[TOS] Seb Benthall on FOSS vs academic culture

[Sebastian Benthall]

Speaking of positive action, have ya'll seen this?
http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Mel Chua <mel at purdue.edu> wrote:

> On Mar 7, 2012 2:36 AM, "Jim Bowring" <bowring at gmail.com
>>    Why the closed-minded vitriol about the academy?  Positive actions
>>    are required!
>>
>
> Jim -- I can see how this might not have come through in my original
> message on this thread, but I've found that I'm a harsh critic of the
> things I love the most. If I didn't have such high regard for the academy
> and its power to affect the world, and had no hope or intention of changing
> it for the better, I would not be sitting in the ivory tower right now. :)
>
> As Seb pointed out, identifying the problems in anything is the first step
> to improving them; positive actions tend to stem from visions of how
> something could be better than it currently is. Since this mailing list
> tends to have a lot of academics on it, my writing here tends to be skewed
> more towards the "here's what FOSS does right and academia does wrong;
> let's transfer goodness in that direction!" theme (perhaps sometimes
> unfairly so).
>
> Conversely, when I'm in a group of mostly-hackers, I tend to talk more
> about the things that FOSS is doing wrong and academia is doing right, and
> argue that FOSS should adopt those practices. For instance, FOSS projects
> tend to have ridiculously high failure-and-dropout rates due to poorly
> designed scaffolding (or a lack thereof), and schools are more proactive
> about identifying and aiding newcomers who are struggling. I guess I should
> say these sorts of things here more as well -- thanks for inadvertently
> pointing that out.
>
> Either way, the first step to change is understanding -- and I think what
> Seb and I are trying to do, as relative newcomers to the academic world
> (and experienced denizens of the FOSS world) is to understand and make
> sense of our new environment -- and part of that is fumbling around and
> saying (seemingly) stupid things and learning from how folks respond to
> them. The comments on my blog post (http://blog.melchua.com/2012/**
> 03/07/foss-thinking-vs-**academic-thinking/#comments<http://blog.melchua.com/2012/03/07/foss-thinking-vs-academic-thinking/#comments>)
> have likewise been illuminating food for thought -- I totally didn't expect
> this big a reaction, but hey... that's how we learn.
>
> Ideas for specific positive actions to take are welcome. I mean, I do need
> a dissertation someday. :)
>
>
> --Mel
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