I am Kevin Engel, Librarian at Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa, USA) since 1986. Since the early 1990’s, I have worked with colleagues statewide and regionally to help provide digital access to quality information resources for college and university students.
Strategian.com goes back to February 1999 (see the evolution of this site though the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine). Today, just as it was in 1999 (and before), information access is a two-way street. The information is pushed to us, or we search and find it. And then, the person using the information must be skeptical, vigilant, and willing to question. The payoff is knowledge and understanding–which can be a respite from stress, fear, and confusion (often an intended product of deliberate disinformation).
The goal of Strategian: Science Magazine, the Science Primary Literature database, Science Bibliographies Online, CuratedSci, and the other parts of the Strategian “Universe” is to assist you to become aware of, to obtain, and to critically assess the information that helps you to understand science (the world’s physical, technological, and psychological forces) and how it impacts your life.
Many thanks to Griffin Engel for his hard work and invaluable contributions to this project–especially Strategian Universe, Science Primary Literature, CuratedSci, and our media presence.
Artificial intelligence — I believe AI-enhanced tools can have a place in academic work and academic organizations. However, as with past technologies that have been pushed onto the scene with much overstatement, it will take time and adjustment to find the best uses and best tools as students and faculty pursue their scholarly work. There is a difference between technology that is truly beneficial and technology that is thrust onto human society mainly to add to the profits and power of large corporations and very wealthy individuals.
While AI may have advantages on a large scale, the Strategian web sites work on a smaller scale with information that is curated and useful over the long term. On that scale especially, I believe humans are better than algorithms and language models.
We do not use AI to select the information contained within and/or to build the Strategian web sites.
Thank you for visiting the Strategian.com web sites–an open educational resource (OER).
Questions or comments? Please let me know (engelk@grinnell.edu).
