Getting Plugins for Ardour

More on the open source audio journey: The Ardour multi-track software does not come with any effects. There are several different effects packages that can be downloaded for free. I'm trying to use one called SWH that has a range of EQs and reverbs. I'm really falling back on my old Unix skills here. There's no installer, per se, for SWH, so it requires using the Linux terminal and compiling the plugins from scratch.

The package does not want to compile, however, because FFTW3 is missing. Hmm. Back to Ubuntu software center and FFTW3 seems to be installed. Ah, but we need the developer version in order to have fftw3.h and other goodies. Back to Ubuntu software center and install libfftw3-dev. Voila, now the SWH package installs and shows up in /usr/local/lib/lv2. Now let's see if we can run some reverb in Ardour.

Linux Based, Open Source Audio Production

Open source software is just amazing. I've been working on turning an old laptop into a multi-track audio production station using all open source software. Key steps so far:

1. Install Ubuntu on the old laptop. Create an ISO bootable install disk on any windows computer with a CD-R drive using image available at the Ubuntu site.

2. Use the Ubuntu software center to install Ardour, Hydrogen Drum Machine, JACK, QjackCtl, and JAMin. Ardour is the multi-track app. JACK is an audio manager. QjackCtl provides a visual interface for JACK. JAMin is a mastering application.

3. Get a USB-based audio interface working. This has been the most "fun" part so far. I have an old TASCAM US-122. An amazing group of developers has worked on a universal audio and midi system called ALSA, and one of them has reverse engineered firmware and drivers for the US-122. Using the Ubuntu software center I also installed alsa-firmware-loaders, fxload, and alsa-tools. More details on getting this working in the next post.

Goodbye Borders, Hello Kobo

I was surprised to learn from the publisher that Infomation Nation is now available on the Kobo eBook reader. I had assumed that with the demise of the Borders bookstore chain that Kobo would go down with the ship. On further investigation, Kobo is an independent Canadian company, and although Borders owns an 11% share of Kobo, they are not a majority shareholder and Kobo will continue as an independent eReader firm. With the success of the Kindle and the Nook, however, it seems like a difficult business in which to compete.

If you have a Kobo reader and would like to preview Information Nation, look here:

http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Information-Nation-Education-Careers-Emerging/book-spzMKnrDLUyEqt9nkzDddg/page1.html

Lots Happening in Data Science

Data Science is emerging as the big container for eScience, eResearch, and other curriculum categories pertaining to large scale data management and analysis. Information Nation contains a whole chapter on this movement (Chapter 11 to be precise). Data Science spans the chain that starts when data are created from sensors or business transactions, through data mining, and into long term curation and archiving.

This is a great time to get a copy of the book and read more about this trend as the publisher has a sale going on. Use the publisher website: 25% off retail if you use the promo code ITISP at http://infotoday.stores.yahoo.net/information-nation.html

iSchool Hiring Postdoc in eScience/eResearch

Syracuse University's School of Information Studies is seeking a postdoctoral research associate in the area of eResearch and eScience. eResearch lies at the intersection of the information studies and other research disciplines and is concerned with the management, sharing, analysis, and long term curation of digital research data. The School of Information Studies has researchers active in various areas related to eResearch and an emerging graduate educational program in eScience.

The position requires a doctoral degree in information science, computer science, social science, natural science, physical science, or an interdisciplinary science area completed prior to December 31, 2011. Preference will be given to an intellectual generalist with a demonstrated ability to cross disciplinary boundaries effectively. Excellent written and oral communication skills in English are critical. Superior analytical skills and demonstrated experience working with a variety of research data types are a must. Prior experience with external funding, grant writing, and/or award management is a necessity. Scripting, programming, database, or other information technology experience would be a strong plus. A cover letter, curriculum vitae, and a list of three or more referees should accompany the application.

Duties will include locating and applying for external funding opportunities, forming and managing collaborative research teams, working with faculty and doctoral students to produce research, program management and evaluation, and optional opportunities to teach undergraduate and graduate students.

Applicants should go to https://www.sujobopps.com and search for job #027632. Review of applications began on May 13, 2011.

Information Nation on the Kindle

I'm excited to say that Information Nation is now available for purchase in the Amazon Kindle store: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004WOZ2IU. I'm afraid there is not much cost savings. I'm not sure that the publisher has the pricing model worked out, and I think they are experimenting a bit to see how Kindle sales will affect physical book sales. But... If you are in a huge hurry to read the book (and who wouldn't be!) you can have it wirelessly delivered to your Kindle in seconds. Enjoy!

