky’s notes but instead make your own citations in MLA style and make sure that you organize the list into categories: books, magazine articles, newspaper articles, peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles, non-peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles, blog posts, web pages, etc.

If you are uncertain about any part of this assignment, please contact me ASAP.

A post of mine from earlier in the week suggested that the library would be open it’s usual hours. I just learned yesterday that we’ll be closed a bit and not open our regular hours:

The Newman Library will be closed for periods of time during spring break to allow for repairs due to damage from last year’s water main break. The schedule below is based on estimates from the contractors. We may have to make adjustments if the work schedule requires. Please check the #Alert message at the top of the Library’s home page or the Twitter feed from CIOBARUCH for the latest status.

Monday 4/14: CLOSED

Tuesday 4/15: Open from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM ONLY

Wednesday 4/16: Open ONLY from 4:00 PM to 12:00 AM

Thursday 4/17: Open normal hours (7:00 AM to 12:00 AM)

Friday 4/18: Open normal hours (7:00 AM to 12:00 AM)

Please note that currently enrolled Baruch College students have access to the other CUNY libraries.

Via Newman Library News.

I’ll be around during spring break (although I make take a day or two off). If you’d like to email me or stop by my office, I’ll be here. The library will be open its regular 7 am to 12 midnight hours every day.

Enjoy your time off!

I’ve updated the assignments page on the course website with the new due date for homework #4 (by the start of class on May 8). I’ve also added all the details for the assignment.

We  won’t be meeting for class on April 10 (next Thursday). By the end of the day (April 10), I’d like you to have posted your thoughts about the Generation Like video that we watched part of in class today. For this assignment, you will need to watch the rest of the video on your own time.

I’d like to get from each of you a blog post of 2-3 paragraphs with your reactions to the trends and ideas expressed in the video. Here are some questions to consider as you compose your response:

•  who are the winners in all of this? who are the losers?
• is anyone being exploited?
• how aware do you think the teens are of what’s going on?

Please note that you don’t need to answer these specific questions. There are provided here to get you to think a bit more deeply about the video and engage your imagination.

If you’re interested, a complete transcript of the video can be found on the website for Generation Like.

Hi all,

On Thursday April 3rd there will be a fundraising event in the Multi-Purpose Room VC Building from 6 – 10pm. This fundraiser is in aid of a multi-class sustainable project which aims to help people re-think their relationship with food, food access and also bringing healthy organic produce to Baruch College and Corona, Queens. This project aims to fulfill its goal through the form of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) i.e. a farmers market setup for members of the CSA.

I would like to invite everyone to come out (pass the word) and support a really great  cause because education is the key to making a difference in how we think about what we put into our bodies. Besides there’s going to be really great food and a DJ….. what more can you ask for 🙂

Please see the attached flyer!

Food Fest Flyer1

In the Homework box on the Assignments page of the course website, I’ve added details about homework #3, which is due by the start of class on April 1.

I’ve pushed back the due dates for homework #3 and #4:

• Homework #3: was due March 25, now is due April 1
• Homework #4: was due on April 3, now is due on April 10

Details about these assignments to come soon.

Today, you should check your Baruch email account to look for an invite from PBworks to join a wiki that I set up for our class. PBworks is a website that lets you make your own wikis. We’ve got one now that will be all about the book we’re reading for class:

lib3040spring2014.pbworks.com

We’ll use this wiki for in-class activities from time to time as well as for a homework assignment and your group presentation. Details to come in class today.

I updated the Course Outline and Assignments pages on the course website with due dates for assignments. Here is a rundown on what I updated:

• Homework #2 is due on March 13
• Homework #3 is due on March 25 (details to come)
• Homework #4 is due on April 3 (details to come)
• Homework #5 is due on May 15
• Team 1 will do their chapter presentation on April 24
• Team 2 will do their chapter presentation on April 29
• Team 3 will do their chapter presentation on April 29
• Team 4 will do their chapter presentation on May 1
• Team 5 will do their chapter presentation on May 1
• Team 6 will do their chapter presentation on May 1

In reviewing the homework as it came in, I was a bit troubled with some of the work that was submitted. Because I want to make sure that everyone can master the basic skill of distinguishing between types of publications, I’m going to make a deal with you. Anyone who wants to revise what they submitted has until the beginning of class next Tuesday to do so. After class begins next Tuesday, I’ll grade what has been submitted. For those of you who submitted your work late for today (Thursday by 2:30 pm), I’ll be taking points off for being late and then grade what you have done by Tuesday.

I noticed that almost everyone made at least one mistake on the assignment by incorrectly identifying the type of source. Other people didn’t follow the instructions to have one of each kind:

• magazine article
• newspaper article
• peer-reviewed article from a scholarly journal
• book

Some folks didn’t include a sentence for an item telling me what kind of source it was or how it was connected to the ideas in Clay Shirky’s book.

