By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Net neutrality is up for debate at CRTC hearings
Ramona Pringle, CBC News, 2016/10/31

Hearings on net neutrality are being held by Canada's telecom regulator starting today. The issue is of particular interest in Canada because we have fewer providers, bandwidth is more expensive than elsewhere, and we have lower data caps. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Virtual assistants spend much of their time fending off sexual harassment
Michael J. Coren, Quartz, 2016/10/31

It's the sort of issue that tends to turn out poorly in a free market environment: people prefer bot assistants that have female voices, and a significant number of users want their bots to behave in a subservient fashion. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What should the next generation of digital learning environments do?
JISC, 2016/10/31

The U.K.'s JISC is asking for contributions (in the form of tweet chats) to a series of 'six challenges' posed by the future of learning and research in a digital environment. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Devil’s Dictionary of Educational Technology
Bryan Alexander, 2016/10/25

Bryan Alexander hits the mark again and again with this lighthearted look at terminology in our field. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Building A Higher Ed Social Media Budget
Liz Gross, Gross, Point-Blank, 2016/10/25
I haven't seen this topic covered elsewhere, which is by itself something to recommend it. "Paying to promote posts—either to the organic audience or to a target audience.... is becoming the norm in higher ed. Of the 1,100 respondents to the 2016 CASE Social Media in Advancement Survey, 59% said they paid to promote posts on Facebook, and 18% paid for Twitter promotion." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Can Your Productivity Be Measured?

Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, 2016/10/25

I think we all knew this, but in this review of Yves Gingras's Bibliometrics and Research Evaluation: Uses and Abuses we read of a detailed examination of the topic. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open Educational Resources
Michael Q. McShane, Education Next, 2016/10/25
This article opens as an account of the nature and history of open educational resources. But then it turns sceptical. Michael Q. McShane writes, "open resources are offered free to users, but they are not necessarily free to produce... the people who create them want to be paid for doing so." Fair enough, and for the most part creators are paid by their school, company, university or government department. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Great Unbundling of Textbook Publishers
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2016/10/25

The unbundling of the university is more story than fact, writes Michael Feldstein, but the unbundling of publishing is imminent. This tipping point may be open educational resources (OER), which are making textbook publishing unprofitable. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Reaching the Tipping Point: Insights on Advancing Competency Education in New England
Chris Sturgis, CompetencyWorks, 2016/10/25

This report (89 page PDF) provides an overview of competency-based education (CBE) and then drills down to look at some lessons learned in New England. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 2016 Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey

Florida Virtual University, 2016/10/21

This large (22,000 participants) report (35 page PDF) makes the impact of textbook costs clear. More...