Saskatchewan FMU Faculty Development Blog

All university faculty are familiar with the pressure to publish their scholarly work. As the saying goes, "publish or perish." The gold standard of publications is the peer reviewed article. My question is this: who are the peers? Traditionally, the peers have been other scientists. Can the public act as our peers when it comes to evaluating our scholarly work? They are the ones paying our salaries. Would this increase our accountability to the public.

The mechanism for this public assessment would be a simple yeah or nay. Just as Cesar would give a thumbs up or down to determine the fate of a fallen gladiator. The public would express their opinion through a simple positive or negative assessment (plus or minus comments). The best real world example of this is the digg.com website.

Posted by jrh119 at 09:13 PM | Permalink

Yesterday's entry was a brief introduction to the University's online survey system. Users of Adobe Acrobat Professional version also have the ability to conduct online surveys. The system isn't quite as elegant as survey.usask.ca, however, it is probably more flexible. Essentially, the survey administrator creates a pdf form. Multiple types of answers (short answer, long answer, multiple choice, etc) are supported. Forms are distributed by e-mail. After completion they are sent back by e-mail. Acrobat colates the data as it arrives. Forms can only be created by individuals with the professional version of Acrobat. However, forms can be completed by users with any version of acrobat. Here is a sample form created in this manner. By the way, Saskatoon is winning.

Posted by jrh119 at 01:45 PM | Permalink

The U of S has an automated survey system that can be used to publish online surveys. The service is free to anyone with an NSID. You can use this system to create any number of questions. Multiple types of question styles are possible: multiple choice, short answer, long answer, etc. The system will automatically track responses and provides a summary. Surveys can be public or can be restricted to individuals on a list. For illustration purposes, I have created a short survey. The address for the survey system is survey.usask.ca

Posted by jrh119 at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is a new avenue available for publishing peer-reviewed journal articles which may be of interest to some Faculty. The openmedicine.ca journal is an online, peer-reviewed journal. It's proponents state that articles published in this journal will be more accessable. The journal is free to readers.

Posted by jrh119 at 09:53 AM | Permalink