By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ten Years Later: Why Open Educational Resources Have Not Noticeably Affected Higher Education, and Why We Should Care
Gerd Kortemeyer, EDUCAUSE Review, March 4, 2013
Wait... what? Actually, the headline overstates the case. Here is is, precisely: "OERs have failed to significantly affect the day-to-day teaching of the vast majority of higher education institutions. Traditional textbooks and readings still dominate most teaching venues even though essentially all students are online: Course management systems are used only for the dissemination of syllabi, class notes, general communications, and as a grade book." The article nicely lists some adoption hurdles: discoverability, quality, last mile, acquisition. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. ere Comes ACTA: Canadian Government Introduces Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Compliance Bill
Michael Geist, March 4, 2013
ACTA - the hated anti-counterfeiting trade legislation rejected outright in Europe and else where - is experiencing a North American revival. Critics complained (justly) that ACTA was negotiated in secret and "would profoundly restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy." But it is nonetheless the subject of implementation legistation both here in Canada and also in the United States. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Classes start tomorrow!
Kelli McGraw, March 4, 2013
I'm sending this along because, well, how can you say no to My Little Pony? (For those who didn't know, My Little Pony is a thing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. BigData in HR: Why it's Here and What it Means
Josh Bersin, Bersin by Deloitte, March 4, 2013
What's interesting about the diagram above is that it presents analytics (properly so-called) as its own discipline, and represents human resources (HR) and (hence) education as the latest thing in the progression of analytics through the years. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Numbers Exist
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, March 4, 2013
People just take their existence for granted. But on Sunday I got a bug in my head about why they exist at all, and I couldn't get past it. So all work had to be set aside until I had worked it out. Sometimes it's rough being a polymath.

[Link] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2013: MOOCs and Anti-MOOCs
Audrey Watters, Hack Education, November 30, 2013
This is the fourth in her year-end series of articles (I'll run a retrospective of all ten later in December) and focuses on MOOCs. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ban government use of instant messages, access watchdog says
Karina Roman, CBC News, November 30, 2013
Normally I wouldn't comment on something like this but I want to draw out the presumption, obviously held by the access-to-information commissioner, that instand messages are like emails or even mini documents. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. User guide to developing an employer survey on skill needs
Nick Sofroniou, Alena Zukersteinova, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), November 30, 2013
If you are doing a survey on skill needs, and you haven't really done anything like this before, use this guide, It's clear and informative, and I think it covers the ground well, leading the user toward an accurate and appropriate methodology (section 4, which details coverage of sectors and coverage of occupational groups, is evidence for this). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Talk About Mooc with Stephen Downes
Christophe Batier, Stephen Downes, YouTube, November 30, 2013
Nice interview with Christophe Batier about MOOCs - the first MOOC, our French MOOC coming up in January, my talk in Clair, my first visit to France, and why I only follow one person on Twitter. And where MOOCs will be in five years.

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and Udacity Should Learn from SJSU
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, September 29, 2013
What the SJSU report tells us, says Feldstein, is that "however different the scaling model is for MOOCs, they are still online courses and have similar success factors." More here. More...