 Publishing Introducing Institutional Open Access Common Ground is proud to announce an exciting new model of scholarly publishing called Institutional Open Access , which allows faculty and graduate students to submit articles to Common Ground journals for unrestricted open access publication. With Institutional Open Access, instead of the author paying a per-article open access fee, institutions pay a set annual fee that entitles their students and faculty to publish a given number of open access articles in Common Ground’s peer reviewed academic journals. For information, please visit our website. You, your department head, or library representative may also contact us for more information. New Journal Issues Published  We are pleased to announce the publication of the following new issues: The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society, Volume 2, Issue 4 and Volume 3, Issue 1. Conference 2014 Conference Welcomes Plenary Speaker Francisco Mena Francisco Mena is a Professor at the National University of Costa Rica. His areas of expertise include intercultural study of the New Testament, popular education, intercultural education, and the exegesis of religious texts. In his latest research, Francisco examines the Gospel of Mark and how it relates mythologically to the construction of Jesus’ identity. He is the author of Los Tejidos del Caos: Hermenéutica Bíblica desde América Latina (2010), La carta de Santiago. Guía de Estudio (2012), El Texto Como Caos: Relectura Apocalíptica del Subjuntivo "Caminemos" en Ro 6.4c (2005). For more information on our plenary speakers, please visit our website. Community MOOCs Evolving Jason Berg | cgScholar Most advancements, technological or otherwise, are initially deeply rooted in the status quo. MOOCs, which mimic traditional lecture-centric classrooms, are no exception. These first attempts are vital, generate interest, and answer important questions but are stepping stones on the path to innovation in higher education. The recently announced DOCC (distributed open collaborative course) on Feminism and Technology, supported by 17 colleges and universities this semester, is one such innovation that we are planning to support with the Scholar digital learning platform. Scholar transforms the patterns of interaction in learning through multi-modal writing, sharing in knowledge communities and peer feedback which re-positions learners as knowledge producers working collaboratively toward mastery. In conversations recently with Anne Balsamo, Dean in the School of Media Studies at the New School, we were struck by the alignment of one of Scholar's organizing principles (collaborative knowledge making) and their description of what differentiates a DOOC from a MOOC, "It recognizes that .... expertise is distributed throughout all the participants in a learning activity," and "who you learn with is as important as what you learn". Comment in Scholar. |