Archive | May, 2009

Follow Intute on Twitter

20 May

Loyal readers may well have spotted that Intute has been experimenting with Twitter for a while, now we are going to be Twittering on behalf of the service as a whole.

Up to now we have been providing a range of subject based updates and some of these seem to have been quite successful – for example the Intute: Economics, Intute: Visual Art and Intute: Psychology channels.

Some analysis of the first 500 followers for our economics channel shows that some of our users are already on Twitter, talking about Intute and kindly spreading the word about some of things we are up to.

In the past, I’ve written about different ways of using Twitter – passive Twittering – sending existing content to Twitter via a service like Twitterfeed – and active Twittering – where a real person provides updates and tries to become a guide on a topic or to a particular service.

A few weeks ago, the Intute channel on Twitter was set up as a passive feed of existing Intute activities, now we are going to take on a more active role and as an experiment for the next few months, we’ll be actively Twittering during what will be a very busy time for Intute (but more of that later).

… if it is good enough for organisations such as Copac, the British Library and even the FBI, then it’s about time that we played our part.

So now we are actively joining the conversation, what should we be Tweeting about?

  • The best or most interesting new resources added to Intute
  • News and updates about the Intute service
  • Some of the best bits from the library and information blogosphere
  • Re-Tweeting some key information from HEA Subject Centres, JISC Services and others
  • Responding to your comments, queries and feedback

… or anything else that may be of interest to Intute users – but hopefully you will be using Twitter to send us new websites to add to Intute, let us know if you want to know more about how we work and what we do or just to stop by and say hello.

So if you don’t want to get in touch via our email Help Desk, let us know your thoughts via our rolling feedback survey or even by leaving a comment on one of our blogs, you can now follow Intute on Twitter.

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Charge that Green Book to expenses

13 May

The MPs expenses controversy has made many references to the Green Book – but it’s not the only green book that Intute users should be aware of.

While many politicians were repeating the mantra of “it was within the rules” more and more people have been wanting to know what those rules actually were.

The Green Book is the guidance issued by the House of Commons authorities to Members of Parliament, that supposedly tells them what can and cannot be claimed for as part of their expenses.

The Daily Telegraph obtained unredacted details of the claims made by MPs and has been entertaining / shocking the nation with tales of claims for moat drainage, hanging baskets and the “flipping” of second homes.

While chasing up these links, I noticed that there are plenty of other Green Books, that may be of interest – for example:

The Green Book by Colonel Gaddafi is a 3 volume tract from 1975 that outlines his views on political theory, the nature of government, economic theory and social administration. It would be of interest to those studying politics, international relations or the Middle East.

The Green Book is also the name of another UK government publication – this time from HM Treasury that offers guidance to the public sector on spending public funds in the most beneficial and efficient way – one for students of the public finances and government spending.

Not to be outdone, the Department of Health also has it’s own Green Book, although it goes under the rather more formal title of Immunisation against infectious disease – last updated in 2006, for those examining health services and public health topics.

The Little Green Data Book is produced by the World Bank and is their comprehensive annual guide to environmental statistics, using information from the World Development Indicators and would be of interest to those studying environmental economics or development economics.

Indeed the Wikipedia Green Book disambiguation page lists a veritable smorgasboard of other Green Books – the one that I found most entertaining was the BBC guidance to comedy writers / producers from 1950 that contains warnings against mentions of:

Marital infidelity
Good taste and decency are the obvious governing considerations. The vulgar use of such words as ‘basket’ must also be avoided.

… along with suggestive references to fig leaves, lodgers or animal habits – which makes you wonder why you would bother writing comedy, when official guidance like this is often funnier than anything that a hard pressed writer could come up with!

Intute features a number of references to green books and more on MPs expenses.

Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World

12 May

The Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience (CLEX) – an independent body backed by leading bodies in UK higher and further education – has produced a final report on Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World.

It looks at issues such as:

  • the current use of such technologies in higher education
  • student expectations and competencies
  • skills, technical and pedagogical issues for staff
  • the drivers of change

The site also contains the report of a comparative international review covering the USA, Australia, South Africa and the Netherlands.

The report has been discussed in The Guardian and the online community is having its say on Twitter.

Meanwhile from policy to practice – Web 2.0 tools are being actively used by academics and others within Higher Education – the video below shows how Twitter is being used to facilitate class discussion by UT Dallas Professor Dr. Monica Rankin – even when she can’t be there.

Do high-level reports such as the CLEX Inquiry help to support current practice in terms of teaching and learning innovations? Or are such mechanisms inherently behind the times for those making use of these tools already? Or is the Web 2.0 approach a gimmick that gets in the way of effective educational outcomes?

Intute: Social Sciences features more Internet resources on the issues of Higher Education and Educational Technology.

Some Small Changes to Intute: Economics

11 May

There have been a few small changes to the Economics section of Intute: Social Sciences.

Internet Economics replaces the former section on e-commerce and will have a much broader remit that covers all aspects of the digital economy and the economics of online life.

Regional Economics is the new name for Economics by Region or Country and has been stripped down, so that it looks at the topic of financial activity analysed by geographic regions, rather than any site which looks at the economy of any economy.

In the future, there will be more coverage of Economics resources pertaining to specific countries – for example India or China – at the moment, the best way of getting to these resources is by performing an Advanced Search and filtering the results to just Economics records.

Intute advanced search China and economics

It is hoped that this will also lead to dedicated sections on key economies from around the world, such as the American or UK economy and not just the newly emerging markets mentioned above.

The sub-divisions of EU Economics have gone with the resources allocated to the appropriate part of the subject structure if they tackle a specific topic – such as Agricultural Economics – those with a broad European or specifically EU scope will be kept in EU Economics.

There is in-depth coverage of European issues as part of the European Studies section within Intute: Social Sciences and in the Area Studies sections of Intute: Arts and Humanities.

As mentioned previously, a new section covering the topic of Behavioural Economics will be built over the coming months – looking at the psychological aspects of how economics works and how this can affect economic decision making.

Much of the work on these changes will take place in the near future, but if you have a favourite website in these or any other Economics subject, then feel free to get in touch to Suggest a Site if you think it will be of use / interest to the academic community.

Intute: Social Sciences features more Internet resources on the topic of Economics.

Does Your Behaviour Influence Economics

7 May

Or is the world of economics influencing your behaviour?

Behavioural Economics is an emerging field within the discipline and Intute could do with some more resources on this topic.

What is behavioural economics? Essentially it looks at how economic decisions are made, as opposed to the how they should be made by an economically rational being or organisation.

Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational offers his thoughts on the topic in this YouTube video produced by Duke University.

He touches on the relationship with classical economics and how it can make economics feel less like the arena of  Superman and more like that of Homer Simpson – but that is not a bad thing.

… and there are more videos on behavioural economics at YouTube/edu.

from MrsBlogsBlogs.

In terms of the application of behavioural economics to public policy, the New Economics Foundation had outlined  seven principles for policy-makers and Liam Delaney has written about why policymakers should care about behavioural economics over at the Irish Economy.

For some further reading try some academic papers on the topic of behavioural economics via EconPapers or discover similar content via Google Scholar and Google Book Search.

The Economics Network has some teaching and learning resources on the subject, while it has been the topic of seminars at banks, courses taught at MIT and possibly made it into the White House.

There is not currently a section on behavioural economics within Intute: Economics, but if there are enough relevant Internet resources on the subject that can change.

Intute: Social Sciences features a few Internet resources on behavioural economics but help us find more by suggesting a site.

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