By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Vincent Tinto: Student Success and the Building of Involving Educational Communities, MCLI iForum December 9, 2005

"Successful education, not retention, is the secret of successful retention programs." Thus argues Vincent Tinto. "Institutions of higher education are like other human communities". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Lisa Young and Donna Rebadow: Reusable Learning Objects: RLO The Movie, MCLI iForum December 9, 2005

Link to video from the presentation, presented during a conference session called 'Stop Reinventing the Wheel and Share Your Best Instructional Resources: Reusable Learning Objects,' in which Maricopa staff described their efforts to help staff understand, find, and use learning objects. Also a link to the interesting Ocotillo Learning Objects blog. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ira Fuchs: Needed: an 'Educore' to Aid Collaboration, Eduforge December 9, 2005

"The single biggest obstacle facing colleges and universities that want to use open source," argues Ira Fuchs, "appears to be the uncertainty about future support for and improvements in the software. Many administrators and trustees simply cannot accept the idea of relying for maintenance and support on people with whom they have no contractual relationship". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeremy Price: Object-Centered Sociality, or the Act of Being Kicked, Smelly Knowledge December 9, 2005

Good point about online communities I think needs highlighting and clarifying. "The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They're not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object... it's like the idea of an attractor in a dynamic system." (If you want a fun read, look up 'strange attractors' in Google - that's the sort of thing he means here). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Terry Anderson: Online End of Class Party, Virtual Canuck December 9, 2005

I enjoyed this description of the sorts of things taken into account in the design of a successful end-of-year party. I especially liked the descriptions of what (in previous years) did not work, such as: "asynchronous parties do not work!". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Anita Kumar: 'Revolution' in education learning a hard reality, St. Petersburg Times December 8, 2005

Good update on the running of schools by private companies, and especially on the shifting fortunes of Edison Schools, which now manages 61,000 students at about 136 public schools - down from almost 70,000 students at 157 schools a year ago. Interestingly, "the gains in student achievement recorded so far have been largely indistinguishable from improvements seen elsewhere". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Eileen Gifford Fenton and Roger C. Schonfeld: The Shift Away From Print, Inside Higher Ed December 8, 2005

An examination of the implications of the shift from paper to electronic publishing for libraries and publishers, one that inexplicably completely overlooks the rise of open access publishing and that only briefly mentions blogs and repositories (and then, only as a negative). The most important implication for libraries (other than those just mentioned), it seems to me, is this: "The widespread migration from print to electronic seems likely to eliminate library ownership of new accessions, with licensing taking the place of purchase". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Preston McAfee: Introduction to Economic Analysis December 8, 2005

I'll just quote Mike Linksvayer, who in turn quotes Preston McAfee, which I'll append with a hearty "hear! hear!": "Caltech economics professor Preston McAfee appears to be mad as hell about high journal and textbook prices, and he's doing something about it. He's published a complete Introduction to Economic Analysis textbook under a Creative Commons license. See his page about the license and high textbook prices: 'Why open source? Academics do an enormous amount of work editing journals and writing articles and now publishers have broken an implicit contract with academics, in which we gave our time and they weren't too greedy". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: 21st Century Learning Initiative, Canadian Council on Learning December 8, 2005

The Canadian Council on Learning has launched a new website. "This website will be an ongoing source of valuable information about the progress of the 21st Century Learning Initiative (Canada), including links to papers, slides and speeches... The site also provides an on-line forum to allow visitors to ask questions, share ideas, and post examples of activities and practices that are relevant to the Initiative." It looks nice, and does have some resources - but the font is tiny on my screen. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: JISC-CETIS Conference 2005, JISC - CETIS December 8, 2005

Kudos to the JISC and CETIS people who captured not only notes and slides but also audio of the presentations at the recent meeting in Edinburgh on the E-Framework. There's a lot here and you won't get through it all in one sitting (I didn't). Start with the written summary, which will give you the gist of the conference - don't forget to check out the blog postings listed at the bottom of the summary. Then, depending on your preferences, visit the plenary presentations page to listen to the audio and follow along with the slides or do the same at the repository strand presentations. More...