As a Latin-Americanist, I belong to a number of organization that have either differential fees for members from countries where academic salaries do not match those of the US, or they hit up members for contributions to fund membership & travel for either student members or part-time instructors, or members from countries where salaries are lower than in the US. I would be happy to pay a higher membership fee to TBLC in order to provide either differential membership fees or scholarships. Kathy McKnight U. of New Mexico Kathryn J. McKnight Associate Professor of Spanish Associate Director for Academic Programs Latin American & Iberian Institute MSC 02 1690 801 Yale Blvd NE 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001 http://laii.unm.edu/ >>> Daniel Moraga 06/21/11 2:04 PM >>> Thanks Bill for the e-mail. I just want to said that I am concern because I cannot access to TBLC because don´t have funding to the pay for membership. Sadly to say, that I feel discriminated because I don't have money to access to that collaborative site. The hidden message here is: spend money with us and have better access to TBL. Bad and Sad. Daniel Moraga Dr. Daniel Moraga Ph.D. Director Oficina de Educación Médica Facultad de Medicina, UCN Larrondo 1281 Coquimbo-Chile Fono 51-209864 Celular: 82349426 E-mail: [log in to unmask] Web: http://oem.sede.ucn.cl/ -----Mensaje original----- De: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] En nombre de Bill Goffe Enviado el: martes, 21 de junio de 2011 12:23 Para: [log in to unmask] Asunto: Re: TBLC Website update I'm very sympathetic to funding issues for academic Internet endeavors. Some 14 years ago (of course ancient in Internet time) I started http://rfe.org . After some years I found a sponsor, the American Economic Association, and one requirement I had was that it be open to all. I'm also involved in http://repec.org , which is entirely based on volunteer efforts and all its content is freely available. It is very widely used in my discipline; in a typical month there are 2,500,000 abstract views. One of its servers, http://nep.repec.org/ , is hosted on my campus and I help administer it. I've even written on this issue in “The Future Information Infrastructure in Economics,” (with Robert P. Parks) The Journal of Economic Perspectives; vol. 11, no. 3, 1997, pp. 75-94 (it is a well-known journal in my discipline with an impact factor of 3.5). Ruth said: > I would like to echo what Michael has said. I appreciate that it can > be frustrating when you come to a website and you run into a "$60 > paywall". But please trust us that we in the TBLC are not trying to > enrich ourselves, we are only trying to survive as an organization. Understood, but keep in mind that many of use don't have a mechanism to charge something like this to our department -- we'd be paying out of our own pocket. Such a payment is 100% foreign to my discipline. At the recent "AEA Conference on Teaching Economics and Research in Economic Education" I and three other economists (Molly Espy, Paul Hettler, and Jennifer Imazeki) did a two hour workshop on TBL. Many would have been startled to hear of a $60 charge for materials. For someone looking at adopting TBL outside professional schools this could be a significant negative factor. Also, perhaps http://www.teambasedlearning.org/benefits might echo these points? To my ear, as-is, this page very much has the ring of a commercial venture. Why not explicitly say here what my money is going for? > The $60 dues help pay not only for administrative support, they also > provide support of our annual meeting, business expenses such as mail > and fedexing of supplies, a presence at conferences such as the AAMC and > IAMSE, brochures and A-E cards for workshop leaders, teleconference > support for our many committee meetings, and a variety of other u ses. Two thoughts here: - Mand other material not? As someone not used to paying for such, and likely having it come out of my own pocket, I'm not sure about subsidizing a presence at AAMC or IAMSE (I had to Google what they were) when they're used to paying for such materials. - Perhaps have the annual meeting subsidize the website and other expenses and not the other way around? Just about everyone is used to paying for conferences. In the conferences I've been associated with (I'm the Secretary-Treasurer of http://comp-econ.org ) we've found that if we have more participants than we budgeted for, we do well financially. > We do not get support from any university or other organization for the > TBLC. Like Michael said, many of us have spent a considerable amount of > our own time and money contributing to the organization. We are not > trying to make a profit. We are anxious for the organization to be > valuable to its members, and are working hard so that it may be that > way. We debate every decision regarding what to keep inside and outside > the "paywall," so we are sensitive to your feedback. I hope you can > appreciate our perspective as well. I do understand and as above I've indeed been in the very same boat. Again, at least might http://www.teambasedlearning.org/benefits say this? The only time I've seen "Premium Membership" is at commercial sites, not academic ones (I'm fine with that at commercial sites). Second, as above, perhaps the annual conference might help fund the website and other expenses and not vice-versa. Thanks for your time, Bill -- Bill Goffe Department of Economics SUNY Oswego, 416 Mahar Hall Oswego, NY 13126 315-312-3444(v), 315-312-5444(f) [log in to unmask] http://cook.rfe.org