| Ricci Street
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According to the accreditation expectations of the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE):
Faculty members should be involved in professional activities that will enhance the depth and scope of their knowledge and that of their disciplines, as well as the effectiveness of their teaching and student learning. These may include scholarly research, publication, and appropriate professional activities.
| Academic Year | Highest Degree Earned |
Summary |
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| Scholarship of Teaching | Scholarship of Discovery | Scholarship of Integration | Scholarship of Application | Professional Activities | ||
| 1999 - 2000 | M.F.A. University of Massachusetts | C1, I1, I2, I3, I4, I5, I6 | C1, I7 | C1 | H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 | A1, A2, A3, E1, E2, E3, H6 |
1. e-Commerce for Any Business 2000, March 14, Canisius College
2. E-Business Technology Forecast, May 3, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
3. E-Commerce Seminar, June 16, Hodgson Russ
none
1. Ricci Street, http://RicciStreet.net
1. Ricci Street material in development
1. maintenance of Clear Light Studio's web site
2. maintenance and advice on other marketing web sites: little-lavatelli.com, andersonsbooks.com, and accesssolutionsinc.org
3. development of Buffalo Arts Studio's web presence -- no site yet
none
none
1. maintenance of Ricci Street server
2. coding (HTML) and scripting (JavaScript) and maintenance of the Ricci Street web site
3. upgrade of discussion forum from TALK to Bistro
4. installation and maintenance of Business Department faculty discussion forum
5. training of faculty on PCs, the Internet, the Web, and FrontPage
6. course development: wrote MBA 504
1. continued the shift from a teaching-centered classroom to a learning-centered classroom
2. developed projects to motivate students to learn new media communications without fear of low grades
3. developed computer-based customer service techniques to extend the classroom with email, instant messaging, and BuddyHelp
4. posted student projects at The Show and Tell Theater
5. produced year-end public presentation of student work
6. increased student presentations to half the classroom hours
7. developed feedback loops to improve Ricci Street through standard (though informal) usability studies
Note | The scholarship categories are based on Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professorate, a 1990 special report from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
According to the November 1997 accreditation expectations of the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE):
The scholarship of teaching can be the most rigorous scholarship of all. It starts with what the teacher knows -- teachers must be widely read and intellectually engaged in their fields; but teaching becomes consequential only when knowledge can be conveyed and is understood by others. The scholarship of teaching has to do with understanding how students learn in different fields. To be a good teacher means not merely just knowing the field, but also understanding and using the most effective teaching methodologies available. This includes the development of new teaching materials, development and evaluation of new methods of instruction, and the development of techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction.
C1. Ricci Street, http://RicciStreet.net
To use the most effective teaching methodologies available, I ...
I1. continued the shift from a teacher-centered classroom to a learner-centered classroom.
To develop new methods of instruction, I ...
I2. used constructivist principles for project-based instruction to motivate students to learn new media communications without fear of low grades. (See other articles by Peter Doolittle of Virginia Tech.)
I3. used Internet-based customer service techniques to extend the classroom with email, instant messaging, the Ground Zero Bistro discussion forum, and remote PC sharing (BuddyHelp).
To evaluate the effectiveness of instruction, I ...
I4. posted student projects at The Show and Tell Theater.
I5. produced a year-end public presentation of student work and invited students' families, the department chair, and other faculty members (photo montage).
I6. increased student presentations to half the classroom hours.
Teaching is my strongest area for this self-assessment. In addition to putting the Web into my courses, which is a no-brainer, I continued to put my courses onto the Web, which is new and difficult.
Constructivism is the pedagogical theory that best explains this kind of teaching. To many, it appears new, but it is based in an apprentice pedagogy as old as human craft. This pedagogy continues in the arts, which is my background and training, and in sports, which along with the arts are the expendable parts of the contemporary curriculum. Can project-based learning work in an M.B.A. program that bills itself as teaching "applied concepts and skills which support the exercise of leadership in a variety of settings"?
My Slogans
The less the teacher talks, the more the students learn.
A guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage.
Break down the classroom walls and throw away the clocks.
The network is the computer.
Trust the process.