Who Takes Advantage of Family Friendly Policies

A recent study by researchers at the Association of American Medical Colleges suggests that when institutions enact family friendly policies, the long standing traditions and practices in the institution may inhibit the use of those policies. Sarah A. Bunton and April M. Corrice, the researchers at AAMC, found that half of all medical schools had enacted policies that extended the tenure clock for all faculty - sometimes to as much as ten years. When they examined the use of the opportunity of lengthening the tenure clock, however, they found that only a very small number of faculty actual took advantage of it. Their report states: "Many institutions may have developed flexible policies, but implicitly or explicitly discourage faculty members from using them."

An overview of the report appears here: http://tinyurl.com/4huxsy4.

The journal article containing the full report appears here (but requires access to the journal): http://tinyurl.com/6cuwfmv.

Given the nature of the workplace, these results are unsurprising. Organizational and occupational culture both have strong influences on actual practices in organizations, regardless of the official policies that the organization may have established. If the culture in the institution disfavors an option, such as parental leave, that is open to organizational members, it is likely that few will take advantage of the option.

CE21 Conference

Attending the NSF sponsored, CE21 conference over the past couple days. CE21 is a new acronym and program area for NSF - it stands for Computing Education in the 21st century. Two of NSF's earlier programs in this area, Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) and the CPATH program (can't remember what that one stands for), have been discontinued over the past year or so, and CE21 is something of a replacement for them.

The general premise for the conference is that the U.S. as a whole is woefully behind other industrialized countries in providing computing education in the K-14 space. The statistics quoted did paint a dismal picture: Most states have very few teachers who are qualified to teach high school students the basic skills and knowledge needed to take the Advanced Placement test in Computer Science. In Alabama, for example, only 4% of high schools have a qualified teacher in this area. The number of students taking the AP test nationwide has been dropping; this is in contrast to other STEM disciplines, including engineering disciplines, where the number of students taking the AP test has been growing.

NSF is poised to make a major investment in rectifying this situation, which they attribute to a lack of a coherent body of research that guides how computer science should be taught in schools. The how includes the content, the methods, and the strategies for making programs a success, both in the school context and in informal learning contexts. This conference brought together computer scientists with an interest in educational reach with a like number of educational researchers from schools of education around the country. In fact, the badges for the conference were colored either yellow for computer science or purple for educational research. I had a purple badge, though I did not feel that I really fit in either camp. Interestingly, my informal survey of attendees showed just one or two others from iSchools. I asked almost everyone I met whether they had heard of iSchools, the iSchool movement, or Schools of Information, and essentially none had. When I explained the interdisciplinary nature of our iSchool, the educational researchers seemed to get it pretty readily. The computer scientists I talked to did not seem to see where iSchools fit into the picture, and were especially surprised to hear me describe how Library Science might fit into the picture.

Obama's State of the Union and Information Schools

In his 2011 state of the union speech, President Barack Obama said, "Maintaining our leadership in research and technology is crucial to America’s success. But if we want to win the future -– if we want innovation to produce jobs in America and not overseas -– then we also have to win the race to educate our kids."

Many of the information schools have run their degree programs with these goals in mind for a whole generation now. That's one of the reasons that undergraduates from information schools such as Syracuse, Washington, and Penn State often have such high starting salaries: the education that iSchool students receive prepares them for high value, high demand jobs in U.S. organizations.

The typically glacial pace of change in higher education represents both a challenge and an opportunity for the iSchools. Higher education must adapt more rapidly to a changing world, and iSchools stand poised to be a leader in adaptability and innovation. Note that "Information Nation" explains how the information professions fit into the world economy, and describes how students in the information field can recession-proof their jobs and careers upon graduation. They key, as President Obama suggested in his speech, lies in building a core of relevant and valuable skills along with an attitude of adaptability and a love for lifelong learning - all values that most information schools try to promote.

ASVAB, Income Inequality, and Libraries

Following up on a hunch from a comment, I dug out a state-by-state ranking on income inequality from PBS's NOW documentary program (based on data going back to 2008). The income inequality rankings look at the income gap between rich and poor, the gap between the middle class and the rich, and differential rates of income growth. For example, New York state had the worst income inequality in the nation with the most wealthy 20% of families making 8.7 times as much as the poorest 20% of families. New York also had the greatest growth in disparity over a ten year period.

