I hope he wins… October 14, 2007
Posted by Ian in academia.add a comment
The Duke University Lacrosse mess is taking another interesting turn as their now former lacrosse coach is suing the school saying that they breached the terms of his dismissal agreement and he should be compensated for that.
Quite frankly couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of people.
If you don’t know about the case the description on wikipedia is an alright place to start.
LibQUAL+ or Why it is important to understand statistical significance… August 24, 2007
Posted by Ian in academia, libraries, QEII.3 comments
Yesterday a session was held to go over the results from our most recent iteration of the LibQUAL+ library quality survey. For those of you not in the know LibQUAL+ is a massive survey put out by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The aim is to measure perceptions of the library in three broad categories: Service, Collections/Technical Services, and Library as Place (aka facilities). In the survey users are asked about a variety of functions and for each to give a number between one and ten to represent the minimum level of that service that the user would expect, then to give a number between one and ten to represent how the library is actually doing and finally, a number between one and ten to represent the users desired level for the item in question. Statistics are then gathered about the gaps between minimum and perception, as well as between perception and desired. Libraries are then supposed to go out and use these stats as indicators for what needs fixing, as well as use them to compare their situation with other similar sized universities. The survey is very broad and its usefulness is dubious at best but what really gets me is the sample size chosen when we completed our survey.
Memorial has about 17000 students add in faculty and administration and there are probably closer to 19000 users (probably even more than that). Now considering that most surveys get between 20-30% response rate one would think that you would want to send the survey to as many users as possible. But no, we sent the survey to 5500 users… that’s about 29% of our users in total. Our response rate was 18% or about 890. 890 out of 19000… That is 5% roughly of our user base and yet this is a tool that is supposed to be meaningful? You cannot base any decision on what 5% of your user base thinks.
Here’s something really depressing for the math nerds out there. For the most part the numerical data that is gathered in this survey is mostly ignored – or people will say “look our users gave us a score of 8 in [insert service thing here]” when the actual score is meaningless for comparison purposes.
Now some say that this tool is a good basis for historical comparisons. I say hogwash! For one thing you are not surveying the same people over time. The users you have now may have very different expectations from the users you have 5 years from now. Even if it were possible to survey the same cohort every year, I think you might find that the results would not be consistent as user needs evolved and changed.
If libraries and librarians want to do serious research more of us need to be more conversant in the language of statistics and we need to invest more time in thinking about experimental design.
A Strike in my future?? August 11, 2007
Posted by Ian in academia.5 comments
Disclaimer: I came to MUN for the experience of living someplace different not for the money because I could be making a hell of a lot more just about anywhere else.
Since July 22 my union has been in a position to strike. As reported here the talks between the Faculty Association and MUN have broken off with money being the sticking point. The Faculty Association thinks that we should be paid at a level comparable to faculty at other institutions of our size around the country. MUN thinks that we should be paid in line with other civil servants in Newfoundland.
The big obstacle is salary; the faculty association is proposing an increase of 10 to 15 per cent over three years while the university has offered six per cent over four years.
…
Karen Hollet, director of faculty relations, said the offer made by the school is fair.“It’s consistent with what other employees at the university and within the province have accepted and we think it’s a good offer in light of that,” Hollet said.
I have two points here:
1. The administration offer is insulting in that it doesn’t even keep up with inflation. I’m not sure if the union request is over the top but we are paid poorly compared to others doing similar work (some of my library peeps are doing similar work to me and making $15K more a year and that’s not in Ontario or Alberta)… Obviously, I am not impartial – I want more money – [union zealot] I want the union to squeeze every penney they can from the administration. [/union zealot]
2. The administration is being very small minded about the offer in general. By saying their offer is in line with what other university staff have gotten misses the point. University staff can be hired from amongst the general population. The people who would be university staff could conceivably be doing similar work at any number of different firms in the province. How many other agencies in Newfoundland hire English PhD’s to do research? Academics are not just people you hire off the street, they are specialists who are looking at jobs all around the globe. MUN is not competing with other employers or government agencies in province for talent they are competing with universities, think-tanks, and research laboratories all over the world. Right now MUN is not competitive in Canada let alone the world.
It will be interesting to see how all this pans out. I hope against hope that this can be resolved without a strike but from where I’m sitting now I would be amazed if we were not on the picket line come September.
Plagiarism doesn’t pay July 25, 2007
Posted by Ian in academia.add a comment
A key lesson out there for those who plagiarize: if you must plagiarize don’t draw attention to your work after the fact…. One bloke didn’t learn this lesson… (ignore the headline – Churchill’s praise for the 9/11 hijackers had nothing to do with his firing)
Update: more on the story from Hit & Run.
Update2: more in depth discussion here.
