International media ethics teaching award for UH Mānoa professor; University of Hawai'i News, May 19, 2021

University of Hawai'i News; International media ethics teaching award for UH Mānoa professor

"A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa journalism professor with more than 30 years of teaching experience has been internationally recognized for outstanding classroom teaching in media ethics. Professor Ann Auman is the winner of the 2021 Teaching Excellence Award in the Media Ethics Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The award will be formally presented to Auman at the Media Ethics Division members’ meeting on July 28.

The award committee was impressed by Auman’s work, “incorporating Indigenous values and ethics in a cross-cultural media ethics course and classroom.” Auman’s ethics courses are Communications/Journalism 460: Media Ethics and Communications 691: Emergent Media Ethics Across Cultures: Truth-Seeking in the Global, Digital Age.

“I believe that journalism can be improved if we honor Indigenous values, culture and language in storytelling. Western-based ethics codes and practices need to be reformed, and more Indigenous people should tell their own stories,” Auman said. “Everyone should practice media ethics, not just journalists. In this disinformation age we are empowered if we learn how to distinguish the truth from falsehood and deception, and be ethical producers and consumers of news and information.”

Auman also teaches courses in news literacy and multimedia journalism. Her research is in cross-cultural media ethics with a focus on Indigenous media ethics. Auman’s recent published works include, “Traditional Knowledge for Ethical Reporting on Indigenous Communities: A Cultural Compass for Social Justice” in Ethical Space: The International Journal of Media Ethics; “The Hawaiian Way: How Kuleana can Improve Journalism” in the Handbook of Global Media Ethics; and “Ethics Without Borders in a Digital Age” in Journalism & Mass Communication Educator."

Zoom classes felt like teaching into a void — until I told my students why; The Washington Post; March 11, 2021

C. Thi Nguyen, The Washington Post; Zoom classes felt like teaching into a void — until I told my students why

"In the end, I see this as a question of informed choice. Given who I am, it’s very predicable that my teaching will get worse as more cameras go off. Students deserve to know that, and take that into account, in their own choices. I suspect that honesty is the best we can do right now.

This experience has also changed how I behave when I’m on the other side of the exchange — in the audience of an online lecture. In that situation, I would almost always prefer to turn my camera off. But now I go camera-on most of the time, because of my understanding of the impact of my decision on the speaker.

Right now, our knowledge of one another’s lives is slim, gathered as it is through impoverished channels like Zoom. When our connections are so tenuous, a little trust can go a long way."

Addressing the Crisis in Academic Publishing; Inside Higher Ed, November 5, 2018

Hans De Wit and Phillip G. Altbach and Betty Leask, Inside Higher Ed; Addressing the Crisis in Academic Publishing

[Kip Currier: Important reading and a much-needed perspective to challenge the status quo!

I just recently was expressing aspects of this article to an academic colleague: For too long the dominant view of what constitutes "an academic" has been too parochial and prescriptive.

The academy should and must expand its notions of teaching, research, and service, in order to be more truly inclusive and acknowledge diverse kinds of knowledge and humans extant in our world.]

"We must find ways to ensure that equal respect, recognition and reward is given to excellence in teaching, research and service by institutional leaders, governments, publishers, university ranking and accreditation schemes."

The Higher Ed Learning Revolution: Tracking Each Student's Every Move; NPR, 1/11/17

Eric Westervelt, NPR; 

The Higher Ed Learning Revolution: Tracking Each Student's Every Move

"Another physicist-turned-education-innovator (is there something in the physics lab water?) named Timothy McKay sees great promise in "learning analytics" — using big data and research to improve teaching and learning.

McKay, a professor of physics, astronomy and education at the University of Michigan argues in a recent white paper, that higher ed needs to "break down the perceived divide between research and practice."

There are privacy and ethical concerns, of course, which in turn has prompted fledgling codes of conduct to spring up.

I reached out to Professor McKay, who also heads Michigan's Digital Innovation Greenhouse, to dig deeper on how learning analytics work in higher ed."