By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. John Hagel: From Push to Pull, Edge Perspectives with John Hagel October 19, 2005

I have to give John Hagel and John Seely Brown (JSB) credit: they know how to take an idea, package it, and run with it. The idea this time is the transformation from 'push' technologies to 'pull' technologies. It's a topic I've dealt with before, but never in any depth. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: Adelphi Charter October 19, 2005

Written by an international group of artists, scientists, lawyers and economists, the Adelphi Charter is an attempt to find what might be thought of as a middle ground in the copyright debates. Sponsored by the Royal Society, the charter is signed by people such as Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Harold Jarche: Provinent now "Vitesse Learning" October 19, 2005

Another merger. Harold Jarche reports: "After having recently merged with Fredericton's LearnStream, Provinent (of Toronto, with offices in Fredericton & Charlotteown) is now merged with US-based Vitesse Learning. This consolidates the e-learning content development field even more. We'll see if bigger is better in the next months and whether the new company hires more people or jettisons extra staff". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wilfred Rubens: A Network of Weblogs as a Community of Practice, Wilfred Rubens TE-learning centrum October 18, 2005

On the one hand, this article makes a good case for treating a network of blogs as a community of practice, observing that while bloggers do not communicate intentionally, while moderaters are not employed, and while they use different platforms, they nonetheless form a community, as evidenced by this diagram. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dan Turner: Canadian Journalism, Public Policy Forum October 18, 2005

A little off-topic, but too interesting to not pass along, this round-table features many of Canada's most well-known journalists talking about the state of the media in our country. There's a lot of criticism - note especially the longish account of newspapers in New Brunswick. But the criticism is, from my perspective, muted. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Matt Pasiewicz: Podcasting at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference ..., Educause October 18, 2005

The EDUCAUSE annual conference is now on, attracting everybody who's anybody in online learning. As D'Arcy Norman, who links us to the iTunes version, comments, the casts are just trickling in now, as the conference gets started. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Michael Feldstein: Introducing the LMOS Open Source Project, E-Literate October 18, 2005

Interesting. "The Learning Management Operating System (LMOS) will be designed from the ground up focusing on tool interoperability in order to provide campuses, faculty and students with unprecedented flexibility and control in customizing their virtual campus/class environments. In contrast to traditional LMS projects, the LMOS is conceived as a framework for integration and interoperability rather than a monolithic system". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Catherine Howell: University of Cambridge Department Bans Skype, Citing Security Concerns, EDUCAUSE Blogs October 18, 2005

This might be a sign of more to come, as computing service people are expressing concerns about the free online audio program. Skype, while free, is not open source, and it also sneaks through firewalls using ports normally reserved for web servers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ulises Mejias: Social Agency and the Intersection of Communities and Networks, Ideant October 18, 2005

Interesting paper responding to the idea, popularized by Borgmann and Dreyfus, that online communities are deficient, because they do not enable real interactions. Dreyfus writes, for example, "Like a simulator, the Net manages to capture everything but the risk... " Maybe. But I like Ulises Mejias's rejoinder (also cited by James Farmer: "Online experiences are indeed no substitute for the 'real' thing: allowing computer code to assume a large degree of social agency does sever ontological ties to the offline world". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dan Gillmor: Reputation Systems Required, Bayosphere October 18, 2005

I'm not sure about reputation systems per se, but it seems clear to me that with the recent splog crisis shaking the blogosphere we need some way to harvest content not only by topic but also by author. What's a 'splog crisis', you ask? 'Splog' is short for 'spam weblog' and is the result of automated processes filling sites like Blogger with fake blogs intended to link to sites they are trying to promote. More...