Mendes gushed she was 'so proud of my man' as she recalled the 'Not My Ken' mockery he endured in the lead-up to the release of Barbie

Eva Mendes defends partner Ryan Gosling over Academy Award nom for Barbie - as she praises him for taking his 'now iconic character Ken all the way to the Oscars' | Daily Mail Online

In snubbing the film’s central voices—Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie—the Academy continues its tense relationship with blockbusters.

The Oscars Are Confused About “Barbie” | The New Yorker

Some 1,400 are set to be drafted in March to combat units months before their pre-army programs are completed

IDF to recruit soldiers early from pre-military academy and service tracks | The Times of Israel

This first-hand opportunity will allow community members to gain a deeper understanding of the sheriff's office.

Cole County Sheriff's Office to hold Citizen's Instructional Academy this spring | Mid-Missouri News | komu.com

The Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners voted Tuesday to end a virtual online program’s services for elementary students and to close Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy West.

Baltimore’s Charm City Virtual to stop serving elementary students; Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy West to close

LEONARDTOWN, Md. – Parents and students at Leonard Hall Junior Naval Academy (LHJNA) continue to express their disappointment and concern over the sudden closure of the private school. As The BayNet first reported last Friday, the school’s Board of Trustees decided to close the doors of ...

St. Mary’s County Attorney Addresses Commissioners About Leonard Hall Junior Naval Academy - The BayNet

BOSTON (WHDH) - The announcement of this year’s Academy Award nominees brought with it big accolades for Boston on Tuesday as two movies with localRead More

2 movies filmed in Massachusetts earn Academy Award Best Picture nominations - Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

With many shocked by the Academy's failure to recognise the work of Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie at yesterday's Oscar nominations – what was behind it all?

Oscars 2024: The real reason Barbie's Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie were snubbed by the Oscars

Latest Market News · Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here

‘Barbie’ stars Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera don’t hold back after the Academy snubs Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie | CNN Business

The Oscar nominations 2024 are in as Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid announced the nominations for the 96th Academy Awards this morning.

Oscar Nominations 2024 List: Nominees by Category - Oscars 2024 News | 96th Academy Awards

Academy Xi

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This article is Part 1 of the ongoing series From Zero to Product Manager. A set of articles that help you transition to a Product Management role. In this post I explain what a Product Manager (PM) is and how the role can differ across companies, I describe the best qualities of an excellent PM. You are aspiring to a switch into a Product Management career but don’t know where to start from: this article is for you. Product Management roles started rising less than 20 years ago, it’s normal not having a clear understanding of what the role encompasses. I found this great definition from Atlassian that provides a fundamental understanding of the role. A product manager is the person who identifies the customer need and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality. ( ) Sherif Mansour on Atlassian In this article, I provide simple steps and tools to step up in this thrilling career path. What you will find in this article: A complete understanding of what a PM is and is not The four types of Product Managers: Consumer, Internal, B2B, Technical The four qualities of a great PM: Communication, Technical knowledge, Problem-solving mindset and leadership Image source: paperblog Defining the role of a Product Manager (PM) 1) Product Manager roles are trending As this great from Productboard states, article “We are in the Golden Age of Product Management”. What was not a long time ago an obscure job title that none would know how to define is now one of the hottest roles in the Market. Product Management roles in the US have grown an astounding 32% from August 2017 to June 2019, which is five times more than the growth for overall jobs. ( from Neal Iyer from Product Management Insider). With some specific roles like Growth Product Manager showing a 425% increase in average monthly interest over the last 5 years in Google Trends ( ). Study ProductLed Image source: Neal Iyer on Medium Product Management roles in the US have grown 32%, which is five times more than the growth for overall jobs. Before getting tips on how to transition to a Product Management position, let’s define its role. 2) What a PM is not: 2.1) A PM is not a Manager. Let’s start with the least obvious, as the job title doesn’t say, a PM is not a manager (in the traditional term). His primary responsibility is not caring for a team and their growth but Product. As scrum.org put it, the Product Owner role is to maximize the Product Value. If you work as a PM, you quickly realize that if, of course, it implies having a motivated, high-performing team, so it’s in your best interest to having everyone feeling fulfilled about their job and passionate about their mission. 2.2) A PM is not an engineer. This misconception comes from the fact that most recruiters and most job posts require you to have a computer science degree. It’s particularly true for a specified type of PM that I outline later. Having a strong technical background is an excellent advantage for your job, helping you understand more how the Product is going to be implemented, and the limitation you could face. However, the PM is not an engineer as he decides on the What, not on the How. The PM determines what Product do we want to implement to maximize value for our users. The development team decides how to implement the Product and with which technology. The PM is not an engineer as he decides on the What, not on the How 2.3) A PM is not a designer. A good PM needs a good understanding of customer needs. Having a substantial User Experience (UX) background helps you tailor a product closer to the requirements of your users. However, as a PM, you don’t need to be proficient in Design and a pro of Adobe and Sketch. Depending on the organization and your role, you can delegate those responsibilities to UI and UX designers. Image source: Altexsoft : Digression — The difference between PM in FGMC vs Software company Haircolor — L’Oréal Paris) L’Oréal Paris In this section, I want to clarify the confusion with the traditional PM role of FGMCs which belong within the Marketing Department. You might have one friend working at L’Oréal as a PM of a Shampoo line who has no idea about Agile, UX, or the concept of maximizing value for the user. However, they can tell you all about the shampoo market, their last marketing campaign, and their retail strategy. This PM usually evolves as Product Line manager ( and then finally promoted to a Brand manager ( ). It’s a career path within Marketing, and although the PM shares the same job title, the role differs a lot from the Agile Product Manager, most frequently from Software companies, that we are focusing on in this article. 3) What is a PM: The PM is the person responsible for the success of the Product. Note that the Product can be an app, a line of products, a subsection of a product (a section of a website). What are some Product Manager Responsibilities: User Research Roadmapping Data analysis Project Management Strategy Stakeholder Management Cross-functional management Image source: Productcoalition 4) The four types of Product Managers There are four types of Product Managers roles. They differ according to the type of organization and Product. 4.1) Consumer PM He builds products for the general consumer. One example could be TickTock. His primary responsibilities are: Ideation Testing Data Analysis User research to prioritize work for new features 4.2) Internal PM: He builds products for users within their own company. For example, software used by Customer Service. His primary responsibilities are: Project Management Execution Not much design as it’s internal : 4.3) Business to Business (B2B) PM He builds products for use at another company. For example, a PM at HubSpot, an inbound marketing automation tool. The principal characteristics of B2B products are: Low volume, high cost, sold by sales teams There is a smaller number of end-users (compare to consumer products), although, for some successful companies like SalesForce, this number is still huge Execution focus The main challenge is that the product end-user (e.g., Sales) is different from the purchase decision-maker (e.g., Finance) : 4.4) Technical PM He focuses on technical product manager. For example, Google Product manager working in the search algorithm. Specificities of a Technical PM are: Can be a subtype of any of the other types Solving complex technology challenges I include an infographic from Mckinsey that offers a different categorization: Image Source: 5 Academyxi The four qualities of a great Product Manager We previously saw that there are different types of Product Manager, and each type requires different skills and backgrounds. However, some broads qualities considerably help to switch to a Product Manager position. : You can communicate via email, phone, or in-person meetings. As a PM, you have to talk with internal and external stakeholders frequently to gather feedback and express your vision. And remember the best communicators are the best listeners, or as the saying goes, “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. Communication : Having an engineering degree is not mandatory, but the more technical knowledge, the easier. As a PM, you need to understand the technology and to be able to talk to it with your team. Technical knowledge : A PM is a problem solver. He loves having complex challenges that require thinking outside the box. Being flexible and create is not a set of skills but a mindset. Problem-oriented : A PM is not a manager, but he is a leader. And a good leader makes sure to listen to the team and address concerns. He is open to criticism, always looking to improve his role and the Product. He practices transparency within the team and for the entire organization. He is accountable for the Product. He makes sure to give credit to others to create a motivated team. Leadership Image source: kent-teach Congratulations if you made it this far! I hope this article helped you to switch to a Product Manager position. If you are interested to learn more make sure to read Part 2 and Part 3 of the From Zero to Product Manager series. Please let me know in the comment section if there additional tips that you would find useful. And don’t forget to check my other posts about Product Management and Agile Methodologies.

