By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Joseph Hardin and Amitava Mitra: Sakai and the Higher Education Community: The Road Ahead, Educause November 3, 2005

A very heavy presentation with many images and screenshots, and one that reads more like marketing than research and development, but the author makes a good case, demonstrating not only that Sakai has been widely adopted but also, and even better, that Sakai is, first of all, morphing into a community-based development effort, and second, that Sakai is looking toward service interfaces that allow local developement in PHP or Perl. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Gail Fosler: Advanced Economies Losing Lead In Education, Says Analysis by The Conference Board, The Conference Board November 2, 2005

There has been much angst expressed in western economies about the rise of the less wealthy nations. But I see this as an unprecedented opportunity, not only for the people living in those regions, but for us in the west as well, to draw from and learn from the rich variety that constitutes global culture. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Luigi Canali De Rossi: Benefits Of Web-Based Applications And Microsoft Announcement Of The "Live" Era, Robin Good November 2, 2005

There's discussion all over the internet today about Microsoft's announcement that it will introduce web applications. Microsoft is once again playing catch-up as applications as diverse as Bloglines, Writely and GMail have captured a lot of user loyalty. But few companies can throw the resources at a problem that Microsoft can. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tim Porter: The Rise of the Norgs, First Draft by Tim Porter November 2, 2005

Interesting post that looks at what newspapers need to consider as their medium dies (the average age of newspaper readers is now 55 and circulation continues to decline). Specifically, they need to turn to their core value, which is 'news', not 'paper' - and cast themselves as 'norgs' (News Organizations). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Robert Brumfield: Wikibooks to offer free eTexts for education, ESchool News November 2, 2005

Coverage in eSchool News of the Wikibooks project, a plan to provide free school textbooks. Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia comments, "I think that Wikibooks and projects like it will challenge licensed textbooks in the same way that Linux [the open-source computer operating system] and other free software and licensing models are challenging the software world". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: Joint DCMI/IEEE LTSC Taskforce, DCMI November 2, 2005

I got this by email today and then from Albert Ip and CogDogBlog: "At the most recent LOM (Learning Object Metadata) WG meeting in Orlando, it was decided that the work on the LOM RDF binding will be discontinued. The reason quoted is the formation of a new taskforce between IEEE LOM and Dublin Core Metadata Initiative". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Hoare: Breaking with Convention, The Guardian November 1, 2005

Interesting proposition: "UK universities are becoming confident in delivering degrees by distance learning thanks to lessons learned from the collapsed UkeU, the ill-fated government-sponsored project conceived at the height of the dotcom boom to exploit an expanding overseas market for e-learning". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Announcement: E-Health Resource Repository, University of Calgary November 1, 2005

Gotta like this: "The Health Telematics Unit (HTU), University of Calgary... is creating and working to sustain a digital repository of e-Health resources to support research... it is committed to providing access to the most current and critical information for those working in the e-Health field". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Brian Alger: Curriculum: The Design of the Prerequisite, The Experience Designer Network November 1, 2005

Via Harold Jarche comes this nice essay about the foundation of, and death of, curriculum. No doubt there will be contrary views (not the least because it's a large industry) but the death of curriculum seems to be a good thing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ulises Mejias: A Nomad's Guide to Learning and Social Software, The Knowledge Tree November 1, 2005

Useful article that delivers what its title promises, but without the wandering. After a look at social software - which interestingly includes things as old as MUDs - the author considers the tension between online social networks and those we form offline. More...