Campus Life

Just down the hall from the reference desk at Emory University's law library in a room housing antique legal texts is Stanley the golden retriever puppy, barking his head off.

Puppy therapy — just in time for finals week. From Kent State University in Ohio to Macalester College in Minnesota, more and more pooches are around campus during exams to help students relax and maybe even crack a smile or two.“We had a student who came in and a staff person commented they had never seen that student smile,” said Richelle Reid, a law librarian who started Emory’s pet therapy program this year after hearing about one at the University of California, San Francisco. “It has had positive effects, helping them to just have a moment to clear their minds and not have to think about studies, not have to think about books.”

Pups are in counseling centers for students to visit regularly or faculty and staff bring their pets to lift spirits…

Click here for the full story: http://news.yahoo.com/colleges-dogs-stress-busters-135649674.html

When it comes to plagiarizing, students who use the unethical shortcut seem to be all in: Copying and pasting a research paper word for word is now the most common form of plagiarism.

Word-for-word copy-and-paste jobs may be the most common form of college plagiarism, but there are a range of far more subtle cheating methods that made a national top-10 list compiled by Turnitin, maker of the popular plagiarism detection program. The second most common form of plagiarism among the 879 survey respondents was dubbed, “CTL-C,” because it involves copying large portions of text from the web and inserting those excerpts into a research paper. “Find-replace” is the act of changing phrases in an attempt to avoid the watchful eye of plagiarism detection programs common on college campuses. “Recycling” is another popular approach: Borrowing from previous work, or self-plagiarizing, as described by Turnitin.  But study shows, students who knew their papers would be reviewed by Turnitin software were not less likely to cheat: http://www.ecampusnews.com/research/the-top-10-ways-college-students-plagiarize/

Is the threat of plagiarism detection software enough to curb cheating in higher education? Let us know your comments.

That piece of paper you just picked up doesn't matter. Neither does your major, your GPA or any "honors" you graduated with. From here on out, the only thing that matters is your work.

"In time, you will learn what kind of work really satisfies you and you will learn just how much you want your career to define your life. But unless you have some naïve notion of a life of luxury predicated on a winning lottery ticket, it's logical to think that work will play some role in your life for many years to come.

"It's up to you to define that role, starting today. Some may get lucky through circumstance or connections and find themselves in a comfortable job a few years from now. But the vast majority of recent graduates will succeed or fail based on their body of work over these crucial first few years in the workplace."

Don't try to be great, marry someone smarter than you, and other real-world tips graduation speakers never share. By Charles Wheelan. author of 10½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said.

West Coast higher-education technology leaders begrudgingly admit it: An earthquake wouldn’t be a temporary inconvenience—a bad trembler could knock out IT infrastructure for weeks, unless the school has a partner.

Three in 10 schools said they had an off-campus data storage site that would be used as a backup in the event of a natural disaster, but only 16 percent of those backup sites were five miles from the campus. That means an earthquake or tornado could destroy those sites, leaving the institution without its most important computer data.

IT officials from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., and Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., announced May 16 that they would host backup computer equipment for their partner school, allowing either campus to access student, faculty, and course information in hours rather than weeks.

Research universities and state schools often have similar backup arrangements in place with other state colleges and universities. These institutions store each other’s data on backup servers hundreds of miles from campus, ensuring that a school can operate in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Does your school have alternative site for data storage as part of a disaster plan?  Read more of this innovative approach here:  http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/campuses-wtake-innovative-approach-to-disaster-planning/?

General confusion might be the key ingredient to an engaged crop of incoming freshmen on a college or university’s Facebook page.

An analysis published May 16 on the blog .eduGuru breaks down what college students are discussing on their school’s official Facebook pages and third-party groups, and the most consistently engaged posts were written by “confused students trying to find more information about orientation, registration, and housing.”

Gabe Sanchez, a community college specialist at social media company Inigral and author of the Facebook analysis, said about half of the 163 colleges and universities surveyed said they used a Class of 2016 Facebook page to help students connect with each other before they began their college careers.

The analysis comes a month after Facebook announced its Student Groups feature, which  will allow students and faculty members on hundreds of campuses to make private group pages that will be off limits to Facebook members outside the campus community.  Students can share files–homework or class projects, perhaps–and interact with fellow students even if they’re not friends of the social network.

Studies showing the positive effects of video games might give college students a research-based excuse for why, exactly, they eschewed homework for “Call of Duty.”...

Video games might still be a distraction from homework and studying, but campus-based research shows that games – especially the fast-paced variety – can improve cognitive ability, serving as a form of mental exercise that improves the speed of players’ decision making. Participants in a University of Rochester study who played action-packed video games like the popular “Call of Duty” answered a series of questions about 25 percent faster than their counterparts who played games that progressed more gradually. The Rochester study also showed that increased video game playing improved participants’ eyesight, because hours looking at a constantly changing screen makes players more sensitive to various shades of color.

Will video-game research legitimize gaming in higher education? Do educators see video games as an unrelenting distraction or a valuable tool in improving brain function?

A new study by Stanford psychologist Paul O'Keefe suggests that the culture of our learning and working environments can have long-term effects on our goals and motivation.

The study says being in an environment that emphasizes learning for learning's sake will dampen concerns about outperforming others and enhance intrinsic motivation even after one returns to a culture that places more value on demonstrating skills than developing them.

Think about the ideal student. He or she focuses on learning, not grades; improvement, not appearances; competency, not competition. This person wants to understand and grow, not just prove how smart he or she is.  Read more here: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-psychologist-goals-environment.html

The study may be downloaded here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/98855r08l4767271/?MUD=MP

The 'systemic' and 'massive' culture of unlicensed photocopying of books in colleges and universities is hurting the country's authors and writers, depriving them of their proper compensation, the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society, Inc.

The formation of FILCOLS was spearheaded by the National Book Development Board in 2008, pursuant to the National Book Policy which provides that “mechanisms shall be formulated to ensure that the intellectual properties of authors and publishers are adequately protected through collective reprography licensing and other schemes.”

No Philippine university has entered into a licensing agreement with FILCOLS so far.  Most Philippine universities, according to FILCOLS, cite the concept of fair use as an excuse for the non-payment of renumeration to authors.  More here: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/257589/lifestyle/literature/photocopying-books-hurts-pinoy-authors-and-writers

With the emergence of the digital workplace, teachers are meeting the challenges of teaching on and with computers.

Studies have proven that the technology in and of itself doesn’t make a difference to the students; rather, the difference comes when ingenious and prepared teachers use technology effectively to enrich the course.