By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The DAO: An Analysis of the Fallout
Michael del Castillo, Coindesk, 2016/06/20
Not long ago I linked to and described the DAO, a bockchain-based corporation employing a system called Ethereum to create 'smart contracts' to crowd-source startup funding. This week the system was hacked barely weeks after being launched, with millions of 'ethers' worth $US 50 million drained from its accounts. Today a second attack drained even more money. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Copyright-free material edging out Canadian educational texts
Nigel Hunt, CBC, 2016/06/20

We may finally have reached the tipping point with respect to open access educational content (it's not the sort of thing I can put on my resumé but I derive tremendous satisfaction from this). "A few years ago, Emond Publishing sold more than $1 million worth of books to high schools annually. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. DOAJ. Now with added PLoS
Press Release, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), 2016/06/17

One of the really important aspects of open access publishing is making the articles easy to find, read and cite. After all, the whole point of academic publishing is that the articles actually be read. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Handy Guide on How to Download Old Coursera Courses Before They Disappear
Dan Colman, Open Culture, 2016/06/17
You wouldn't think this would be necessary, but then would wouldn't think we'd see a lot of the things we've seen in this field. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Microsoft to Acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion
Jay Greene, Anne Steele, Wall Street Journal, 2016/06/13

Last week, I got an email telling me to change my password because the LinkedIn database had been hacked. Today, Microsoft is buying the company. No, I'm not saying the events are linked. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk—they come from families with money
Aimee Groth, Quartz, 2016/06/13

This is not universally true, of course. Sometimes they have other less legal means. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Second Power of Open
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, 2016/06/13

The second power of open, says David Wiley, is the use of open materials to support a better pedagogy. "Perhaps we should start talking about open pedagogy as the 'second power of open,'" he writes. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Keeping MOOCs open—platforms vs. protocols
Dave Weinberger, Joho the Blog, 2016/06/13

It appears to be a fuss about nothing - or maybe it was a trial balloon - but though there are reports that Coursera is clamping down on free access to courses, there's no real evidence to back that up. Nonetheless, Dave Weinberger is sounding a caution. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Student visa fraud: universities and governments ‘must be proactive’
Ellie Bothwell, Times Higher Education, 2016/06/13

I don't think Canada needs any lessons on supposed 'visa fraud' from the Times of London, participarly when the only evidence offered seems to be the way we run our decentralized education system. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Plans vs. Planning
Michael Caulfield, Hapgood, 2016/06/13

Good post on an essential difference. Quoting none other than Richard Nixon. More...