As one might expect, there was a substantial negative correlation between income disparity and pass rates on the ASVAB (r=-.54). States with the least well-prepared youth (in terms of achievement n the ASVAB) also generally had the worst income disparities.

But here's the very interesting thing: The public libraries connection discussed in the previous post was almost completely independent of this issue. A regression analysis pitting income inequality and library visits against each other as predictors of ASVAB showed that both had powerful effects in the same analysis. In other words, whatever is going on with the connection of income disparity to ASVAB pass rates, it is independent of the mechanism that causes a relation between public library visits and ASVAB.

So what is going on here? It is easy to speculate that in states with great income inequality there is probably also a substantial disparity in the quality of public education between poor school districts and well-off districts, so the connection to preparedness (again remembering that the ASVAB tests basic literacy and numeracy skills) is not unexpected there. But apparently the urge to visit the library or the availability of opportunities to do so is still an independent animal. Still open to ideas here... Anybody? Will go fetch the data if someone can think of another variable to put into the mix...

ASVAB and Libraries

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) is a standardized aptitude test administered to all individuals who apply to the U.S. armed forces. ASVAB provides an essential overview of a variety of key skills related to literacy and numeracy such as word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, arithmetic reasoning, mathematics knowledge, and general science.

A report was recently released by The Education Trust documenting results, state by state, for armed forces recruits on the ASVAB. The results are predictably depressing, showing that a quarter of students nationwide are unable to reach even the minimal passing score needed to enter the Army. Results vary considerably state by state, with Hawaii the worst and Wyoming the best.

So here's the interesting part: I extracted some state by state education statistics from StateMaster.com. I examined per pupil expenditures in elementary and secondary education and found that there was essentially no correlation at all between ASVAB pass rates and per pupil expenditures.

In contrast, however, I also examined the number of public library visits per capita for each state. Drum roll please! The correlation between library visits and ASVAB pass rates was a substantial r=.43. In other words, the more the citizens of a state visited public libraries, the more likely they were to have capable young people with the job aptitudes required to succeed in the armed forces (or for that matter, in most civilian jobs).

What you you think it means?

Online Learning - Some Thoughts That Never Made it into Information Nation

The following material is an edited excerpt of some of the writing that the authors were not able to fit into the final version of Information Nation.

What do employers think about online degrees?

You don’t want to put effort and money into something that does not have the respect of future employers in your field. How are online degrees judged in terms of quality? Hiring committees may frown on applicants from purely online schools, with the assumption that either the quality is inferior to tradition programs or there is a likelihood of cheating. The reputation question can be an important factor for determining where you want to go. Some employers are still afraid that they are “degree mills” willing to deliver a degree for pay, without much work required on the part of the payer.  With such a large-scale endeavor, it is inevitable that some programs and some students can slip between the cracks. Note, however, that if you get a degree from one of an online program of a traditional "brick and mortar" university, your degree will show up as being from that university and the method of instruction would not necessarily even be known to an employer.

The advantages of this educational route can be substantial. It is hard to imagine something more convenient than never having to set foot on campus. People who work at home often rave about how great it is to make conference calls in their pajamas.  Online programs may range as low as $250 per credit hour, considerably lower than most traditional programs. Sometimes the admission requirements for online programs are looser, and programs allow students to take some courses with non-matriculated status, and then are admitted if they do well.

Programs range in their use of technological tools and media. Most programs use online tools for sharing media, viewing instructor-produced content, and encouraging student collaboration. Some instructors transform their face-to-face courses completely for online offerings, even to point of rejecting the use of printed textbooks. Online faculty members often come from a wide geographic area, and this can be a huge plus for instruction.  Programs are able to recruit high-quality teachers from all over the world. Personnel with equivalent credentials and experience would be very difficult to find, particularly in rural areas.

All of these points argue for very careful research prior to enrolling in an online degree program. Check with employers to see how they value the degrees from different institutions. Find out the credentials of the instructors. Ask how the classes are offered and whether they require a “synchronous” component (i.e., everyone meeting and talking at the same time) or are totally asynchronous. Residencies, while expensive from a travel perspective are a great opportunity to meet and talk to instructors and fellow students. Given all of the factors above, cost should be only one of the factors considered in a decision to go online and not the only factor.