Other folks had trouble with MLA-style citations. Here is advice you’ll want to look over and then keep in mind as you examine your citations:

• you don’t need to put the URL for where the article was if you found it in a database
• every initial letter in the title of a book or article should be in capitals (except for prepositions and conjunctions)
  • Incorrect
    • Doyle, William R. “The politics of public college tuition and state financial aid.” Journal Of Higher Education 83.5 (2012): 617-647. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
    • Shirky, Clay. Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008.
      • All words in the article title should be capitalized except for the prepositions (e.g., of) and conjunctions (e.g., and)
    • Doyle, William R. “The Politics Of Public College Tuition And State Financial Aid.” Journal Of Higher Education 83.5 (2012): 617-647. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
    • Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008
      • Prepositions (e.g., of) and conjunctions (e.g., and) should never be capitalized
  • Correct
    • Doyle, William R. “The Politics of Public College Tuition and State Financial Aid.” Journal Of Higher Education 83.5 (2012): 617-647. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
    • Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Print.
• if you found the text of an article in a database, then the name of that database must be mentioned in your citation (as is the case with the citation above for an article found in Academic Search Complete)
• book titles should always be in italics (this is true for your citations as well as for any sentences where you mention the title of a book) and never in quote marks

Here are some tips that may help with distinguishing between source types:

Peer-reviewed journal articles in scholarly journals

• they are long; if you’ve have found something that is under 5 pages, it is probably not a peer-reviewed article
• some articles in journals are longer than 5 pages (not by much) but aren’t peer-reviewed journal articles but instead write ups of conferences that people attended or are multi-authored articles where each author is engaged in a conversation with the others; a peer-reviewed article offers results on original research, not news
• a book review in a scholarly journal is not a peer-reviewed journal article

Magazine articles

• magazines are published on a weekly or monthly basis
• they usually have one-word names or names that are just a few words
• magazine articles can be anywhere from 1-20 pages, though they tend to average 2-3 pages
• some magazines that publish really long articles are scholarly in nature but the articles are not peer-reviewed (that’s something that only scholarly journals do)

Newspaper articles

• newspapers are usually published every day (so you browse of a list of issues for a newspaper, you’ll see a new issue for each day and if you browse a list of issues for a magazine you’ll see list of issues for each week or month)
• newspapers are connected to a city or town in some way (if you don’t see the name of a town or city in the newspaper, go to the website of the source you found to see if it really looks like a newspaper)
• to get a sense of what newspaper names look like, check out this list of newspapers that begin with the letter N (the website offers a directly of links to newspaper websites from around the world)

If you are uncertain about the source type you are dealing with, you can always go to the website for it, as that will offer details about the publication (look for an “about” or “about us” section). Once you see what other kinds of articles are published there, you can usually get a sense if what you are looking at is a magazine (because all the articles look like magazine articles) or a scholarly journal (because the website mentions how articles are peer-reviewed) or a newspaper (because the rest of the articles look like news articles).

There have been a number of great posts and comments on the blog so far. I’d like offer some suggestions and sources of inspiration if you haven’t done as much yet as you’re required to.

As you are writing your post, make sure you click the “Homework” category in the blog post if you want to get full credit for your work. Here are the posts where that “Homework” category  has been clicked. If you already published a post but forgot to do this, you can always edit/update the blog post (make sure you unclick the “Uncategorized” category, which is the one that is selected by default for all new posts).

When you are writing a new post, try to point us to something(s) online rather than just offering thoughts and opinions.

If you are short on ideas for blog posts, here are some places to get ideas about interesting topics:

• TechDirt. This group blog offers insights and news on topics related to the intersection of technology, information, policy, and law.
• ArsTechnica. Similar to TechDirt.
• New York Times. Check out these sections: Business and Technology

As of the morning of February 18, this is where we stand with participation on the homework assignment of writing blog posts and comments:

• Number of people who haven’t written any blog posts for homework: 13
• Number of people who haven’t written any comments on blog posts for homework: 16
• Number of people who haven’t done blog posts or comments: 11

By next Tuesday, I need to have everyone who hasn’t participated yet to have written a few blog posts and a few comments. Please remember that nearly a third of your final grade is based on your effort on the blog with these posts and comments.

The previously announced homework #1 (where you had to talk about the authority of Clay Shirky as an author) has been pushed back to become homework #2. I think I’d like to do more work with you about ideas of authority before we tackle the assignment.

If you go to the “Homework” box on the Assignments tab of the course website, you’ll now see what homework #1 now is. It’s still due on February 27. We’ll do work this week in class to help prepare you for this assignment.

I found a scarf with a print on it (jacquard?) near the front of the classroom. If you think it might be yours, please email me. I have it in my office.