Al-Diwan Roundup: News and Analysis from Publishing and Academia

Al-Diwan brings you the latest news and analysis from the publishing and academic worlds that relate to pedagogy and knowledge production.

Education

Reimagining the University in a Time of Crisis – Every Campus a Refuge Campaign
By Diya Abdo (Jadaliyya)

"What is our responsibility as teachers, students, and administrators of higher learning?" asks Diya Abdo about academia's responsibility in the current refugee crisis. Abdo explains why universities should help sponsor the higher education of refugee students.

The College President-to-Adjunct Pay Ratio
By Laura McKenna (The Atlantic)

Laura McKenna writes for The Atlantic about income disparity between college presidents and underpaid adjunct faculty.

Education Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Growing Wider
By Eduardo Porter (New York Times)

Eduardo Porter writes about the growing gap between affluent and less privileged children in education.

ED Names First OER Advisor
By Dian Schaffhauser (Campus Technology)

The U.S. Department of Education selects its first "open education" advisor, Andrew Marcinek, who will help "K-12 and colleges and universities learn about open educational resources (OER), free digital teaching, learning and research resources available in the public domain."

What the Results of a Survey of Coursera Students Mean for Online Learning
By Ellen Wexler (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

The hype around Massive Open Online Courses—also called MOOCs—is dying down and finally paving way for an opportunity to gauge what kind of opportunities (or lack thereof) emerged as a result of the free online education system.

This Is How Many More Primary School Teachers the World Will Need to Provide Primary Education for All by 2020
By Joanna Plucinska (TIME)

In honor of UNESCO World Teachers Day, which this year places a spotlight on early childhood education, TIME magazine takes a deeper look into the problems facing the profession, from poor training to underfunding.


Publishing

Academia Pushes a New Kind of Peer Review For Research With ‘Sessions’
By Kim-Mai Cutler (Tech Crunch)

The founder of the platform Academia is taking things to the next level with a new form of peer review built for online called Sessions, which aims to shorten the wait and bureaucracy behind the current peer review and publishing system.

Banned Books Week Celebrates the Books That Are 'Filthy, But Great' — And More
By Mythili Rao (PRI)

In honor of Banned Books Week, PRI talks to librarians about how they celebrate a day that represents the oppression of literary works.

Is a Giant Academic Publisher Trying to Paywall Wikipedia?
By Maggie Stone (Gizmodo)

A new partnership between academic publisher Elsevier and Wikipedia sparks concern about the potential for paywalled Wiki material.

Page-Turner: After Sizzling Growth, E-book Sales Cool
By Relaxnews

It used to be that all the media could talk about was the demise of printing physical books as iPads, Nooks, Kindles and rival tablets made reading more accessible and downloadable. It seems everyone spoke too soon, as e-Books took a downturn in 2015 after years of growth.

Hacking Through Amazon's Jungle of Coverage
By Jeff Jarvis (BuzzMachine)

The coverage of the New York Times' expose on Amazon has been unending. Jeff Jarvis does a round about on some of the thoughts and opinions that have come out of the press pool.

Pronoun, A Self-Publishing Platform For Authors, Is Ready To Serve Humanity
By John Biggs (TechCrunch)

A new self-publishing platform, Pronoun, wants to provide hopeful authors with the tools they need "to ensure that self-published books will maintain the quality and readability of traditionally published work."