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Professors Say Massive Open Online Courses Threaten Academic Freedom
McGruber writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has the news that American Association of University Professors (AAUP) believes that faculty members' copyrights and academic freedom are being threatened by colleges claiming ownership of the massive open online courses their instructors have developed. The AAUP plans this year to undertake a campaign to urge professors to get protections of their intellectual-property rights included in their contracts and faculty handbooks. According to former AAUP President Cory Nelson, 'If we lose the battle over intellectual property, it's over. Being a professor will no longer be a professional career or a professional identity,' and faculty members will instead essentially find themselves working in 'a service industry.' [Just like their graduate students?]"
Most people I've talked to who have been in college recently have had to take a "white people are automatically racist no matter what and minorities can't be because they don't have the power" course. Not to mention the well known cases of partisan ranting in classrooms by professors and even professors handing out pledges and requirements to vote Democrat.
If you want I'll give you links, but don't take my word for it, do some research on your own instead of relying on what someone hands you. I know that's counter to the modern educational indoctrination, but give it a try - true liberalism is about freedom of thought and freedom from oppression, not what modern people who call themselves liberal shovel at you.
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That was my experience during a terribly misguided stint at a liberal arts college.
Liberals LOVE free speech until the second you say something with which they disagree. If that "something" has the slightest HINT of racism/sexism, you are burned alive on the campus green.
Let us not forget the five requirements for deadlock: mutual exclusion, hold and wait, non-preemption, circular wait, and organized labor movements.
reality has a left wing bias to it
Please stop.
One of the biggest problems our nation has at this time is the left/right war. Yes, I called out the left in my post, but education is a place where the left has a stranglehold and is fueling the fire against the right.
The people on the left and the people on the right are really less different than we're lead to believe. This division is important to maintain to a certain group of people. There are people who pull the strings of the people at both the top of the Republican and Democrat parties and these are the same people pulling the strings of both parties. By keeping the left/right battle alive they ensure that both Republicans and Democrats win elections and that no true challenge to their power arises. Why do so many large corporations, banks, and people like Ben Bernanke contribute to both parties? Exactly.
Nobody wants the earth to turn to shit, but some see progress differently than others and have different ways of dealing with it. As for climate change - it's a tough battle, the climate has always changed, the fact the term "global warming" is no longer acceptable sort of gives some ammo to those who think it's horse shit. I personally think it's some blend of man-made issues and natural occurrences, how much is which I don't know. What I do know is even if the people blaming it 100% on man are wrong no one is going to complain about the environment being clean. I go green as much as I can but I don't buy into all the hype.
Neither side wants people murdered - but they have different interpretations of what that is. There's one group, and I'm not even going to separate them as left and right because the lines are fuzzy and there's people on both sides who agree with either definition even if it's counter to the majority of the side, that believes a wanted fetus is a baby in development but an unwanted one is nothing but a tumor fit to be extracted. The other considers it murder. In turn one side believes executing a violent person, one who has killed or done something horrible isn't murder and is a form of cleaning up the species, the other disagrees, still not left/right even if there is a generalization that is mostly right.
News flash: Most conservatives don't really care what you do in your bedroom. Yes, there is a strong religious contingent on the right, but they are no longer the big majority. Right now the Republican party is having a major pro-freedom push that benefits the GLBT folks. The establishment that you hate it fighting it hard. Romney legitimately lost the Republican primary to Ron Paul who by all accounts maintains a libertarian philosophy that the GLBT folks should find acceptable. There is a major freedom push within the party to marginalize the religious nuts, give it time, it will happen as the establishment top end is replaced.
Economics - hint - right now the big parties that most people assign left and right to have the same economic plan. They're just playing for different companies. It involves bleeding the public dry to benefit the companies/views of what should be instead of letting the economy heal.
Another surprise - true conservatives aren't against progress, the definition of conservative is closer to "don't bet the farm on a maybe". True progressives aren't against being a little conservative, after all, part of the reason modern progressives push socialism so hard is to have a safety net to catch them when they do bet the farm on a maybe.
END THE FUCKING WAR
Drop your reality has a liberal bias bullshit, just as you ask the religious right to get their religion out of politics. The only way the world will progress for the better is if we end our in-fighting and take control of our own destinies. You've heard the phrase "divide and conquer"? Do you honestly think those you live among hate you as much as the right-wing propaganda implies? Do you honestly hate right wingers who just want to hold on to their values and th
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