By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Time for TechCrunch, Academic?
I think this is a good idea. "Maybe there's scope for a TechCrunch Academic, that can cover neat stuff going on in academic research labs and help out with academics' often neglected public engagement and knowledge transfer activities." But who would do it? There's lots of money available for research projects, and nothing for real communication of results (I personally consider this newsletter to be among the best sources out there, but it is basically unfunded - a proper job would take a lot more time and money than anyone is willing to give. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What I Learned at Dinner
Right. Very important: "it is attractive to imagine that there are 'baby steps' we can take 'inside' the institutional silos to get them used to the ideas... [but] we miss out on the power of the 'network effects' that are in fact integral to the positive feedback loops of succesful social software". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blogger's Choice Awards
More awards, and yes, I nominated myself here too, and again, you'll have to find it under pages and pages of nominees. A couple of commercial blogs have jumped into an early lead - and they're the ones you see when you go to vote. Talk about a significant first-mover advantage). Anyhow, like the other award shows, they give you a good place to sample a lot of content. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mobile Instant Messaging Meets Social Networking: Twitter - A Beginner's Guide
Some online goodness from Robin Good that goes beyond merely describing how to use Twitter to describe how people are using Twitter. "Love it or hate it Twitter is a force to be reckoned with, and provides a great many opportunities beyond simply telling the world what you ate for breakfast". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Truth Vs The RIAA
Links to a bunch of articles, mostly written by musicians, against the RIAA. Handy fodder the next time someone tells you the RIAA is working for musicians. Related: Michael Geist argues that "World Intellectual Property Day has become little more than a lobbyist day with creators, users, and the facts once again getting lost in the process". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. IDRC Launches Intellectual Platform for Developing Countries
Well now they can't say that it can't be done of that federal law prohibits it. Canada's IDRC - the International Development Research Centre - has launched an open access digital repository of the research it funds. "In addition to making information more freely available, this initiative will enable IDRC-funded researchers to publish and showcase their successes, insights, and expertise. Through the IDRC Digital Library their work will be available, not just to a select few subscribers of journals, but to the entire global research community." Related: this presentation (PDF) summarizes open access policy development in Canada. "Open access policy initiatives are happening around the world. Sherpa Juliet lists more than 20 funding agency policies, from at least 10 countries. More than half the policies are by medical research funders. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Process of Research Writing: The Web Site
Intended for students, and therefore in places quite basic (for example, when distinguishing between scholarly and non-scholarly work). The chapters on working with research teams and alternative methods of presenting your research represent a more modern outlook. And, of course, we have to applaud the making of this book freely available on the web. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Enhancing Learning Seminar
Summary of a Becta session on simulations and game based learning (hence this survey of teaching practices in Second Life). While noting that we still need more evidence about what students learn from games and simulations, the author mostly focused on examples including Schome (which is focusing mostly on Second Life, it seems), the Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset, where students build their own games, and the Brain Training Game, which I'd love to try one day. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An Interview with Morten Flate Paulsen: Focusing On His Theory of Cooperative Freedom in Online Education
When Morten Flate Paulsen spoke in Barceloa last October he outlinedwhat I feel was an important distinction between collaborative learning and cooperative learning (one that that is reflected, I think, in the distinction between groups and networks). In this item, a lengthy interview, he discusses this and other aspects of his theory of cooperative freedom. The idea is to preserve autonomy while acquiring the benefits of groups. One technique, for example, is the idea of 'cooperative gating' - you can access a cooperative resource, but only if you have performed a task that contributes to the community resource. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Zude, Engyte
Some new applications to learn from. Zude hasn't launched yet, but from the demo seems to hit the mix and mash note nicely. See also this article from ZD net. Also, see Engyte, "a Web 2.0 content sharing solution that combines sharing, automatic organization and a... search capability." Explode, meanwhile, has suddenly disappeared. More...