What Product Managers do and How to become one [Part 1 — From Zero to Product Manager]

Want to know what it takes to make it in UX design? We recently asked four awesome women in UX about their own experiences in carving out a career in this exciting field. They offered a refreshingly honest and insightful look into the world of UX, with each taking a unique journey to get to where they are now. UX design, or user experience design, is all about taking a customer on a journey through a given medium — be it audio-visual, an interaction with an AI, or navigating a web page. It’s about invoking feelings from a user, and creating targeted stories for brands. It’s about unleashing your creativity to realise tangible, measurable results. What led Sharni Allen, Luisa Lombardo, Bettina Marson and Hannah Heffernan into a career in UX? What were their personal hurdles along the way? And what tips do they have for girls ( ) looking at a future in UX design? and guys Let’s find out what leading women in UX Design have to say. Sharni Allen — UX Designer & Service Designer, Freelance Sharni Allen is a former Academy Xi instructor who currently freelances as a leading UX and service designer. She describes herself as a ‘UX generalist’ who is comfortable facilitating client workshops as well as creating user journeys and wireframes. Sharni has worked as a UX lead at agencies such as whiteGREY and Webling Interactive . What’s your background, and how did you get into UX design? I had worked my way up through the digital production ranks for over 10 years, culminating in an executive producer role where I was overseeing large scale digital transformation projects. About six years ago I started to see a shift in the marketplace — businesses were demanding more expertise from agencies in user-centred design. They not only wanted to see the research behind our solutions, they wanted to be involved in the process. Coming from a traditional waterfall background, the opportunity to work in a more lean and agile way with multidisciplinary teams who were producing results backed by actual research and testing was too good to pass up. I took the skills I had already refined as a producer, such as personas, empathy maps and wire-framing, and put myself on the market as a UX architect. The rest is history. What did you study to get into UX? I did a back in the days when we were still burning CDs and designing websites in 256-colour palettes. The foundations of user-centred design have not changed; the were the industry leaders back then, and are still at the top of the reading list of every UX practitioner around the world. Bachelor of Multimedia Nielsen Norman Group My years in digital production gave me a lot of experience in researching and developing the artefacts required for problem definition and solutions. The other soft skills I needed to succeed came naturally; confidence in public speaking, backing up my decisions when challenged, collaboration and empathy. What are the biggest hurdles you’ve found in adapting to the world of UX design? Getting client buy-in on the process and committing the required amount of time to work collaboratively. Enthusiasm is always high at the start of the project discovery. But continuing through the research, empathy and ideation phases of a project can require an incredible commitment of time from client stakeholders, who may become more hands off and ‘trust us’ — we’re the experts, aren’t we? Decisions can’t be made in silos. There needs to be a consensus on decisions made continuously through the project. Ensuring your decision-makers (product owners, SMEs, etc.) are taken on the journey with you is critical to project success. What do you wish you knew when you started? What would you do differently if you had your time again? I’d buy more Bitcoin! But seriously, taking a step back from the digital tools available and putting things up on a wall is the best way to start every single day. Having a project Kanban (Agile tool) and a daily stand up with the team can raise problems early and often. It fosters team spirit and and an understanding of the project as a whole, rather than the small piece each team member may be working on. Any tips for people interested in pursuing a career in UX design? The hard skills can be taught, the soft skills must be learned. The UX business is not for the shy or timid. It is all about the user — getting out there and talking to the audience, empathising with their needs and wants and then presenting back your findings is a big part of the job. You may be questioned by those who demand answers, challenged by those who don’t believe your findings, and proved completely wrong about your assumptions. UX is a learning exercise in itself, and without those lessons we can’t learn from the mistakes of the past and deliver useful products and services. Luisa Lombardo — Product Designer, hipages Luisa Lombardo is currently engaged as a product designer at hipages , a revolutionary Australian home improvement marketplace. Luisa made her start as a graphic designer in Sydney, before enjoying adventure and career-growth in the UK, and finally returning home as a senior. A switch to UX design came next, as it offered a fresh professional challenge while reinvigorating her passion for design. What’s your background, and how did you get into UX design? My background was in graphic design, where I focused on branding, advertising and print. Although I loved this space, I felt I needed a new challenge in my career and saw an opportunity to improve my skill set and move into UX design. What did you study to get into UX? Most of my UX learning has been on the job with hands-on experience. I have been very fortunate to work with some great UX designers who have been great mentors for me. I also completed a digital design program at Tractor Design School (now sadly closed) to help me make the transition. What are the biggest hurdles you’ve found in adapting to the world of UX design? Having the confidence to get into UX sooner! It’s always daunting making that first big leap in changing careers and starting from the beginning. What do you wish you knew when you started? What would you do differently if you had your time again? I wish I knew that my skills as a graphic designer would give me a great foundation in the UX world. It has made the change easier than I thought. Any tips for people interested in pursuing a career in UX design? Never stop learning. Read UX articles from sites like and . I like to start my day by reading the latest blog post and getting inspired by the work that others are doing. Also get out there and meet people in the UX community. Having contacts in the industry is a great way to build your career. Medium Muzli Bettina Marson — UX Specialist, Telstra Bettina Marson is a multidisciplinary creative. An award-winning artist and writer, she has more recently put her talents to work in the field of UX. Bettina is currently a UX & UI designer in the digital products & services department at Telstra , working in customer success management in the rapid delivery automation team. What’s your background, and how did you get into UX design? I’ve always been attracted to creative pursuits and technology. Initially I studied a , which led to a career working as a concept artist and environment designer. During that time I cultivated an interest in working closer with technologies to improve the lives of other people — both creating engaging experiences and solving real world problems. Bachelor of Game Design This led me to enroll in my master’s degree to fine-tune my focus and pursue user experience and interaction design as a career. What did you study to get into UX? I studied a . During my studies I created interactive prototypes and user experiences for use in the health, education, communication and lifestyle industries, which I found to be incredibly rewarding. Master of Interaction Design at Monash University What are the biggest hurdles you’ve found in adapting to the world of UX design? With the rate that technology is being developed and adopted, one of the greatest challenges I’ve found is that you need to not only be knowledgeable in UX practices, but also in the latest technologies and their limitations. What do you wish you knew when you started? What would you do differently if you had your time again? When you think of user experience design, you immediately think of interfaces and excellent customer service. User experience design is more diverse than that; we live in a world with many different technologies that allow for many different kinds user experiences, such as virtual reality and voice-based interaction as seen in products like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. User experience is not purely visual, and we must remember that people interact with technology in different ways. It’s important to not only keep up to date with the rapidly changing world of technology, but to ensure that the experiences you are creating are inclusive, intuitive and a delight to use. Any tips for people interested in pursuing a career in UX design? If you’re interested in this rewarding and challenging field, I definitely recommend attending a workshop or meet-up to find out first-hand what it’s like to work as a UX specialist. There are also many fantastic online resources to upskill in UX design if you’re looking to bring user-centric practices into your existing work. Hannah Heffernan — Product Designer, Canva Hannah Heffernan loves to create, and has managed to make a successful career out of this passion. During a stint in Berlin she also obtained a taste for startup life. And where better to be a startup loving creative than Australia’s billion dollar startup baby, Canva . What’s your background, and how did you get into UX design? I started out in advertising agencies, working first as a illustrator and designer, then as an art director. I came to UX while living in Berlin five years ago. My limited German didn’t get me far in traditional agencies, but the tech and startup scene was really strong. That’s where the demand was, plus tech tends to look further for talent so naturally the teams are very international and English becomes the default for everyone. My first role was as a real generalist in a small start-up. This is where I got the bug for designing for products. What did you study to get into UX? Like many of us, I didn’t. I studied and majored in illustration. My illustration background has definitely helped me design products. communication design What are the biggest hurdles you’ve found in adapting to the world of UX design? I made the shift to UX with a new job in a new company after maternity leave. That was a hurdle in itself! I found the biggest challenge was shifting from designing intuitively to having to inform my decisions with data. Design has always been emotive for me, and I guess my decision making is pretty gut-feel as well. Having the discipline to make more objective decisions and validating my hunches has taken practice. It is still something I have to practice! What do you wish you knew when you started? What would you do differently if you had your time again? I wish I knew that I already had all the skills, I just needed to apply them differently! Art direction and designing for advertising is about distilling an idea down to its simplest form, empathising with consumers and getting to the heart of what they’re trying to achieve in their lives and how your product can help them. To me, this is UX. Just the output is different. As women, we’re often not very good at selling how awesome we are! If I could go back to before those first terrifying UX role interviews, I’d practice being a better salesperson! It felt like this new scary industry that I knew nothing about, but I actually had 10 years of really relevant experience. My thinking was that I had to find a company willing to give me a break, but they actually would have been lucky to have me! Any tips for people interested in pursuing a career in UX design? If you already work in a creative field, or have any problem-solving element to what you do now, you’re probably already doing some UX! Find opportunities to apply tried and true UX methodologies and processes to projects you’re working on now. Then, when you make the leap to a UX role, you’ll already have the tools to get going. Is it time you made your start in the world of user experience design, just like these trailblazing women in UX? Check out The Martec’s other UX articles or for more info. The Future of a Career in UX The Pros and Cons of Bootcamps for UX Designers

