By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Fighting Facebook, a Campaign for a People’s Terms of Service
Woodrow Hartzog, The Center for Internet, and , Society, May 29, 2013
There's a strong similarity between a "people's terms of service contract" and Creative Commons - both are initiatives intended to move complex legal processes from the darkness of lawyer's offices to the light of common usage. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords
Declan McCullagh, CNet News.com, July 30, 2013
According to this report, the "secret demands mark escalation in Internet surveillance by the federal government through gaining access to user passwords, which are typically stored in encrypted form." The companies (for example, Microsoft) report that they are not turning over passwords, decryption algorithms, or salts. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MOOC - La résurgence de la communauté dans l'apprentissage en ligne
Stephen Downes, May 30, 2013, REFAD, Edmunston, NB
Downloads: full text in English, full text en français. Dans cette présentation, Stephen Downes aborde la question à savoir comment les MOOC (massive open online courses) influenceront l'avenir de la formation à distance. La présentation examine de façon détaillée la nature et l'objectif des MOOC comparativement à l'enseignement traditionnel à distance. Il soutient que les MOOC représentent la résurgence de l'apprentissage communautaire et décrira comment les institutions d'éducation à distance partageront les MOOC entre elles et renforceront les interactions en ligne grâce à des services et des ressources communautaires. Share. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. On ID Tokens
Tim Bray, Ongoing, April 5, 2013
Long-time readers of OLDaily know I've had an ongoing interest in authentication, and more particularly, authentication that is lightweight and automatic. We're finally moving toward such a system, which will eventually replace passwords. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. To better understand Marines, lace up your combat boots
Community College Times, April 5, 2013
OK, this item (via Joanne Jacobs) is just a PR stunt. A week at boot camp won't even help the educators learn about boot camp, let alone learn about vets. But as I was having negative thoughts, it got me to thinking. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Four observations on how OER initiatives are modelled
Allison Littlejohn, Little by Littlejohn, April 5, 2013
Here, first, are the observations, as stated by Allison Littlejohn:

• European OER initiatives are based (largely) on the traditional view of instructor using OER as content for teaching
• Most European OER initiatives rely on government or institutional funding
• OER is often viewed as content curated by ‘experts’
• Significant groups of people are not being considered as key users of OER

From what I've seen of MOOCs in North America, exactly the same four comments could be made. So what's wrong with that picture. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sweating the Details of a MOOC in Progress
Karen Head, The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog, April 5, 2013
I was enlisted as a 'friend of the MOOC' as the ocTEL MOOC was being prepared, and now I'm feeling guilty because I really had no time to help when they were planning, but now have comments as they're running into some opening week difficulties. But perhaps difficulties were inevitable, with or without my help. More...