Opening the Online Homework System: Toward Cooperation and Collaboration

One of the core tensions in open educational practice in current mathematics and physical science coursework is the use of online homework systems. Many such tools are from commercial providers and have profit to that provider as a motive. Open resources are pursued by those who, for reasons of cost or of pedagogy, seek to resist the tools of commercial providers. This pursuit is frequently made outside of the context of discussions of open educational practices; indeed, the first author of this presentation describes one such effort that started before he was even aware of open education as a discipline. It is important to ask how those faculty, particularly in the mathematics and physical science disciplines at non-elite institutions, assign homework in ways that encourage practice and skill-building, and more broadly, how such content can be shared more robustly and completely among faculty at different institutions.

Pluralist Economics as a Democratizing Force: A Review Essay about The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics and Democratizing the Economics Debate: Pluralism and Research Evaluation

The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics and Democratizing the Economics Debate: Pluralism and Research Evaluation, two recently published books about heterodox economics and its role in broader academic and policy discourses, serve as an antidote to some recent popular narratives equating economics and economists with policies that are inherently pro-market, anti-regulation, and based in neoclassical theories. These texts illuminate challenges in current economic discourse about (1) the place of economic pluralism, (2) the role economics and economists should play in guiding policy relative to other social science disciplines, and (3) the consequences of the reliance of policy-makers on economists that train at the most elite institutions that are likely to recommend a narrow band of policies informed by a restricted range of economic theories. The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics, edited by Tae-Jee Ho, Lynne Chester, and Carlo D’Ippoliti, presents positive visions for new questions that heterodox economists are researching, alternative explanations for global economic dynamics, and a counter-narrative to the notion that economists are bound to propose neoliberal policies based on neoclassical and new classical economic theories, and that economic analysis must demonstrate causality using different statistical methodologies to validate its rigor. Carlo D’Ippoliti’s Democratizing the Economics Debate examines the dialectical process by which economic rankings prioritize economic work informed by a narrow range of theories, and serve as a springboard for economists studying and working at the most elite institutions to land in powerful government advisory positions. D’Ippoliti highlights the stakes for governments that continue to hire economic policymakers from these top-tier programs with limited demonstrated curiosity in theories that might be considered heterodox, and the benefits for the economics discipline as a whole for better engagement with pluralist economics writ large.

Grand Hotel

Hotels were not new, but the later nineteenth century witnessed a major innovation which shaped the West End: the Grand Hotel. This was part of a global trend with hotels becoming ever larger; monumental landmarks in the urban scene. The chapter decodes the pleasures and significance of the hotel and explores why such elite institutions entered the cultural imagination. It looks in particular at the figures of Richard D’Oyly Carte who built the Ritz, and at César Ritz who then ran it. The hotel aimed to emulate the domestic and provide a home from home. Yet the atmosphere was really a transformation of the domestic. It also reflected the influence of American and Parisian hotels. The Strand and Trafalgar Square were characterized by a profusion of hotels, the product of London’s role as a world city. This chapter explores the domestic interior of the hotel and analyses its different functions

The Mirage of Opportunity

This chapter shows how orthodox theory has contributed to the destruction of the neoliberal opportunity bargain, and how it has become part of the problem rather than a policy solution. Beyond stagnant, if not declining incomes, there are three further symptoms, namely, credential inflation, elite closure, and a narrowing of academic purpose to “education as employability.” Credential inflation is at the heart of a human capital currency crisis given a decline in the exchange value of credentials. The goal posts move with almost every graduation ceremony, and the rules of the game change as employers look beyond credentials in making their hiring decisions. Many people are being priced out of the market not because they are stupid or lack ambition but because they do not have the resources to stay in an extended competition; at the same time, elites are using their social advantage to win a competitive advantage by monopolizing elite institutions and accessing international networks.