By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Changing an Epistemological System
An interesting red-blue diagram describing shifting epistemological systems. I mostly agree with this, though question some of the wording (for example, I probably read "common ground" to mean something different that what the author intends). Anyhow, "Red oceans are bloodied by rivalries. The epistemological system in an industry dictates competition and costly battles to prove superiority.... A blue ocean is uncontested market space -- providing access to untapped demand". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Required Reading: the Next 10 Years
Lawrence Lessig is shifting his focus. He writes, "the real problem here was (what I will call a 'corruption' of) the political process... our government can't understand basic facts when strong interests have an interest in its misunderstanding." It's this sort of thing that has prevented, he writes, progress in the copyright arena. "No public regarding justification could justify the extraordinary deadweight loss that such extensions impose. Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea -- both Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open Source Publishing
A wiki has been launched on the concept of open source publishing. "Open source publishing refers to the openness of the authoring and reviewing process while open access refers to the openness to the reader". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Everyone'S Tripping and It'S All Free
Bryan Alexander states, accurately, "The Chronicle's stance of reporting against, er, about technology is one of the biggest, least appreciated problems in academic computing and instructional technology." I have long wondered about this. What motivates such partisan reporting, biased to the point of parody? This latest coverage - a breathless endorsement of the Gorman stance in the Britannica blog. "Academic bloggers have savaged Mr. Gorman's treatises," reports the Chronicle, without the slightest hint that the bloggers may have a point. "Do you have the sense that Wikipedians, 'citizen journalists,' and other Web 2.0 enthusiasts seek to devalue your published work?" Um. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What If Higher Ed Funds Don'T Help Economy?
University officials have long been citing their economic importance as grounds for their support. Some critics have noted that this reduces departments like art and philosophy to irrelevance, but they have been largely muted. Well, now the other shoe may be dropping. "The study found that more state funding to higher education doesn't necessarily lead to higher growth, and in fact correlates negatively with high growth rates." The argument for the arts and philosophy remains unchanged: knowledge is of intrinsic worth to society. As for those institutions that placed the demands of knowledge second to the dictates of the economy. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Six Basic Truths of Free APIs
George Siemens links to this article and comments, "Web 2.0 is killing open source." I wouldn't go that far. That is not to say they do not pose a challenge. You seem to get a lot more functionality coding on top of Google search or Google maps. And yes, a lot of people are coding for, say, the Google API instead of creating open source applications. But as the article notes, if you live this way, you live only with the blessings of the company that created the API - and as we've seen, even with Google, such companies can be very self-serving (whither the Atom API?) and fickle. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. E-Learning 2.0: All You Need To Know
It probably isn't all you need to know about e-learning 2.0 but this article is a nice start, caturing the 'small pieces loosely joined' aspect and leading the reader through social networking tools such as Elgg and other social networking tools. From this, the author goes on to look at collaborative e-learning systems in more detail - though I would hasten to point out that there is a large difference between 'collaboration' in the sense of groupwork and 'collaboration' in the sense of cooperative networks. Harold Jarche's criticisms point, I think, in this direction. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. OpenLearn Unit Link Map
I think that when the mind-maps are relatively simple, and show some structure, as in the case of the wiki mindmap at the top of the page, thy can be an intuitive aid to understanding. Clutter them up, producing nothing more than long lists of things, as in the T180 diagram lower down in the page, and you produce no more understanding than you would have with a text-based bullet list. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. eBooks: The Next Big Thing (Again)
Some people are heralding the return of eBooks again. I remain sceptical. Sure, there may be new devices and a new format. But like online music, what will make eBooks popular is not the e but the free. Establish the free market first. Only then can you even think of charging for (some) content. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The ‘Cities Visited' Facebook Application
This is cool. I've been wanting this for some time. But why must I use Facebook to use it. Here's how it should work: I can use any number of clients (including Facebook) to create a 'cities visited' file. Something simple for representing lists, like say OPML. Then a view should be able to use any of a number of applications (including browser plug-ins) to view my list on a map. Or as a list. Or however they want it. And third parties who want to aggregate all the cities visited by, say, people from Metcalfe, can gather all our files together and create the mega-list. That's not so hard to imagine, is it? Not so complicated. More...