Google Scholar provides citation metrics

Google announced today that they have made citation metrics available to scholars: http://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-scholar-citations-open-to-all.html
According to the announcement, this free service is “a simple way for authors to compute their citation metrics and track them over time...”
This will provide an additional path to track citation impact, and is similar to services provided by Scopus database and Web of Knowledge.

Open Acces mandate from IES, effective FY 2012

There is now a mandate for any IES funded research publications to be made publicly available in ERIC. This follows similar mandates from NHS.
"Beginning in FY 2012, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) requires its grantees to submit their peer-reviewed research publications to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). Investigators are to submit the electronic version of their final manuscripts upon acceptance for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the peer review process. Posting for public accessibility through ERIC is strongly encouraged as soon as possible but must be within 12 months of the publisher's official date of final publication."

Additional information is here: http://ies.ed.gov/funding/researchaccess.asp

Should we be teaching citation styles??

I thought a compelling argument to postpone the insistence on utilization of citation styles for writing projects was put forth in this article, "Citation Obsession? Get Over It," by Kurt Schick in today's (Nov. 2, 2011) Chronicle. I have excerpted some key ideas...

• "Citation style remains the most arbitrary, formulaic, and prescriptive element of academic writing taught in American high schools and colleges. Now a sacred academic shibboleth, citation persists despite the incredibly high cost-benefit ratio of trying to teach students something they (and we should also) recognize as relatively useless to them as developing writers.
•  ...the uneven quality of information available online makes it more important for writers to know how to evaluate the worth of their sources than how to parse pedantic rules and display their expertise in footnoting.
• What I advocate here is not to dispense with teaching students how to use sources but rather to abandon our fixation on the form rather than the function of source attribution.
•  The intricacies and formalities of citation become useful to scholars only when they publish their work. Until then, they need a bookkeeping system to keep track of where they found things (a system that others might later use to retrace their steps), and some means of attributing their sources and thus establishing the credibility of information for their audiences. More than anything, source attribution enables students—who, by virtue of being students, don't yet know much about a subject—to borrow knowledge and ethos from those who do. It's just about that simple.
•  Citation contents are virtually the same across styles and disciplines: author's name(s), title(s), publication information....Why, then, could we not simply ask students to include a list of references with the essential information? Why couldn't we wait to infect them with citation fever until they are ready to publish (and then hand them the appropriate style guide...
•  We could then reinvest time wasted on formatting to teach more-important skills like selecting credible sources, recognizing bias or faulty arguments, paraphrasing and summarizing effectively, and attributing sourced information persuasively and responsibly.
• If anything, we should abandon trivial roadblocks so that students can write more often in more classes. Recent research demonstrates how effectively and efficiently writing can improve comprehension of content in any discipline. Writing also enables students to practice analysis, synthesis, and other skills that constitute critical, creative, and even civic thinking. If writing provides one of our best means to enhance learning outcomes across the curriculum, then more writing equals more learning. Why would we design writing assignments with obstacles that discourage students from learning?"

A small bright spot for Nevada in newest NAEP

An article in today's (Nov. 1, 2011) Education Week notes that, "Nevada registered statistically significant gains in both 8th grade reading and math compared with 2009, in both cases climbing 4 points. The state also saw 2-point gains in 4th grade reading and math, but neither was deemed statistically significant.
Keith W. Rheault, Nevada’s superintendent of public instruction, who was invited to comment on this year’s results at a press conference scheduled for this morning, said in prepared remarks that he was pleased to see the gains in his state, especially amid challenging economic times."
Given that the educational news about Nevada is usually so grim, I thought it worth a mention. Recent NAEP data is here: http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/