UX Design Insights from 4 Women in Tech

. There’s an argument to say that collecting experiences is the meaning of life; that seeing new sights and feeling new feelings allows an individual to understand the breadth of the human experience, and to thus live life to its fullest. Human experiences It’s from this lofty (and perhaps ) perch that we’re going to survey the world of UX design, because it is the role of the UX designer to craft the experiences of a digital product’s users. They control the usability, accessibility and enjoyment of the UX (user experience), and have the final say on whether it is to be one that is pleasant, fulfilling, jaw-dropping, or indeed . slightly conceited terrible Sculpting a digital world is an exciting prospect, and has seen the role of UX designer becoming ever more desirable in recent years. And while we at have previously spoken about and , we are yet to guide UX designers through that middle period of the role — the crucial developmental stage that sees many a fresh-faced UXer either sink or swim. The Martec how to kick off a career in UX how to navigate the very top rungs of the profession In search of answers we spoke to three UX design — , a UX Specialist at , a Product Designer at , and , Lead UX Design Instructor at — to hear how they managed to navigate these often choppy waters. dab hands Bettina Marson Telstra Hannah Heffernan Canva Robert Williams Academy Xi What do the pros have to say about forging a path in UX design? Let’s find out. Understanding whether a UX design career is right for you Many a budding UX designer has been surprised at what the role entails once the choice was made to pursue the career. Understanding whether you’re a good fit for the role is the first step on the road to UX design success. “I’ve always been attracted to creative pursuits and technology,” says Marson. Her entry into the UX space wasn’t particularly conventional, but it was one that seems to have set her up for success. “Initially I studied a Bachelor of Game Design, which led to a career working as a concept artist and environment designer. During that time I cultivated an interest in working closer with technologies to improve the lives of other people — both creating engaging experiences and solving real world problems. This led me to enrol in my master’s degree to fine-tune my focus and pursue UX and interaction design as a career.” While Marson evolved a passion for all things UX, for others this enthusiasm is inherent. So, are you a natural-born UX designer? One way to find out is to look at the skills that separate UXers from other professionals, and see if your strengths align. The key skills that make a UX designer exceptional So what do our experts see as the talents shared by the top UX designers? As a UX professional at design software provider Canva, Heffernan feels that being able convey your ideas through sketching is a skill that separates the best UX designers from the rest. “I may be biased as someone with a background in art and illustration, but being able to visually share an idea in seconds with a scribble has helped me immensely. With just pen and paper I can jam with my product manager or an engineer and figure out an idea together. It’s so much more collaborative than making wireframes or mock-ups on my computer.” “Communication,” Heffernan adds when pressed for more skills. “I’ve worked with some otherwise brilliant UX researchers and designers who struggled to get key people on board because they didn’t know how to [communicate]. You can’t operate as this elite theoretical specialist and expect others to agree when you present your recommendations. Get people invested in UX early, and make it accessible, practical and inclusive for people who may be new to it.” Williams agrees. “In UX design, soft skills have a huge role. The ability to communicate well — to facilitate, to organise and to collaborate — are hallmarks of an exceptional UX designer.” He also suggests that an exceptional UX designer needs to be good at identifying what creates a better world for the customer, and must understand that it takes courage to create change. Rather than focusing on learnt skills, Marson instead identifies the key traits of an A-grade UX designer. She sees adaptability and drive as the two most important qualities that the best professionals in the field share, as it’s . “With the rate [at which] technology is being developed and adopted, one of the greatest challenges I’ve found is that you need to not only be knowledgeable in UX practices, but also in the latest technologies and their limitations.” a profession that is constantly evolving Which seamlessly brings us to the next chapter of our pro’s guide to UX design… Approaches to upskilling, and resources that help “There are so many schools of thought and methodologies [in UX design] to pull from,” notes Heffernan. In such a diverse field it’s impossible to stay abreast of everything. She recommends that you instead update your skillset in response to project needs. With that in mind, Heffernan advises the following upskilling approaches and resources for UX designers who are looking to be the best that they can be: Become a part of product communities with . These events really helped when I was new to Sydney’s tech space, and often cost no more than a glass of wine! meetup.com I read years ago, but it really stuck with me. It was my first introduction into design thinking, before it was a term that I’d come across. Glimmer by Warren Berger by Don Norman is a really interesting study of usability, also a great read if you’re just a nerd for beautiful design. The Design of Everyday Things by Robert Hoekman Jr. was a book that (Canva founder) Mel recommended when I first started. It taught me some useful things about how Canva thinks about product design. Designing the Obvious by Steve Krug is a favourite. I always revisit it for practical tips — monthly at least! Krug’s website also has some really great downloadable resources. Don’t Make Me Think! Advanced Common Sense In the same vein, Williams warns against the urge to be a jack of all trades, and recommends that you instead become a master of one (or perhaps a handful). “Know what you do well. We have so many opportunities to flex our talent in different directions, so it’s worth recognising your specialty. Are you a brilliant researcher? Take your insights into forming a series of objectives within a prototype! Are you fantastic at designing and creating user journeys? Head out with the research team sometime to hear the customer voice directly!” For those into literature, Williams echoes Heffernan’s sentiments on Steve Krug, and also lists the following books as required reading for UX designers: by Eric Reiss Usable Usability by Jesmond J. Allen and James J. Chudley Smashing UX Design by Andy Polaine Service Design: From Insight to Implementation by Jeff Gothelf Lean UX Williams also advises that budding UXers check out the online resources provided by the organisation that he calls ‘the founders of UX’ . — Nielsen Norman Group Lessons from those who have done it all before What else should UX designers know about their profession? Having spent years in the field, our experts have seen it all before. So what learnings and advice would they pass on to those who are trying to make it in the world of UX? Marson goes first. “When you think of user experience design, you immediately think of interfaces and customer service. But UX design is more diverse than that. We live in a world with many different technologies that allow for many different kinds user experiences, such as virtual reality and voice-based interaction as seen in products like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. User experience is not purely visual, and we must remember that people interact with technology in different ways. It’s important to not only keep up to date with the rapidly changing world of technology, but ensure that the experiences you are creating are inclusive, intuitive and a delight to use.” What has Heffernan learned about UX design over the course of her career? “That it means something different in every company! Some businesses require a more research- and strategy-based specialist. Other roles I’ve had or interviewed for might talk UX, but then you figure out it’s mostly a UI design position.” In short, she says, you need to be prepared for anything — “it just covers such a broad set of skills.” “In my experience, I’ve seen that the majority of our work is intangible, and often invisible to the end user,” notes Williams. “The user may only see a view of the outcomes in a single feature, button or tool we provide to them.” So as a UX designer, he says it’s not ‘what’ is created, but ‘how’ — “ we work within a project group, we collaborate with others and communicate our findings and deliverables” — that is most important. how how A role on the rise The demand for UX designers isn’t going to decrease any time soon. With so many human experiences now turning digital, organisations are always going to need specialists to help bring their UX dreams to reality. Those charged with crafting user experiences need to give themselves the best user experience too, only in a professional sense. Gain guidance from more experienced contemporaries. Learn from their mistakes. Identify your strengths and play to them. Motivate yourself to upskill. Do all this and you’ll be well on your way to becoming one of the most exceptional UX designers in your field. Are you looking to take the next step in your UX design or tech career? Great news — the biggest names in Australian and international tech are looking for talent right now! Check out our for the latest open positions. job boards

