Listing every academic in the world!

Recently read about Academia.edu, which, according to Dr. Richard Price, does two things:

- It shows academics around the world structured in a 'tree' format, displayed according to their departmental and institutional affiliations.

- It enables academics to see news on the latest research in their area - the latest people, papers and talks.

They are hoping that Academia.edu will eventually list every academic in the world -- Faculty Members, Post-Docs, Graduate Students, and Independent Researchers. Academics can add their departments, and themselves, to the tree by clicking on the boxes.

One of the interesting things about the site is just how simple and intuitive the interface is. Much we could learn from it. The Harvey Mudd entry is at:

http://www.academia.edu/#/Universities/Harvey_Mudd_College

Teaching and Learning Challenges of 2009

Educause just released a list of the top teaching and learning challenges for 2009

http://connect.educause.edu/wiki/TLChallenges09

the list is

• Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation.
  


• 
  Developing 21st-century literacies among students and faculty (information, digital, and visual).
  


• 
  Reaching and engaging today's learner.
  


• 
  Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT.
  


• 
  Advancing innovation in teaching and learning (with technology) in an era of budget cuts.

In many ways, this has always been the list of challenges (well, with the exception of the second with its reference to that special beast the 21st century learner). So it will be interesting to see how people make the issues more specific in the Educause wiki.