According to the November 1997 accreditation expectations of the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE):
The scholarship of discovery is the closest to what is meant by the term "basic research". Freedom of inquiry and freedom of scholarly investigation is an essential part of higher education. Each and every faculty member should establish credentials as a researcher. The capacity to carry out the scientific method and to conduct meaningful research is an important aspect of learning.
C1. Ricci Street material in development
I7. developed feedback loops to improve Ricci Street through standard (though informal) usability studies
Research is my weakest area for this self-assessment. My terminal degree is a Master of Fine Arts because I wrote a novel instead of writing about novels, which would have earned me a Ph.D. For purposes of this self-assessment, let's set aside the questions of (1) whether any English Ph.D. dissertation really carries out the scientific method and (2) why writing about something is valued higher in academia than writing the thing itself. The scientific method still asks great questions about what's going on at Ricci Street.
Is it
usable?
How can I measure its
usability?
How can I make it more
usable?
The traditional academic disciplines closest to these questions are psychology and design. Is there a science of information design? Can I discover learnable ways to overcome ambiguity in communicating information? Or is all meaning created socially? Is "information" itself a problematic concept?
Even though I started the Research Lab that studies usability via forms, I lost a huge opportunity this year to scientifically study Ricci Street. I had neither the resources nor the time to objectively separate myself from it. Instead, I used it. For most of the time in the classroom, I was the only one without a mouse in my hand. I moved around the classroom helping students. I spent a lot of time with students online outside of the classroom, often asking usability questions.
All the while, a part of me stayed objectively separate and tried to observe behavior and infer states of mind. I read and compared the responses to every form returned from the Research Lab. These observations in no way qualify as carrying out the scientific method. However, I drew what I believe are valid conclusions and will make many changes to increase the usability of Ricci Street based on my observations and the feedback I received from students.
On the other hand, if I got my terminal degree for creative work rather than critical work, then for me the scholarship of discovery is more creative work. In that sense, Ricci Street as a whole qualifies and this area of the self-assessment becomes as strong for me as the others.
According to the November 1997 accreditation expectations of the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE):
The scholarship of integration seeks to interpret, to draw together, and to bring new insights to bear on original research. The scholarship of integration means fitting one's work into larger intellectual patterns. The scholarship of integration is necessary in dealing with the boundaries of the human problems of today which do not always nearly fall within defined disciplines. It is essential to integrate ideas and then apply them to the world in which we live. Comprehensive articles and monographs, participating in curricular innovation, conducting interdisciplinary seminars and textbook writing are examples of the scholarship of integration.
C1. Ricci Street, http://RicciStreet.net
My reluctance to put Ricci Street in the scholarship of discovery comes from its firm place in the scholarship of integration. The scholarship of discovery is traditionally done in private until it is reported in fixed print form and distributed to a few scholars within the discipline and to a few academic libraries. A measure of its long-term success is how many later papers reference it.
The Web blows open that system, and I practice what I preach. Ricci Street is continually in process and is very public. It's built with shared open content rather than hoarded proprietary content. Its reach is far beyond the academic libraries. It is rarely printed and if it is, I don't tend to know about it. Such dynamic, public, free, unprinted, and Web-distributed scholarship is still rare. It is such a revolution that the older generation of academics will have to die off before the changes are institutionalized.
Manuscripts and printed books fought for most of the 16th Century. I suspect printed books and networked digital information will fight for most of the 21st, with the outcome as certain.
As an forerunner of that kind of scholarship, Ricci Street is trying to fit the traditional academic disciplines into an intellectual pattern more useful to students who are not going to get a Ph.D. in one of those disciplines. If we're going to have an M.B.A. concentration in this, what should "this" be? Traditionally, the only option is information technology (IT), that is, computers. While computers are necessary, they are not sufficient. What about design, especially visual design, information design, interactivity design, and instructional design? What about psychology, especially learning and hypertext navigation? Ricci Street's Gizmos, Inc., neighborhood provides a place for all of them.
Would the IACBE accredit such an integrated concentration? What would we call it? Example: New Media Business Communications. How would students explain it to employers? It's going to be hard enough to get my handful of faculty colleagues to understand it let alone accept it. What about their practicing such scholarship?