The Pro’s Guide to UX Design

More Yield, More Problems: The Restaking Risks You Can't Afford to Ignore

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Iyo 0.05% Yekuwedzera Goho Inonyatso Kukodzera Njodzi Yekudzvanya Crypto Yako?

Je, Mavuno ya Ziada ya 0.05% yanastahili Hatari ya Kuweka Crypto yako?

Author:
(1) Tiffany N. Younger, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA (tyounger@hunter.cuny.edu). Author: Author: (1) Tiffany N. Younger, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA (tyounger@hunter.cuny.edu). Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2. Early Life 2. Early Life 3. Whiteness as an Institution 3. Whiteness as an Institution 4. The Triple Threat 4. The Triple Threat 5. The Academic Plantation Field 5. The Academic Plantation Field 6. The Future Is Black Women 6. The Future Is Black Women 7. Imagination as a Tool 7. Imagination as a Tool 8. Imagination through Research 8. Imagination through Research 9. Imagination through Play 9. Imagination through Play 10. Collaboration as Imagination 10. Collaboration as Imagination 11. Conclusions and References 11. Conclusions and References 5. The Academic Plantation Field I entered academia in 2017, right after the Trump election, to disrupt the violence that was about to come. I was a first time mother of a six month year old Black girl. I thought academia would be the safest place to be, given the focus on academic freedom and speech. What I learned about academia shocked me, but it put into perspective what I was witnessing in the field of social service work. Academia is the belly of the beast. The foundation and construction of whiteness, patriarchy, and coloniality are conceptualized and maintained through academic research, pedagogy, and practices. Black feminist scholars such as Crenshaw (1991), Collins (2000), Hooks (1994), and Cooper (2014, 2018) all speak about the interlocking nature of these systems of oppression within academia in their scholarship. My time in academia has been eye-opening and liberating. I have spent the last seven years navigating the beast of academia, trying to figure out if there is space for me as a Black woman scholar. While in academia, I realized my mere existence was a broken policy shaped by the systems and structures of US academic institutions that curate, teach, and practice dominant epistemologies. My humanity does not protect whiteness and is deemed a threat to the institution. Throughout my seven years in academic training, I have personally been the subject of multiple complaints from students about my pedagogy, attire, and overall demeanor. I have spent almost every semester in some form of mediation mandated by the University to resolve student conflicts with me. As an adjunct faculty member, I have been taped without permission, and audio has been used by university lawyers and administrators without my knowledge. I am not perfect; I acknowledge I have areas I am challenged in, but academia has not aided in my growth as a professor. Academia has served as a place where I feel like I am being put on a psychological and emotional wiping post without any meaningful, tangible outcome. For example, when I interrogate the complaints against me and summons to what I like to call “dean court”, they have almost always been about perceived unsafety regarding feelings or the directness and candor in my deconstruction of power. One academic year, I had to hire an attorney to support me in navigating the academic institutional jungle, and I was summoned to multiple hearings without an actual material resolution. White Supremacist values continue to oppress, subjugate, surveil, exploit, police, and justify violence against Black women (Collins 2000; Rodgers 2021; Spencer and Perlow 2018). Rodgers (2021) affirms how the harm of Black women in academia shows up as overt and subtle experiences of discrimination, including the silencing of Black women’s voices and positionality. Institutional power has tried to silence me multiple times. In most of the mediations I attended, when I asked the goal of the meeting, the answer was almost always to obtain a resolution. When I asked for examples of possible resolutions, I was told that the goal was to provide space for the student who was almost always white presenting to address upset, unsafety, and hurt feelings with my pedagogy. I am a professor, not a clinician. My job is not to fix feelings it is to educate. Somehow, in the school of social work where I carry out most of my teaching, we have created a space where future social work practitioners and clinicians will hold their feelings as facts and weaponize them to hold Black women hostage. We are not your mammy; get somebody else to do it! Today, in 2024, I am deeply concerned with the field of social work and academia overall. We have reached what I hope to be the peak of extreme violence and pure savagery. I am witnessing firsthand what my aunties and mentors told me all along would happen. In 2024, I am witnessing the killing of thousands of children across the world, and even acknowledging it in this paper may be breaking an institutional policy at one of the many institutions I am affiliated with. There is this silent yet very loud gag order within academia to say nothing about what we are witnessing right before our eyes in 2024. Academic freedom has been eliminated. Institutional policies have been weaponized to dismiss violence, which protects imperialism. Yet, if we acknowledge the extreme violence and trauma, we may risk our careers and livelihoods. We have entered what I am now calling “the savagery of whiteness”. This phrase relates to the way whiteness engages in extreme violence and demands that we all stand by and “mind our business”. Whiteness is currently operating like a dysfunctional family that protects the abusive actions of an adult against children rather than protecting the children. Whiteness is upset that Black women will not agree to watch death without protest. Opinions and feelings have been turned into facts and used to target, dox, and harm young people on college campuses. I have witnessed faculty call for the arrest of students ON campus due to protests because they have different opinions. Whiteness does not know how to engage in difference. Whiteness is a tyrant. I have witnessed and been a victim of online exchanges, which resulted in a person contacting my employer to “tell on me”. If this is not the end of times, I hope it is the beginning. If this is the beginning of something new (which I hope), what does accountability look like when academic institutions are responsible for producing and helping legitimate feelings and opinions as fact? Whiteness does not have an answer because whiteness is too busy denying that it exists. Gem # 5. Align yourself with multiple institutions so that when one decides to engage in extreme harm, leaving is an option. Use your degree as a shield. It is ok to have many (small) jobs. We often have five to six jobs at one institution. One institution should not have 100% control over your life. They can provide you with benefits. But the operation of the institution should not be contingent on your dehumanization. Gem # 5. Align yourself with multiple institutions so that when one decides to engage in extreme harm, leaving is an option. Use your degree as a shield. It is ok to have many (small) jobs. We often have five to six jobs at one institution. One institution should not have 100% control over your life. They can provide you with benefits. But the operation of the institution should not be contingent on your dehumanization. Gem # 5. Align yourself with multiple institutions so that when one decides to engage in extreme harm, leaving is an option. Use your degree as a shield. It is ok to have many (small) jobs. We often have five to six jobs at one institution. One institution should not have 100% control over your life. They can provide you with benefits. But the operation of the institution should not be contingent on your dehumanization. Gem # 5. Align yourself with multiple institutions so that when one decides to engage in extreme harm, leaving is an option. Use your degree as a shield. It is ok to have many (small) jobs. We often have five to six jobs at one institution. One institution should not have 100% control over your life. They can provide you with benefits. But the operation of the institution should not be contingent on your dehumanization. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv

