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A couple of weeks ago, I posted a review of an article on mutual fund fee litigation. In my post, I apologized for reviewing the article “late.”

I thought about the use of the word “late” after I posted. The article has been available on SSRN, the Social Science Research Network, since March, but it has not yet been published in a law review. But, in the world of blogs and instant access to everything, waiting until publication in print truly is late.

Most legal articles are now posted on SSRN as soon as they are finished, and I, like many other law professors, don’t wait until publication to read articles in my areas of interest. I pull those articles straight off SSRN. SSRN helpfully provides subject-specific emails with abstracts and links to newly posted articles.

My first crowdfunding article had hundreds of downloads before it appeared in print. It came out in a law review at almost the same time the final crowdfunding bill passed Congress; if I had not posted it on SSRN, it would have had no chance to affect the debate. (I’m not sure it had much effect anyway. The drafters of the final bill…

In last week’s post about the business of the World Cup, I indicated that I would review Christine Bader’s book, The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil. I have changed my mind, largely because I don’t have much to add to the great reviews the book has already received. Instead I would like to talk about how lawyers, professors and students can use the advice, even if they have no desire to do corporate social responsibility work as Bader did, or worse, they think CSR and signing on to voluntary UN initiatives is really a form of “bluewashing.”

Bader earned an MBA and worked around the world on BP’s behalf on human rights initiatives. This role required her to work with indigenous peoples, government officials and her peers within BP convincing them of the merits of considering the human rights, social, and environmental impacts. She then worked with the UN and John Ruggie helping to develop the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, a set of guidelines which outline the state duty to protect human rights, the corporate duty to respect human rights, and both the state and corporations’ duty to provide judicial…

FOR ACADEMIC EYES ONLY (practicing readers may be deeply offended by my self-indulgence)

By my count we are in week 7 (out of 12) of “summer”–the time between graduation and when the fall semester resumes.  We are more than half-way through this shimmering mirage, this beacon of hopeful productivity, balance, and reprieve.  All year long, I think, THIS summer I will……  And now this THIS summer is here, I am feeling concerned about all that hasn’t been tended to at work or at home. At least not yet.  (And it isn’t for lack of trying–75 exams graded, 3 conferences attended, 1 article draft complete, 3 unexpected child illnesses, and 1 empirical study bogged down in the details.)

This is a common refrain of conversations had with fellow academics. It all goes by too quickly and with self-imposed pressure to make the most of it professionally (write two articles for August submission!) and personally (go on exotic travel adventure with family!).  By my personal count, I am failing on both fronts.   While this is a unique schedule for academics, I think that the promise of summer lures most people from all walks of life into an unrealistic vision of this time…

The WVU College of Law’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development is seeking a fellow for 2014-16, and the details are below.  As I  have written before, the Future of Business is the Future of Energy. Just today, the New York Times Dealbook has an article, Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Ramps Up Investment Plans, which notes: 

Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund said on Tuesday that it would manage its $884 billion portfolio more aggressively over the next three years, taking larger stakes in companies and increasing its real estate portfolio.

. . . .

The fund’s investments have grown increasingly sophisticated under Yngve Slyngstad, the chief executive of Norges Bank Investment Management, who came to the fund in 1998 to build an equity portfolio and became C.E.O. in 2008. Since the end of 2007, equities have increased as a percentage of the portfolio to about 61 percent from 42 percent.

Mr. Slyngstad has also diversified the holdings into smaller companies and into emerging markets, but the stock investments remain concentrated in Europe and North America. The fund’s largest equity holdings are all companies based in Europe, including Nestlé, Novartis, HSBC Holdings, the Vodafone Groupand Royal

…

I’ve recently returned from taking a course on negotiation at Harvard Law School.  This was an in-person course where I was a student, which gives me something to compare my MOOC experiences to as I address the topic of online v. in-person classes.  I provide a few of my thoughts on the topic after the break.

If you were designing a massive open online course (a “MOOC”), how would you make it as effective as possible? 

This week I am not looking at how MOOCs compare to in-person courses, but rather I am looking at how various MOOCs compare to one another. 

A few of my thoughts are below. 

Studio Filming.  Some of the earlier MOOCs, like Ben Polak’s Game Theory class at Yale, simply set a camera in the room and recorded the class.  Even with a dynamic professor like Polak, this strategy did not seem to fit the medium well.  Later MOOCs, like Northwestern University’s Law & Entrepreneurship course, were filmed specially for the MOOC, in what appears to be a studio of sorts.  The studio, edited versions of a course seem to produce a much more efficient and engaging experience.  To increase engagement even further, some have asked whether celebrities like Matt Damon should teach MOOCs (presumably from a script prepared by professors in the field)…or maybe professors should take acting classes.

Deadlines and Certificates.  It is well-known that the completion rate for MOOCs is miserable.  The completion rate has been reported as less than 7%.  I imagine…

Last year, Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen said “15 years from now half of US universities may be in bankruptcy.”  

So, I guess half of our schools have about 14 more years to go, according to Christensen.

At least part of the reason for Clayton Christensen’s prediction is the rise of online education, including so-called “massive open online courses” or “MOOCs.”

Recently, I completed a few MOOCs, mostly because I wanted to learn about MOOCs first-hand.  I also picked subjects that interested me.

The courses I took were:

Yale – Game Theory (Ben Polak)

MIT – The Challenges of Global Poverty (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo)

Northwestern – Law and the Entrepreneur (Esther Barron and Steve Reed)

I will share some of my thoughts on MOOCs during my normal Friday posting slot, in three installments: (1) Effective MOOCs? (2) MOOCs v. In-Person Courses, and (3) MOOCs and the Future of Higher Education. 

Tomorrow kicks off the 2014 Law & Society Annual meeting in Minneapolis, MN.  Law & Society is a big tent conference that includes legal scholars of all areas, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and the list goes on and on.  A group of female corporate law scholars, of which I am a part, organizes several corporate-law panels. The result is that we have a mini- business law conference of our own each year.  Below is a preview of the schedule…please join us for any and all panels listed below.

Thursday 5/29

Friday 5/30

Saturday 5/31

8:15-10:00

0575 Corp Governance & Locus of Power

U. St. Thomas MSL 458

Participants: Tamara Belinfanti, Jayne Barnard, Megan Shaner, Elizabeth Noweiki, and Christina Sautter

10:15-12:00

1412 Empirical Examinations of Corporate Law

U. St. Thomas MSL 458

Participants: Elisabeth De Fontenay, Connie Wagner, Lynne Dallas, Diane Dick & Cathy Hwang

12:45-2:30

1468 Theorizing Corp. Law

U. St. Thomas MSL 458

Participants: Elizabeth Pollman, Sarah Haan, Marcia Narine, Charlotte Garden, and Christyne Vachon

1:00 Business Meeting Board Rm 3

2:45-4:30

Roundtable on SEC Authority

View Abstract 2967

Participants: Christyne Vachon, Elizabeth Pollman, Joan Heminway, Donna Nagy, Hilary Allen

1473 Emerging International Questions in

…