Scott Walter

The Professional Doctorate – Lessons for LIS from CID?

The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate is an interesting project by which programs in fields including Chemistry, English, and Education have engaged in a re-examination of their models for doctoral education. Several participating faculty members have presented their ideas in the recently-published Envisioning the Future of Doctoral Education (2006), but a brief essay with possible significance for LIS education can be found in the current issue of Educational Researcher: Reclaiming Education’s Doctorates: A Critique and a Proposal.

Without going too deeply into the argument, the authors suggest that doctoral education in the field of education (my field, as some of you know) has been “crippled” by the lack of clear distinction between doctoral study aimed at producing education researchers and faculty members (Ph.D.) and that aimed at producing educational leaders in the practice setting (and scholarly practitioners) (Ed.D.). They present an interesting model for what distinct and vital doctoral programs aimed at these different audiences might look like.

Without putting too fine a point on it, their argument about how doctoral study in education as currently conceived does not always serve scholarly practitioners and leaders “in the field” certainly seems applicable to the Ph.D. in LIS (which an increasing number of people who I consider to be excellent examples of the scholarly practitioner seem to be avoiding in favor of doctoral degrees in management studies, higher education administration, and instructional technology). LIS was not one of the fields selected for study by the CID (although I have suggested it to Lee Shulman as something he might consider), but I’d love to see our discussion of the limitations of formal LIS study for those of us in the field taken to the next level through a formal review such as that which the CID has afforded some of these other fields.

So, a “professional practice doctorate” for library leaders? What would it look like, and how would it differ from the current model for doctoral education in LIS? Do we have what Shulman calls a “signature pedagogy” (that’s a tricky one!)?

Change, Change, and More Change: LTF Proceedings Now Online

The Proceedings of the most recent Living the Future (LTF) conference at Arizona are now online. The presentations embrace a variety of important issues, but, like the recent Taiga Forum, the emphasis was on change – where is it coming from, how fast is it coming, and what can we do to help manage it effectively? I didn’t make it to Arizona this year, but comments from attendees are welcome.

Censorship at the Department of Education?

For the past few years, many ACRL members have been concerned about changes to the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education and with the direction of federally-supported programs like the National Library of Education and ERIC. For those who have not followed these issues, let me recommend the EBSS ERIC News site and a brief story that appeared in Education Week (“Basement No Bargain for Agency Library,” January 29, 2003).

The March issue of Educational Researcher carries a disturbing essay by Alan H. Schoenfeld (UC-Berkeley) on the possibility that the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences may have been involved in an attempt to squelch the publication of essays critical of one its recent innovations, the What Works Clearinghouse.

From the abstract:

“An early version of this article . . . was written for the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). The Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which funds WWC, instructed WWC not to publish it. An expanded version, written at WWC’s invitation for a special issue of an independent electronic journal and a book to be published by WWC, argued that methodological problems rendered some WWC mathematics reports potentially misleading and/or uninterpretable. IES instructed WWC staff not to publish their chapters – thus canceling the publication of the special issue and the book. Those actions, chronicled here, raise important questions concerning the role of federal agencies and their contracting organizations in suppressing scientific research that casts doubt on current or intended federal policy.”

Talk about an “open access” problem!

For those following the direct link above, please note that there are additional materials (including a response from WWC staff) available from the home page for the March 2006 issue.

“There is more to life than work” – Gen X Faculty and U

This morning’s IHE brings us a report on emergent characteristics of Gen X professors, which brings some of the familiar characterizations of my generation into the study of faculty life. It turns out, for example, that we value transparency in the tenure and promotion process and the teaching component of academic life. Radical ideas!

As I read this report, I had two thoughts:

this study seems somewhat “behind” the discussions we’ve had in the library community about Gen X professionals – likely because it takes longer to become credentialed and employed in an academic department than it does to do so in the library world; and,
the fact that this study seems to bring key elements of the characterization of Gen X students into that of Gen X faculty members reinforces the importance of how we relate to the current generation of undergraduate students.

That is, if many of the characterizations that we (and others) have made about Millennial students and their relationship to the library (and, more broadly, to their information environment) carry forward in the same way, then we had really better focus our efforts on thoughtful transformation if we don’t want to read a report in 5-8 years telling us how Gen Y professors do or do not value the library.

“Can You Hear Me Now?” – EDUCAUSE Touts Information Literacy

In a brief discussion of the myth of student technology competency in this month’s EDUCAUSE Review, Diana Oblinger and Brian Hawkins remind the IT and higher education communities that the ability to download a ringtone to a cell phone does not equate to the ability to effectively locate, evaluate, manage, or present information.

For those of us in libraryland who have been conducting and presenting research on the information and technology literacy skills of our current generation of students, there is little new in the ER story (hence my double meaning of my appropriation of a familiar cell phone commercial tagline – yes, students can use technology, but what can they use it for and why should this seem like a new idea to the ER community given everything we’ve said about this for the past decade?).

For EDUCAUSE members, though, including campus CIOs and CAOs, the clear and cogent points that Oblinger and Hawkings make about the fact that one must be intentional and consistent about assuring that undergraduates do not leave college without well-developed ITL skills may be new. And, if so, they will provide an opportunity for discussion of ITL outside the library and in the environments where such discussions must take place if we are to provide the best instructional services that we can to our students and our faculty. If we’re lucky, we may be able to open a few doors to substantive collaboration with our colleagues (and to administrative support for library-based instructional initiatives) by plunking a copy of Oblinger and Hawkins (2006) down on the desk.