When Academia Attacks: Protecting Black Womanhood from Institutional Harm

The Polkadot Blockchain Academy has introduced The JAM Course, a specialized educational program designed to deepen developers’ understanding of Polkadot’s evolving architecture. This initiative builds upon the academy’s previous programs and provides a technical exploration of the Join-Accumulate Machine (JAM), a new architectural layer within the Polkadot ecosystem. As blockchain technology continues to expand, programs like The JAM Course aim to provide developers with the necessary tools and knowledge to build scalable, secure, and interoperable applications. JAM is designed to succeed the relay chain, enabling permissionless code execution, Solidity smart contract support, and the integration of roll-up outputs. This allows developers to build without choosing between appchains or smart contracts. By simplifying the development process and removing the need for early-stage decision-making about infrastructure, JAM provides greater flexibility and efficiency for blockchain developers. The course will introduce participants to JAM’s fundamental components, including the Refine, Accumulate, and OnTransfer functions, while offering hands-on experience with the Polkadot Virtual Machine and Polkadot API. These practical exercises will help developers apply JAM's architecture in real-world scenarios, ensuring they gain both theoretical and practical expertise. Structured as an advanced technical extension of PBA Campus and the JAM Tour, the course includes tutorials, practical sessions, and discussions with the architects behind Polkadot’s latest innovations. The curriculum is designed to accommodate developers with varying levels of experience in blockchain development but is particularly geared toward those with prior knowledge of Web3 technologies. Participants will be able to engage directly with the core developers of JAM, providing an opportunity for deeper discussions about its applications, optimizations, and future roadmap. JAM's introduction is expected to influence how developers approach blockchain application design, particularly in relation to decentralized computation and smart contract deployment. By enabling permissionless execution, JAM enhances Polkadot's overall interoperability, allowing it to interact seamlessly with external networks and roll-up solutions. This flexibility may lead to new innovations in cross-chain transactions, data availability, and on-chain governance. Pauline Cohen Vorms, CEO of Polkadot Blockchain Academy, emphasized that JAM represents a major advancement for Polkadot and that the course will help developers better understand its interoperability potential. She noted that Web3 development is moving towards a model that prioritizes user autonomy and efficiency, and JAM plays a key role in facilitating that transition. This initiative reflects Polkadot’s broader commitment to education and driving innovation within the Web3 ecosystem. By equipping developers with advanced technical knowledge, the academy aims to accelerate the adoption of decentralized solutions and strengthen the Polkadot network’s role within the broader blockchain industry. The course is set to launch in December 2025, with applications opening for those interested in receiving updates on the registration process. Prospective participants will have the opportunity to register for information about eligibility criteria, application deadlines, and program structure. Given the increasing demand for blockchain education and specialized training, The JAM Course is expected to attract developers from a range of backgrounds, including those working in enterprise blockchain solutions, decentralized finance (DeFi), and governance models. This program marks another milestone in Polkadot Blockchain Academy’s mission to equip developers with the expertise needed to contribute to decentralized technology. By fostering an environment that encourages innovation and hands-on learning, the academy continues to solidify its position as a key player in blockchain education. With JAM’s introduction, the future of blockchain infrastructure development is expected to take a significant step forward, offering developers new opportunities to create more flexible and scalable solutions across multiple blockchain ecosystems. Don’t forget to like and share the story! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR The Polkadot Blockchain Academy has introduced The JAM Course , a specialized educational program designed to deepen developers’ understanding of Polkadot’s evolving architecture. This initiative builds upon the academy’s previous programs and provides a technical exploration of the Join-Accumulate Machine (JAM), a new architectural layer within the Polkadot ecosystem. As blockchain technology continues to expand, programs like The JAM Course aim to provide developers with the necessary tools and knowledge to build scalable, secure, and interoperable applications. The JAM Course designed JAM is designed to succeed the relay chain, enabling permissionless code execution, Solidity smart contract support, and the integration of roll-up outputs. This allows developers to build without choosing between appchains or smart contracts. By simplifying the development process and removing the need for early-stage decision-making about infrastructure, JAM provides greater flexibility and efficiency for blockchain developers. The course will introduce participants to JAM’s fundamental components, including the Refine, Accumulate, and OnTransfer functions, while offering hands-on experience with the Polkadot Virtual Machine and Polkadot API. These practical exercises will help developers apply JAM's architecture in real-world scenarios, ensuring they gain both theoretical and practical expertise. JAM Structured as an advanced technical extension of PBA Campus and the JAM Tour, the course includes tutorials, practical sessions, and discussions with the architects behind Polkadot’s latest innovations. The curriculum is designed to accommodate developers with varying levels of experience in blockchain development but is particularly geared toward those with prior knowledge of Web3 technologies. Participants will be able to engage directly with the core developers of JAM, providing an opportunity for deeper discussions about its applications, optimizations, and future roadmap. JAM's introduction is expected to influence how developers approach blockchain application design, particularly in relation to decentralized computation and smart contract deployment. By enabling permissionless execution, JAM enhances Polkadot's overall interoperability, allowing it to interact seamlessly with external networks and roll-up solutions. This flexibility may lead to new innovations in cross-chain transactions, data availability, and on-chain governance. Pauline Cohen Vorms, CEO of Polkadot Blockchain Academy, emphasized that JAM represents a major advancement for Polkadot and that the course will help developers better understand its interoperability potential. She noted that Web3 development is moving towards a model that prioritizes user autonomy and efficiency, and JAM plays a key role in facilitating that transition. This initiative reflects Polkadot’s broader commitment to education and driving innovation within the Web3 ecosystem. By equipping developers with advanced technical knowledge, the academy aims to accelerate the adoption of decentralized solutions and strengthen the Polkadot network’s role within the broader blockchain industry. The course is set to launch in December 2025, with applications opening for those interested in receiving updates on the registration process. Prospective participants will have the opportunity to register for information about eligibility criteria, application deadlines, and program structure. Given the increasing demand for blockchain education and specialized training, The JAM Course is expected to attract developers from a range of backgrounds, including those working in enterprise blockchain solutions, decentralized finance (DeFi), and governance models. This program marks another milestone in Polkadot Blockchain Academy’s mission to equip developers with the expertise needed to contribute to decentralized technology. By fostering an environment that encourages innovation and hands-on learning, the academy continues to solidify its position as a key player in blockchain education. With JAM’s introduction, the future of blockchain infrastructure development is expected to take a significant step forward, offering developers new opportunities to create more flexible and scalable solutions across multiple blockchain ecosystems. Don’t forget to like and share the story! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program . HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR Vested Interest Disclosure: business blogging program business blogging program

