Category: Princeton U

Bad Dream for Princeton Prez: Faculty May Want to Milk Their Own MOOC

Inside Higher Ed today points to an article in the Princeton University student newspaper in which it is reported that faculty there are interested in having their own MOOC rather than relying on Coursera (with which Princeton has an affiliation).

Members of the faculty discussed the possibility of creating a University-specific alternative to Coursera, as well as the proposed creation of a new committee to oversee the continuation of online courses, on Monday at the December faculty meeting. Philosophy professor Gideon Rosen noted that the University is free to explore options outside of Coursera in order to avoid conflicts of intellectual property, such as whether the material is owned by Coursera, the University or the professors teaching the courses…
“I must say that developing our own proprietary platform gives me nightmares,” University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 replied. Eisgruber currently sits on Coursera’s board of advisers…
Perhaps this advice would be helpful:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JmwAa2o3A0?feature=player_detailpage]

More Scrutiny of University Enterprise Tax Exempt Status

Pay up!

We have from time to time noted the potential tax problems of the UCLA Grand Hotel project.  More generally, there is growing scrutiny of commercial-type activity conducted by universities that claim tax exemptions. 

Inside Higher Ed today points to a court decision that questions Princeton’s tax exempt status.  It links to a local New Jersey newspaper:

A lawsuit that argues Princeton University violates the provisions of its tax-exempt status survived a university-led attempt to throw the case out Thursday. Plaintiffs in the case argue that, because Princeton is earning hundreds of millions of dollars in patent royalty income and is distributing some of that money to faculty, the school is deeply involved in commercial enterprise and isn’t entitled to its tax exemptions. The suit also takes aim at campus buildings that host extensive commercial activity, such as the Frist Campus Center and McCarter Theatre, which sells tickets to the general public for many events and performances…

Full story at http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2013/06/lawsuit_challenging_princeton_universitys_tax-exempt_status_wont_be_dismissed.html#incart_river_mercer

The Inside Higher Ed story is at http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/07/01/suit-challenges-princetons-tax-exempt-status 

The tax folks are thinking they are owed:

A cautionary note on MOOC missionaries

William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, is generally a proponent of online education as a potential cost saver.  But in Inside Higher Ed today, there is a profile of Bowen and his views and it includes the following cautionary note:

Bowen… takes the hype about MOOCs with a grain of salt. “Missionaries don’t particularly want their methods tested – they are missionaries after all,” he warned. The missionaries include MOOC providers, the media, administrators and business-minded higher education policymakers, Bowen writes. “There is a real danger that the media frenzy associated with MOOCs will lead some colleges and universities (and especially business-oriented members of their boards) to embrace too tightly the MOOC approach before it is adequately tested and found to be both sustainable and capable of delivering good learning outcomes for all kinds of students…”

Free Access to Academic Info Promoted

Many faculty have websites with access to recent papers they have written available for free – some published; some in working paper stage. The impression of yours truly is that journals seldom object, even if they hold copyrights and normally charge for access. Book publishers can be more resistant to free access, however, when it comes to chapters in books. In any case, as per below, there is a move in academe toward wider, free access.

Princeton U. Adopts Open-Access Policy (except)

September 29, 2011, Chronicle of Higher Ed (Wired Campus blog), Jennifer Howard

The movement to make research freely available got a high-profile boost this week with the news that Princeton University’s faculty has unanimously adopted an open-access policy. “The principle of open access is consistent with the fundamental purposes of scholarship,” said the faculty advisory committee that proposed the resolution. The decision puts the university in line with Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a growing number of other institutions with policies that encourage or require researchers to post open copies of their articles, usually in an institutional repository. Unpublished drafts, books, lecture notes, etc., are not included in the Princeton policy, which gives the university a “nonexclusive right” to make copies of its faculty’s scholarly journal articles publicly available.

…The new mandate permits professors to post copies of articles online in “not-for-a-fee venues,” including personal and university Web sites. The faculty advisory committee that recommended the policy said that it will keep faculty members “from giving away all their rights when they publish in a journal.”

…Career pressure on junior scholars as well as differences in publishing practices among disciplines”mean that some faculty are not in fact going to be in a position to comply with the new policy without asking for a waiver,” Ms. Trainer said. “And we know that.” She added that even faculty members likely to ask for waivers “understood that it was in the overall university’s best interests to have such a policy in place…

Full article at http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/princeton-u-adopts-open-access-policy/33450

Meanwhile, keep your website open so we can know what you are doing:

And there is so much to know! http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2011