FACULTY
Professor David Weil, Everett W. Lord distinguished faculty scholar of the markets, public policy & law department.
“In these papers, we’re seeking to arrive at a place where all the research, the statistics, the successful and unsuccessful ideas that have come before lead you to a more objective conclusion,” Weil added. Dee Falvo (MBA ’11), researched landfill gas clean development mechanism projects in Brazil. She said, “The class has been a great introduction to learning about the benefits of policy reform and action, coupled with an interesting, hands-on project with Wikipedia… It’s also been a crash-course in writing for Wikipedia, a learning curve in and of itself! It’s definitely improved my opinion of the work that goes into creating an article for the site and the litmus test for determining quality craftsmanship.” Lianna Davies, spokesperson for Wikimedia, cites several areas of student learning in the project: collaborative writing, expository writing, and research skills (more so than for a majority of other papers they will write), participating in a community of practice, technology skills, and learning about wikis. “We’re thrilled that universities are participating in the initiative,” said Davies, “and we hope many will stay engaged long after the class is finished.” For a medium with millions of entries, the organization only has about 300 employees, many working on the technical side. So the oversight of the content is dependent upon the vigilance of those volunteers who have expertise in a subject area. Adding universities expands that expertise. Wikipedia has a ranking which it bestows on certain people and certain individual posts, ranging from “stub” for a novice entry, to “featured article” for the very top of the heap. Part of the class assignment is to keep improving the article’s rank. Another benefit, Weil notes, is that students’ work may have a life beyond the semester, in that their research can become intrinsic (and in many cases is the original, base article) to a given topic on Wikipedia. For new articles (and most students are writing these), this means it will be a building block for subsequent work. As Andrej Ausing (MBA ’11), whose team worked on policy analysis on the adequacy of veterans’ benefits for soldiers with posttraumatic stress disorders, told the class recently, the Wikimedia initiative allows their research “to directly benefit people with a real need for answers and expands our collective knowledge about socially important topics.”
Faculty Research Day. New Annual Event Celebrates Scholarship.
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n June 14, the School will host its first annual Faculty Research Day, described by organizer Siobhan O’Mahony, associate professor of strategy & innovation, as “a celebration and a sharing of the scholarly work at the School of Management.” Faculty have been invited to present work that has been published or accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals in 2010, and current work that is nearing completion toward that same end. The committee expects approximately 25 faculty to present work. The papers will be arranged around themes that will reveal themselves among the submissions. O’Mahony added, “This kind of program builds pride in the School; it enlightens us about what our colleagues are investigating; it informs our curricular planning; and encourages cross-disciplinary dialogue as well. Who knows? Someone in finance may be inspired to partner with someone in operations to investigate a topic of mutual interest. It will also identify the sometimes-less-than-obvious commonalities and complementarities among various departments and scholars.” Rather than full lectures, the format will be five to ten-minute “snap-talks,” describing the essence of the research question and the major findings. Visit the School of Mangement website to see videos of the presentations after the event.
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