Polkadot Blockchain Academy Launches The JAM Course for Web3 Developers

Η Polkadot Blockchain Academy εγκαινιάζει το μάθημα JAM για προγραμματιστές Web3

Polkadot Blockchain Academy lanza el curso JAM para desarrolladores Web3

Polkadot Blockchain Academy-k JAM ikastaroa abiarazten du Web3 garatzaileentzako

Polkadot Blockchain Academy lancia il corso JAM per sviluppatori Web3

ポルカドットブロックチェーンアカデミーがWeb3開発者向けのJAMコースを開始

Polkadot Blockchain Academy atklāj JAM kursu Web3 izstrādātājiem

Polkadot Blockchain Academy го започнува курсот JAM за развивачи на Web3

Polkadot Blockchain Academy e Thakgola Khoso ya JAM ya Bahlami ba Web3

Polkadot Blockchain Academy uruchamia kurs JAM dla programistów Web3

Polkadot Blockchain Academy spúšťa kurz JAM pre vývojárov Web3

Chuo cha Polkadot Blockchain Chazindua Kozi ya JAM kwa Watengenezaji wa Web3

Академияи Blockchain Polkadot Курси JAM-ро барои таҳиягарони Web3 оғоз мекунад

Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction 2. Related Work 3. LLaVA-Phi and 3.1. Training 3.2. Qualitative Results 4. Experiments 5. Conclusion, Limitation, and Future Works and References 4. Experiments We rigorously evaluated LLaVA-Phi using an extensive array of academic benchmarks specifically designed for multi-modal models. These included tests for general question-answering such as VQA-v2 [12], VizWizQA [14], ScienceQA [28], and TextQA [31], as well as more specialized assessments like POPE [22] for evaluating object hallucination, and MME [10], MMBench [27], and MMVet [36] for a comprehensive evaluation of diverse multi-modal abilities, such as visual understanding and visual commonsense reasoning. These benchmarks are meticulously structured to challenge and scrutinize complex multi-modal tasks. We benchmarked LLaVA-Phi against a variety of state-of-the-art, large vision-language models, as detailed in Table 1. It is important to note that both our method and LLaVA1.5 utilize the same publicly available datasets for pre-training and visual instruction fine-tuning. Our model demonstrated a capacity for visual-based question-answering, surpassing many existing large multimodal models. Remarkably, LLaVA-Phi outperformed models that use 7B-parameter or larger Large Language Models (LLMs) as their backbone, such as IDEFICS [17] and InstructBLIP [8]. A particularly notable achievement was our model’s best performance on ScienceQA [28]. We attribute this success to the Phi-2 language model, which has been specifically trained on code generation and mathematical corpora, thereby enhancing our multi-modal model’s prowess in math-based question-answering. In the comprehensive multi-modal benchmark of MMBench [27], LLaVA-Phi showed significantly superior performance compared to many existing 7B-LLM-based vision-language models. For example, our model outperformed Otter by 11.5% and InstructBLIP by 23.8%. This underscores the effectiveness of LLaVA-Phi in handling complex multi-modal tasks, reinforcing the potential of smaller, more efficient models in the rapidly evolving field of multi-modal models. We also compared to MobileVLM [6], a concurrent work that builds up an efficient vision-language model. Across all five benchmarks, our LLaVA-Phi consistently outperforms their method. It’s important to note that the margins of lead are modest, with the exception of ScienceQA. We attribute this performance disparity primarily to the differences in the pretraining stages of the language models. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. Authors:
(1) Yichen Zhu, Midea Group;
(2) Minjie Zhu, Midea Group and East China Normal University;
(3) Ning Liu, Midea Group;
(4) Zhicai Ou, Midea Group;
(5) Xiaofeng Mou, Midea Group. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2. Related Work 2. Related Work 3. LLaVA-Phi and 3.1. Training 3. LLaVA-Phi and 3.1. Training 3.2. Qualitative Results 3.2. Qualitative Results 4. Experiments 4. Experiments 5. Conclusion, Limitation, and Future Works and References 5. Conclusion, Limitation, and Future Works and References 4. Experiments We rigorously evaluated LLaVA-Phi using an extensive array of academic benchmarks specifically designed for multi-modal models. These included tests for general question-answering such as VQA-v2 [12], VizWizQA [14], ScienceQA [28], and TextQA [31], as well as more specialized assessments like POPE [22] for evaluating object hallucination, and MME [10], MMBench [27], and MMVet [36] for a comprehensive evaluation of diverse multi-modal abilities, such as visual understanding and visual commonsense reasoning. These benchmarks are meticulously structured to challenge and scrutinize complex multi-modal tasks. We benchmarked LLaVA-Phi against a variety of state-of-the-art, large vision-language models, as detailed in Table 1. It is important to note that both our method and LLaVA1.5 utilize the same publicly available datasets for pre-training and visual instruction fine-tuning. Our model demonstrated a capacity for visual-based question-answering, surpassing many existing large multimodal models. Remarkably, LLaVA-Phi outperformed models that use 7B-parameter or larger Large Language Models (LLMs) as their backbone, such as IDEFICS [17] and InstructBLIP [8]. A particularly notable achievement was our model’s best performance on ScienceQA [28]. We attribute this success to the Phi-2 language model, which has been specifically trained on code generation and mathematical corpora, thereby enhancing our multi-modal model’s prowess in math-based question-answering. In the comprehensive multi-modal benchmark of MMBench [27], LLaVA-Phi showed significantly superior performance compared to many existing 7B-LLM-based vision-language models. For example, our model outperformed Otter by 11.5% and InstructBLIP by 23.8%. This underscores the effectiveness of LLaVA-Phi in handling complex multi-modal tasks, reinforcing the potential of smaller, more efficient models in the rapidly evolving field of multi-modal models. We also compared to MobileVLM [6], a concurrent work that builds up an efficient vision-language model. Across all five benchmarks, our LLaVA-Phi consistently outperforms their method. It’s important to note that the margins of lead are modest, with the exception of ScienceQA. We attribute this performance disparity primarily to the differences in the pretraining stages of the language models. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Yichen Zhu, Midea Group; (2) Minjie Zhu, Midea Group and East China Normal University; (3) Ning Liu, Midea Group; (4) Zhicai Ou, Midea Group; (5) Xiaofeng Mou, Midea Group. Authors: Authors: (1) Yichen Zhu, Midea Group; (2) Minjie Zhu, Midea Group and East China Normal University; (3) Ning Liu, Midea Group; (4) Zhicai Ou, Midea Group; (5) Xiaofeng Mou, Midea Group.

LLaVA-Phi: How We Rigorously Evaluated It Using an Extensive Array of Academic Benchmarks

Academic Piracy Is Sometimes the Only Way to Survive the Financial Exploitation of Knowledge

Академичното пиратство понякога е единственият начин да оцелеете след финансовата експлоатация на знанието

একাডেমিক পাইরেসি কখনও কখনও জ্ঞানের আর্থিক শোষণ থেকে বাঁচার একমাত্র উপায়

Akademické pirátství je někdy jediným způsobem, jak přežít finanční využívání znalostí

La piratería académica es a veces la única forma de sobrevivir a la explotación financiera del conocimiento

A tudományos kalózkodás néha az egyetlen módja annak, hogy túléljük a tudás pénzügyi kizsákmányolását

学術的著作権侵害は、知識の金銭的搾取から生き残る唯一の方法である場合がある

Piraterie Académique Ezali Tango mosusu Moyen Seul ya Kobika na Exploitation Financier ya Connaissance

ການລະເມີດທາງວິຊາການບາງຄັ້ງເປັນວິທີດຽວທີ່ຈະຢູ່ລອດຈາກການຂູດຮີດທາງດ້ານການເງິນຂອງຄວາມຮູ້

Ny piraty akademika indraindray no hany fomba hivelomana amin'ny fanararaotana ara-bola ny fahalalana

Yedzidzo Piracy Dzimwe nguva Ndiyo Nzira Yega Yekupona Nekushandiswa Kwemari Kweruzivo

Академска пиратерија је понекад једини начин да се преживи финансијска експлоатација знања

