The page 99 test has apparently long been a staple of reader self-advisory. The thought is that page 99 will provide a core sample of the action so readers can evaluate before investing time or money in a book. Page99Test seeks to replicate this experience for the web, but has become a platform for small and self publishing.

Pros:
The offerings are extremely diverse in genre, especially considering there are so few pages at this point. The concept is enticing as well; readers must rate the page to discover the title and author and get instant feedback about how others rate the title. It’s easy to get sucked in to the new author drama. It seems like this could be a beneficial platform for self published authors and e-publishing startups. It works well as a discovery tool and readers may be more likely to invest in an unknown once they’ve been primed with an investment-free sample. The UI is clean and pleasant, with a generic blond wood motif akin to iBooks.

Kayongo, J. & Helm, C. (2012). Relevance of library collections for graduate student research: A citation analysis study of doctoral dissertations at Notre Dame. College & Research Libraries, 73(1), 47-67.

This study attempts to evaluate the relevance of library collections through use as demonstrated by citations in student work. Notre Dame Library analyzed citations in the doctoral dissertations of students in the science, arts and humanities, social sciences, and engineering departments over a 3-year period. The library owned 67% of all cited resources and of the 1,000 most popular sources, the library owned 93%. In their analysis, the library found that it needed to obtain more resources in the social sciences as the library owned fewer than 50% of cited resources. The library also found justification in maintaining older collections, as the average citation age was 19.1 years.

Education secretary Michael Gove announced yesterday his plans to overhaul the teaching of computer science in UK schools. Plans include scrapping Microsoft suite and other basic computer skills to digital native learners who grasp these technologies intuitively. The curriculum rests on a wiki-style resource that will be quickly evolving and shared by teachers. The task of writing the initial curriculum will involve tech business and higher education with participation from IBM, Microsoft, and the British Computer Society and accolades from the European directors of Google and Facebook.

Gove stated in his speech that he was inspired by the US military’s use of wikis to communicate real time information and thought it would be an effective platform for a subject that changes as rapidly as IT. With the new model, teachers will be given more freedom to design learning around student interest. The Guardian ran a joke article about what student interest based teaching would mean, but it does raise some interesting questions about the borderline legality of real fun on the internet and notions of school appropriate social media learning. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome of this reinvention.

Penn State is getting ready to unveil an exciting new library collaboration space in their Pattee Library. Called the Knowledge Commons, the space will feature 9 group work spaces outfitted in the latest collaborative technology. Up to 7 group members can hook their devices to the station, trading presentation rights to the projection monitor using a device called a puck. The space also features modular walls, un-lecture halls for classroom meetings, and video production spaces and equipment.

This update is part of a larger academic library trend of offering innovative and flexible spaces in lieu of endless stacks of physical books. Book collections are moving offsite (or to subterranean, robot-controlled vaults) in greater numbers and as purchasing increasingly favors digital content, academic libraries have had to reform their image and rebuild for a mobile and device-adorned patron base.

Graydon, B., Urbach-Buholz, B., & Kohen, C. (2011). A Study of Four Textbook Distribution Models. Educause Quarterly, 34(4).

Daytona State College spent 2-years studying 4 different distribution models in student textbooks. Print rental, electronic book rental, and device rental were investigated in existing faculty practice for financial and non-financial outcomes (such as performance, preference, and retention). They found that electronic textbook rental was significantly more expensive for students than physical book rental, in some cases rental was near the average textbook cost.

Even more telling is the trouble DSC had beginning the study. It was more difficult than anticipated to find the right textbooks in the format and payment structure required. Courses and text assignments had to be adjusted based on availability. Even if there were significant financial gains to be had with a particular format and distribution model, there’s no guarantee that publishers would offer textbooks in that model.

Brilliance Audio, an audio book publisher owned by Amazon, has recently withdrawn its titles from OverDrive. Is this a coincidence or bleed over from OverDrive e-book withdrawals by major publishers? Amazon also owns Audible, a much larger and more stalwartly digital publisher of audio content. It’s possible that the withdrawal is related to a possible merger or Audible hosting of Brilliance content. The INFOdocket article on the subject also suggests the possibility that Amazon will offer these titles with Prime lending.

For digital vs. analogue, I'd like to consider the e-book bleed over possibility. Audio book content well preceded e-books in the digital lending sphere and emerged with fewer splashy management issues. It’s interesting to see something like this now and it makes me wonder if the recent e-book drama has caused audio book publishers to rethink their relationships with public libraries.

O’Reilly School of Technology recently posted a rant by Scott Gray about CodeAcademy and the development of new formats in education. It’s a little snarky, especially considering all the plugs for O’Reilly’s CodeRunner system as a CodeAcademy alternative, but I got a kick out of Gray's 4-step recipe for instant popularity in educational technology:

1. It must be free, with minimal transaction effort.

2. There should be exaggerated claims of ultimate learning outcomes without evidence. Place the promise on the future, not now.

3. It needs to make people feel like they've learned something in a few minutes by giving them a thumbs up, or badge for accomplishing something trivial.

All Kate’s articles are memorable, but I think this one is very representative and inspired a lot of people inside and outside of EdLab. When I was investigating the curation website Scoop.it I stumbled across it in a mini-pub called technology tools for teaching French. This is also the article that inspired Vialogues for Language Acquisition! Though it’s not technically NLT, I think it really created a groundwork for our new content stream Digital vs. Analogue which explains the occasionally strained relationship between old and new methods of teaching and learning.

French Teachers Use Twitter to Teach Writing

French teachers are experimenting with Twitter as a way to teach primary school students to write and read. Twitter's 140 characters are viewed by teachers like Jean-Roch Masson as a way to encourage budding writers to, "be the journalists of our (their) own lives." This Time.com article, translated from Le Monde by WorldCrunch describes a typical morning in a Twitter-positive classroom:

Flubaroo (pronounced floo-ba-roo, not flub-a-roo as I initially thought) is a Google Docs add on meant to assist teachers with grading. Flubaroo checks against a teacher-created key to automatically grade, create statistics, and distribute grades to students via email.

Pros:
Flubaroo is an extremely simple, need-based tool created by a teacher and it fulfills its role well. They system is meant to be automated, but alerts teachers when more than half of the class gets a particular question wrong. It’s fast and simple, if a little impersonal, and seems like it could dramatically decrease the workload for the right teacher. Google Docs integration means that it takes very little setup or sign-up to begin working and the process is natural for someone used to working with the Docs platform.

De Fino, M. & Lo, M. L. (2011). New roads for patron-driven ebooks: Collection development and technical services implications of a patron-driven acquisitions pilot at rutgers. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 23(4), 327-338.

Rutgers University recently implemented a demand driven acquisitions program for electronic resources, this article describes changes to their workflow and concerns surrounding the future of collections development at their institution. Rutgers, moving from a librarian managed collection to a largely automated collection, had a strong barrier to entry and required large-scale reorganization. One of the major moves for Rutgers was a change from individual to batch catalog processing, their local bibliographic standards were not always upheld and they resolved to individually edit problematic records post-upload to maintain the catalog.