By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Letter to Hypathia
Spanish original. "'I can't read any Spanish newspapers; they all ask for an access key.' A man alone, locked in his library, set on saving a stack of books. 'If it has the (c) sign, don't buy it'. Let them keep their texts, their songs, their films. If they soil their work with the signature 'All rights reserved', they will be burying it forever. We will rebuild the Great Library only if we maintain its integrity, and for that we have to post all our knowledge on the Net in a doubly free manner: free of charge and free to use." Putting an entire culture under copyright kills it. ¡Ninguna entrega, ningún retratamiento. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CanCore: in Canada and Around the World
I covered an earlier version of this paper here a few weeks ago. The list of CanCore implementations in this article, though, seems longer. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Elements of Effective e-Learning Design
In the recent discussion on ITForum I have been seeing instructional designers say that the tenets of the domain are more or less fixed and define instructional design as a distinct profession. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Central Queensland University’s Course Management Systems: Accelerator or Brake in Engaging Change?
Think about this: "Nearly 45 percent of the respondents believed that the university has implemented Blackboard as an enterprise system as a way to place additional controls on teaching and learning." This appears in the middle of this fascinating article contrasting teleological (or goal-based) and ateleological (or process-based) development methodologies (where 'development' may refer to design, delivery, learning...) and correspondingly centralized and decentralized processes. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Quality Improvement, Quality Assurance, and Benchmarking
A special issue of IRRODL has been released. I cover five items, beginning with this one. Good overview article describing the development, choice and use of two e-learning quality frameworks, with an account of some of the dangers (the 'dark side') of using a quality framework. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Electronic Publishing >> Book 'Em
Useful article discussing electronic publishing in universities: online books, online assignment submission, learning content databases (good links here to a list of commercial academic databases). Good discussion of the move toward open access, noting the institutions' frustration with commercial content. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. When Blobjects Rule the Earth
Scott submits this nice link to my discussion area with reference to the 'Drugs that Speak to You' item from yesterday. Bruce Sterling, a noted science fiction and cyberpunk author discusses the concept of gizmos and spimes, objects of the sort described in the other story. Spimes, especially, are interesting; you buy then (where else?) at the drug store, and thereafter the spimes follow you. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Are Instructional Designers Software Architects in Disguise?
I am in the main sympathetic with this article as in comparing the fields of software architecture and instructional design it seems to reveal the deficiencies of each. Posted as an ITForum discussion paper, it has drawn responses mostly along the lines of assertions that 'instructional design is not just another branch of engineering'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Create A Graph
Via Pete MacKay's Teacher List, this site is a nifty tool that clearly illsutrates the relation between data and graphs. I would like to see something like this accept syndicated data from remote feeds. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. From E-learning to E-knowledge
Some good stuff in this discussion of the relationship between e-learning and content management. For example: "knowledge-based economies are driven by a free flow and intermeshing of data, information, and knowledge, where value is created from an ever-increasing reservoir of abundance. In such circumstances where resources are themselves not scarce value must be created in novel ways." And his account of the facets of knowledge is basically sound. More...