Akademik Korsanlık Bazen Bilginin Finansal Sömürüsünden Kurtulmanın Tek Yoludur

Here we go again. It was supposed to be the shining beacon of academic research, a tool that could sift through mountains of data, offer accurate citations, and provide credible sources to enhance scholarly work. Scholar GPT, the supposed breakthrough in AI-driven academic assistance, was meant to revolutionize the way we gather information. It was supposed to be a reliable resource that combined the power of cutting-edge technology with the expertise of years of research, right? WRONG. Once again, we are confronted with a harsh reality that we have all come to dread when it comes to AI: It can’t be trusted. In a shocking revelation, Scholar GPT—this supposed paragon of academic assistance. However, when I was using it I found it to be providing inaccurate information and statistics. The very thing it was supposed to excel at—accuracy—has turned out to be a total farce. This is not just a minor blip. This is a massive blow to the credibility of AI as a source of reliable academic content. Scholar GPT, which touts itself as being trained on the most valid and credible sources, was providing data that didn’t match up with reputable research and statistics And let’s not ignore the glaring fact that the platform claims to reference “credible” academic papers, yet several of these so-called references were completely fabricated or misquoted. At this point, anyone still believing that AI like CHATGPT, or in this case, Scholar GPT, is a trustworthy partner in academic research is either naive or seriously misinformed. I’m sorry, but when you trust a tool that generates fake statistics or pulls sources out of thin air, you are opening the door to disaster in your academic work. Sure, you might say, "But these AI models are constantly improving!" Really? Because the last time I checked, they’re still feeding you half-baked data that could ruin your credibility in a split second. It’s one thing for AI to make a mistake on trivial things, but when it comes to providing factual, verifiable information to the world of academia, there is no room for error. The repercussions of getting this wrong aren’t just some theoretical debate about technology—they can have real-world consequences. Imagine citing a non-existent study or quoting a statistic that’s completely fabricated—your academic integrity, your reputation, and your work could all go down the drain. How does AI expect to replace credible research when it doesn’t even know what reliability looks like? And don’t even get me started on how CHATGPT itself is still far from trustworthy. The promises of AI revolutionizing everything from writing to research have clearly been wildly overstated. Sure, it might be able to string together sentences that sound decent, but that’s about it. When it comes to fact-checking, cross-referencing, and providing legitimate citations, it falls flat on its face. Even after all the hype and supposed advancements, AI still struggles with the most basic and vital aspect of academic work: accuracy. It’s no longer just a matter of missing the mark on a few minor details—AI systems like Scholar GPT and CHATGPT are actively contributing to the spread of misinformation, and that is unacceptable. The reality is that we cannot afford to blindly rely on AI in fields that demand precision and scholarly integrity. So let’s all take a deep breath and stop pretending that these so-called "academic tools" are the holy grail of research. They’re not. They are not ready to replace the critical thinking, in-depth knowledge, and meticulous verification that true scholars have spent years honing. And, quite frankly, they may never be. Until AI can be trusted to consistently provide accurate, reliable, and verifiable information, it remains nothing more than a tool that could derail your academic efforts. If you’re still putting your faith in Scholar GPT or any other AI-driven platform for your academic work, I hate to break it to you—but you’re on shaky ground. The truth is, AI just isn’t ready for the world of academia yet. Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. #DYOR Here we go again. It was supposed to be the shining beacon of academic research, a tool that could sift through mountains of data, offer accurate citations, and provide credible sources to enhance scholarly work. Scholar GPT , the supposed breakthrough in AI-driven academic assistance, was meant to revolutionize the way we gather information. It was supposed to be a reliable resource that combined the power of cutting-edge technology with the expertise of years of research, right? Scholar GPT WRONG. WRONG. Once again, we are confronted with a harsh reality that we have all come to dread when it comes to AI: It can’t be trusted. It can’t be trusted. In a shocking revelation, Scholar GPT—this supposed paragon of academic assistance. However, when I was using it I found it to be providing inaccurate information and statistics. The very thing it was supposed to excel at—accuracy—has turned out to be a total farce. This is not just a minor blip. This is a massive blow to the credibility of AI as a source of reliable academic content. Scholar GPT, which touts itself as being trained on the most valid and credible sources, was providing data that didn’t match up with reputable research and statistics And let’s not ignore the glaring fact that the platform claims to reference “credible” academic papers, yet several of these so-called references were completely fabricated or misquoted. At this point, anyone still believing that AI like CHATGPT , or in this case, Scholar GPT, is a trustworthy partner in academic research is either naive or seriously misinformed. I’m sorry, but when you trust a tool that generates fake statistics or pulls sources out of thin air, you are opening the door to disaster in your academic work. CHATGPT Sure, you might say, "But these AI models are constantly improving!" Really? Because the last time I checked, they’re still feeding you half-baked data that could ruin your credibility in a split second. It’s one thing for AI to make a mistake on trivial things, but when it comes to providing factual, verifiable information to the world of academia, there is no room for error. no room for error. The repercussions of getting this wrong aren’t just some theoretical debate about technology—they can have real-world consequences. Imagine citing a non-existent study or quoting a statistic that’s completely fabricated—your academic integrity, your reputation, and your work could all go down the drain. How does AI expect to replace credible research when it doesn’t even know what reliability looks like? And don’t even get me started on how CHATGPT itself is still far from trustworthy. The promises of AI revolutionizing everything from writing to research have clearly been wildly overstated. Sure, it might be able to string together sentences that sound decent, but that’s about it. CHATGPT wildly overstated. When it comes to fact-checking, cross-referencing, and providing legitimate citations, it falls flat on its face. Even after all the hype and supposed advancements, AI still struggles with the most basic and vital aspect of academic work: accuracy. fact-checking, cross-referencing, and providing legitimate citations, It’s no longer just a matter of missing the mark on a few minor details—AI systems like Scholar GPT and CHATGPT are actively contributing to the spread of misinformation, and that is unacceptable. The reality is that we cannot afford to blindly rely on AI in fields that demand precision and scholarly integrity. we cannot afford to blindly rely on AI So let’s all take a deep breath and stop pretending that these so-called "academic tools" are the holy grail of research. They’re not. They are not ready to replace the critical thinking, in-depth knowledge, and meticulous verification that true scholars have spent years honing. And, quite frankly, they may never be. Until AI can be trusted to consistently provide accurate, reliable, and verifiable information, it remains nothing more than a tool that could derail your academic efforts. If you’re still putting your faith in Scholar GPT or any other AI-driven platform for your academic work, I hate to break it to you—but you’re on shaky ground. The truth is, AI just isn’t ready for the world of academia yet. Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. #DYOR Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. #DYOR Editor’s note: #DYOR

Scholar GPT Fails To Deliver – A Wake-Up Call For The Trustworthiness of AI in Academia

