Digital Upgrade for Transcripts
Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed, January 21, 2014
Another part of the infrastructure we need to build in education: "A small group of private firms are seeing increasing demand for their repositories for e-transcripts, as colleges move away from paper versions for both incoming and outgoing students." I've talked about the need for this service in project meetings and people look sceptical. More...

The startup Surgery Academy
Press Releases, Surgery Academy, January 21, 2014
OK, this is just an Indiegogo crowdfunding call, and as such should not be taken to mean anything. But the concept is nonetheless interesting enough to post here, if only as a thought exercise. More...

The coming Calculus MOOC Revolution and the end of math research
Cathy O'Neil, mathbabe, January 21, 2014
I've always been sympathetic to the idea that teaching and research are closely linked. Certainly I feel it in my own work, where my research would be nothing like what it is without the occasional MOOC and regular bouts of conference talks, newsletter updates and screeds written on my blog. More...

On Listing Education Innovators and Intellectuals
Audrey Watters, Hack Education, January 10, 2014
Audrey Watters takes down (quite rightly, I feel) the lists of 'influential' people in education that have appeared recently. "Frankly," she writes, "I think all 3 of these lists – Byers’ list, Forbes’ list, Hess’s list – are connected to this machinery. More...

KaaS – a New Way of Sharing Knowledge and Experiences
Kenneth OE Sundin, WIFL, January 10, 2014
I think there is merit to this suggestion, but the details could use a lot more description. For example, when we say 'knowledge as a service', what do we mean by 'knowledge'? Does a Wikipedia article count? A Google search? Wolfram Aplha. More...

Is Massive Open Online Research the Next Frontier for Education?
Doug Ramsey, Jacobs School of Engineering, January 10, 2014
'MOOR' stands for 'Massive Open Online Research' and is the latest in the list of MOOC-inspired algorithms. In this case, a MOOR is a natural (especially for a cMOOC), as the idea of research is to develop new knowledge, and a network environment is just the environment to do that. More...

It's “Nerve-racking”! Getting our Storytellers Offline (and Back On Again)
Laura Morris, Rising Voices, January 10, 2014
This is an interesting course run in association with Global Voices. "Transom is an online resource for storytellers, mostly audio-based but delving into the world of visual digital media as well. They recent put on a six-week online workshop – based entirely on Facebook – with several Rising Voices writers participating." Not everybody was happy participating via Facebook. More...

The architecture of our open textbook site
Clint Lalonde, ClintLalonde.net, January 10, 2014
There's some good thinking behind this architecture connectiong several different systems - WordPress, LimeSurvey, Equella - to support an open textbook project. More...

MIght There Finally Be Karma for Comment Spammers and SEO Game Players?
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, January 10, 2014
Some of the images in this post are over the top, but I share Alan Levine's experiences with spammers (every day I delete comments designed only to pollute my pages with SEO) and I share his sentiments. I'm also pleased he reads the Awl (a lot of content, but just off the mainstream enough to be interetsing) which reports that the golden age of SEO may be over. More...

Education indicators in Canada: An international perspective, 2013
Press Release, Statistics Canada, January 9, 2014
This is a useful counterpoint to the picture provided by the PISA studies. It focuses on the percentage of the population with access to an education, and some of the benefits that result from that education. And by those measures the situation in Canada is very good (though with room for improvement). More...