Please note how the other three scholarships all relate directly to one of the three components of this integrated concentration
| other scholarship |
concentration component |
|
|
|
| teaching | design |
| discovery | psychology |
| application | computer programming |
According to the November 1997 accreditation expectations of the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE):
The scholarship of application moves toward the active engagement of the scholar. It focuses on the responsible application of knowledge to consequential problems. In the past, this type of activity has been called applied research and development. The scholarship of application does not include regular service activities or routine consulting. The scholarship of application must be tied directly to one's field of knowledge and relate to and flow directly out of creative professional activity.
To responsibly apply my knowledge to consequential problems, I ...
H1. maintained the server (Apache on Linux) at IP# 208.234.16.68.
H2. coded (HTML), scripted (JavaScript) and maintained (FTP) the Ricci Street web site.
H3. customized the Perl scripts from Ultimate Bulletin Board to upgrade the discussion forum from TALK to the Ground Zero Bistro.
H4. customized the Perl script from Discus to install and maintain the private Business Department faculty discussion forum
H5. trained faculty colleagues on PCs, the Internet, the Web, and FrontPage.
This is the geeky stuff I take such delight in making fun of, probably because I'm personally so uncomfortable with the stereotype. Why people fear these machines, why people fear mathematical/symbolic language, and how the field got the name computer science are entwined and have resulted in a priesthood that has perpetuated the ridiculous gyrations that real people have to go through to use these tools.
The learning curves are steep, are shrouded in mystery and arcane language, and are entirely unnecessary. Computers today are boy toys -- by boys, for boys. Why is the tool inside the computer? Why isn't the computer inside the tool? The boys need to be thanked politely and sent off to their rooms by the adults, who need tools to work and communicate with, not computers to play with.
The depth of this institution's inability to support the faculty is matched only by the depth of its denial of the problem. Until then, if knowledge is going to be responsibly applied to the consequential problem of making Ricci Street work, someone has to straddle the Geek Line. However, my time for scholarship of application would be far better spent designing simulations and enriched learning environments.
According to the November 1997 accreditation expectations of the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE):
This category is designed to include the routine application of the faculty member's professional expertise in helping solve problems in either the private or public sectors. It also includes activities in support of professional organizations. It could include participation in seminars, symposia, short courses, and workshops intended as professional development or enrichment activities.
A1. e-Commerce for Any Business 2000, March 14, Canisius College
A2. E-Business Technology Forecast, May 3, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
A3. E-Commerce Seminar, June 16, Hodgson Russ
E1. development and maintenance of Clear Light Studio's e-commerce web site
E2. maintenance and advice on other marketing web sites: little-lavatelli.com, andersonsbooks.com, and accesssolutionsinc.org
E3. development of Buffalo Arts Studio's web presence -- no site yet
H6. course development: wrote MBA 504
While I think it is important for me to attend relevant local events to see what our program's market is being exposed to, it is also important for me to attend events where I can learn something. They would not tend to be the same events where I would make a presentation or read a paper.
Such gatherings were designed to bring scholars together, to expose ideas to a public forum, and to exchange ideas. I think I'm doing this in spades with Ricci Street. It's very public. It gets hits from all over the world. Plus, online I have access to a far greater wealth of relevant scholarly material than I ever would in a lifetime of looking at overheads in come hotel far away. A strong proponent of life-long learning, I acquired all these new media knowledge and skills all online without taking a course or receiving a grade.
Now that I am teaching new media communications, I need to shift my professional memberships. I don't think I'm going to find an organization for teaching marketing on the Web, so I'll join one Web organization and one marketing organization.
If I wanted to solicit work as a Web design consultant and go into the site hosting business, I could soon equal my school paycheck. I could replace my time-intensive, student-centered pedagogy with lectures, textbooks, overheads, and tests. To do that, I would be cheating my students and not earning my school paycheck. As proof, I'd have very little to talk about under the various scholarships in my annual self-assessment.
I consult enough to maintain professional credibility. It's very important that in addition to teaching it, I also do it. However, I don't charge for it, and that's a crucial distinction. My students' learning and my teaching job are far more important.
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