The rapid growth of AI is transforming many areas of life, including education, with ChatGPT at the forefront of this change. Recently, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, introduced ChatGPT Edu—a tailored version of its flagship AI tool built for universities to “responsibly” deploy AI to students, faculty, researchers, and campus operations. Riding on the success of its ChatGPT Edu in Universities like the University of Oxford, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania(opens in a new window), University of Texas at Austin, Arizona State University(opens in a new window), and Columbia University in the City of New York, ChatGPT edu comes with a lot of promise— one that can help universities integrate AI into every aspect concerning students and faculties. But as always, with every ease comes hardship, and ChatGPT Edu too can be a double-edged sword. But we’ll discuss the downsides a little later. Let’s lead with how ChatGPT Edu can be constructive for higher educational institutions, their students, and faculties. Beginning with the fact that ChatGPT leverages AI, it shouldn’t be a debate that its Edu version can provide faculty members and students with a satisfying level of personalization. By tailoring content and study material as per every student’s need, it can be the silver bullet that universities desperately need. With faculties and mentors grappling with the grueling task of managing the rising number of students in a class, personalization through AI can bring tremendous results for them. The fact that it can identify knowledge gaps and adapt to different learning styles symbolizes hope for the future of academia. AI has always attracted keen minds and ChatGPT Edu, given its inherent character to integrate AI with interactive activities, can make learning more engaging and interactive. Students who are disengaged from routine lectures and other pedagogical processes may find AI’s use in education to be an attractive prospect. This can help keep the students more engaged– a challenge that is commonly observed among students. They are highly disoriented, given the fact that a vast majority of higher educational institutions are still sticking to rote learning practices. Enter ChatGPT Edu, by engaging students in simulated discussions, role-playing scenarios, and critical thinking skills, it can help them stay focused and better oriented, and help suitably streamline their academic priorities. For students with learning disabilities, ChatGPT Edu can be the holy grail. It can offer personalized feedback in various formats, including audio or visual aids, catering to different learning preferences. ChatGPT Edu can also help universities stay clear of the language barriers that often arise when students and faculties of one country inhabit the other. Offering real-time language translation and support can allow students to participate more actively in classroom discussions and access course materials in their preferred language. What’s beyond this is it can also assist in personalized pronunciation practice and real-time feedback, fostering greater confidence and fluency for non-native speakers. The faculty members, moreover, can use the translation feature to ensure all students understand the course material the way they want them to. They can translate lectures, presentations, and handouts, allowing students to follow along and engage more effectively by harnessing the tool properly. We’ll have to see how ChatGPT’s Edu version performs once it is widely circulated in the public domain. For students from diverse backgrounds who face difficulty understanding concepts and things, it can be a big breather as it can translate complex concepts and methods into simpler language. Being able to offer text-to-speech conversion, and the capability to generate visual aids and summaries will surely be a cherry on the cake for both students and faculties alike. Lastly, what seems to be interesting from the faculty’s perspective is that it can offer continued assistance to faculty research. It can certainly help analyze vast amounts of data, generate research hypotheses, and streamline literature reviews, freeing up valuable time for more focused research endeavors. AI in education isn’t a capricious idea anymore. The downsides One of the biggest concerns arising out of the use of AI in educational institutions is there is a chance of students getting too reliant on it for everything. This can have serious repercussions. They can lose touch with realistic teaching pedagogy and become more AI-dependent thereby stepping into that alarming “virtual” zone of learning, where anything without the aid of AI is less understood or best, misunderstood. An equally concerning aspect is the fact it can severely hinder critical thinking and problem-solving skills for a lot of the students. Secondly, it’s believed AI is only as good as the data it's trained on. If that data is biased or fed with wrong inputs, ChatGPT Edu could perpetuate stereotypes or deliver inaccurate information—something which can lead the learner astray, thereby inhibiting the whole learning experience and marring the learning curve. Lastly, overuse of this technology could blur the lines between original and duplicate content (read plagiarism). Rightly so! Plagiarism has been a serious concern for academic institutions, as cases of AI-blended learning have risen over the years. And these concerns of AI and plagiarism are legitly myriad. We’ll have to see how this tailor-made ChatGPT tool can minimize incidents of students and learners plagiarizing content in universities. Summing Up Education offers incredible potential for the application of AI technologies. With the introduction of ChatGPT Edu and its subsequent integration into educational institutions across all research and learning touchpoints, it seems the educational landscape may be in for some unanticipated and enormous change. Nevertheless, learning the tricks of AI-based learning practices and dupery that could be possibly built around it by mala fide learners, can certainly be a solution and shouldn’t be taken for granted. While on one hand, adopting regular audits and data curation practices can help minimize bias and misinformation, on the other, universities can design courses that blend ChatGPT Edu for personalized learning while prioritizing interactive activities and discussions that are likely to produce the maximum output while remaining efficient. With the integration of this innovative tool, learning practices bear a likelihood of showing improved outcomes but it also brings with itself a multitude of vulnerabilities and risks. It just remains to be seen if post its integration with universities on a massive scale, whether it will endanger institutions and recede learning to a dangerous low or will it push towards an academic environment that appears technologically and educationally utopian. The rapid growth of AI is transforming many areas of life, including education, with ChatGPT at the forefront of this change. Recently, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, introduced ChatGPT Edu—a tailored version of its flagship AI tool built for universities to “responsibly” deploy AI to students, faculty, researchers, and campus operations. Riding on the success of its ChatGPT Edu in Universities like the University of Oxford, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania(opens in a new window), University of Texas at Austin, Arizona State University(opens in a new window), and Columbia University in the City of New York, ChatGPT edu comes with a lot of promise— one that can help universities integrate AI into every aspect concerning students and faculties. But as always, with every ease comes hardship, and ChatGPT Edu too can be a double-edged sword. But we’ll discuss the downsides a little later. the success of its ChatGPT Edu in Universities Let’s lead with how ChatGPT Edu can be constructive for higher educational institutions, their students, and faculties. Beginning with the fact that ChatGPT leverages AI , it shouldn’t be a debate that its Edu version can provide faculty members and students with a satisfying level of personalization. By tailoring content and study material as per every student’s need, it can be the silver bullet that universities desperately need. With faculties and mentors grappling with the grueling task of managing the rising number of students in a class, personalization through AI can bring tremendous results for them. The fact that it can identify knowledge gaps and adapt to different learning styles symbolizes hope for the future of academia. ChatGPT leverages AI ChatGPT leverages AI personalization through AI personalization through AI AI has always attracted keen minds and ChatGPT Edu, given its inherent character to integrate AI with interactive activities, can make learning more engaging and interactive. Students who are disengaged from routine lectures and other pedagogical processes may find AI’s use in education to be an attractive prospect. This can help keep the students more engaged– a challenge that is commonly observed among students. They are highly disoriented, given the fact that a vast majority of higher educational institutions are still sticking to rote learning practices. Enter ChatGPT Edu, by engaging students in simulated discussions, role-playing scenarios, and critical thinking skills, it can help them stay focused and better oriented, and help suitably streamline their academic priorities. For students with learning disabilities, ChatGPT Edu can be the holy grail. It can offer personalized feedback in various formats, including audio or visual aids, catering to different learning preferences. ChatGPT Edu can also help universities stay clear of the language barriers that often arise when students and faculties of one country inhabit the other. Offering real-time language translation and support can allow students to participate more actively in classroom discussions and access course materials in their preferred language. What’s beyond this is it can also assist in personalized pronunciation practice and real-time feedback, fostering greater confidence and fluency for non-native speakers. The faculty members, moreover, can use the translation feature to ensure all students understand the course material the way they want them to. They can translate lectures, presentations, and handouts, allowing students to follow along and engage more effectively by harnessing the tool properly. We’ll have to see how ChatGPT’s Edu version performs once it is widely circulated in the public domain. translation feature translation feature For students from diverse backgrounds who face difficulty understanding concepts and things, it can be a big breather as it can translate complex concepts and methods into simpler language. Being able to offer text-to-speech conversion, and the capability to generate visual aids and summaries will surely be a cherry on the cake for both students and faculties alike. Lastly, what seems to be interesting from the faculty’s perspective is that it can offer continued assistance to faculty research. It can certainly help analyze vast amounts of data, generate research hypotheses, and streamline literature reviews, freeing up valuable time for more focused research endeavors. AI in education isn’t a capricious idea anymore. The downsides One of the biggest concerns arising out of the use of AI in educational institutions is there is a chance of students getting too reliant on it for everything. This can have serious repercussions. They can lose touch with realistic teaching pedagogy and become more AI-dependent thereby stepping into that alarming “virtual” zone of learning, where anything without the aid of AI is less understood or best, misunderstood. An equally concerning aspect is the fact it can severely hinder critical thinking and problem-solving skills for a lot of the students. Secondly, it’s believed AI is only as good as the data it's trained on. If that data is biased or fed with wrong inputs, ChatGPT Edu could perpetuate stereotypes or deliver inaccurate information—something which can lead the learner astray, thereby inhibiting the whole learning experience and marring the learning curve. Lastly, overuse of this technology could blur the lines between original and duplicate content (read plagiarism). Rightly so! Plagiarism has been a serious concern for academic institutions, as cases of AI-blended learning have risen over the years. And these concerns of AI and plagiarism are legitly myriad. We’ll have to see how this tailor-made ChatGPT tool can minimize incidents of students and learners plagiarizing content in universities. AI and plagiarism AI and plagiarism Summing Up Education offers incredible potential for the application of AI technologies. With the introduction of ChatGPT Edu and its subsequent integration into educational institutions across all research and learning touchpoints, it seems the educational landscape may be in for some unanticipated and enormous change. incredible potential for the application incredible potential for the application Nevertheless, learning the tricks of AI-based learning practices and dupery that could be possibly built around it by mala fide learners, can certainly be a solution and shouldn’t be taken for granted. While on one hand, adopting regular audits and data curation practices can help minimize bias and misinformation, on the other, universities can design courses that blend ChatGPT Edu for personalized learning while prioritizing interactive activities and discussions that are likely to produce the maximum output while remaining efficient. With the integration of this innovative tool, learning practices bear a likelihood of showing improved outcomes but it also brings with itself a multitude of vulnerabilities and risks. It just remains to be seen if post its integration with universities on a massive scale, whether it will endanger institutions and recede learning to a dangerous low or will it push towards an academic environment that appears technologically and educationally utopian.

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