By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Encourage Google to Stop Undermining Education
A group of instructors has started a petition to convince Google to stop advertising essay services, asking the search engine to "stop undermining education through their policy of displaying ads that encourage plagiarism and academic fraud through the sale of pre-written and made to order term papers and essays especially when these ads are displayed on web sites that promote education". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open Letter to Research Councils UK: Rebuttal of ALPSP Critique
Signed by Tim Berners-Lee, among other luminaries, this letter responds to the public letter by Sally Morris, theExecutive Director of ALPSP, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, concerning the RCUK's proposed research self-archiving policy. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. End of an Era
In the winter of 1997-98, sheltering from Brandon's cold norther storms, I wrote the basis of a database system that would become the foundation for my website, the NewsTrolls blog, and with the addition of an email system in 2001, OLDaily. Now, unless something weird happens to the code (always a possibility), today's newsletter will be the last issue published and mailed using the old system. Yes, just a new coat of paint (actually, the subscription script and some security features) and the new EduRSS02 will be ready to roll into production, at least on the blogging and newsletter side (the integrated harvesting will come in October). This is a major step for me, the result of a lot of work, and the new system will be a strong platform on which to implement a lot of what I've talked about over the last year or so: the semantic social network, single self-identification, RSS referencing, and more. For now, here's the code, such as it is (please note that it is still very much under construction and that this does not constitute a release, just good open source practice).

Anyhow. Tomorrow's newsletter should arrive as usual. You'll see some format changes, but nothing shocking. Should your newsletter not arrive, or somehow be gibbled, please send me an email and I'll get it fixed. This should be a smooth transition, but I've been in this business long enough to expect anything. Thanks in advance for your patience. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, August 29, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. List of Blog Networks v2
It was natural, I suppose, that blogs would form more formal networks over time. This allows them to link to each other and push up their ratings. Many blog networks drive a lot of traffic and pay their writers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Users Confused About Blogs
Konrad Glogowski has grasped and expressed well what I also have been trying to say. "What we all need to acquire is the kind of perception that reflects the kaleidoscopic and multi-centred world around us. What we need, in other words, is to ensure that education becomes spherical and acoustic rather than linear, that it focuses on discovery rather than compartmentalization of data". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Seven Principles of Social Networking
Dave Pollard outlines "a set of principles which might provide some clues on how to develop Social Networking Applications that really do work."
- "the existence of mutual trust, respect, context, and self-disclosure between the parties."
- conversational ice-breaking
- physical appearance as an icon of our identity
- a way to observe the other person's environment (I wonder whether a 'web space' would count here)
- doing something together, collaborating
- recognition that each of us is in a (separate) network
Pollard follows his list with a series of challenges for social software. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. LiteFeeds
Nifty. From a Vancouver start-up: "LiteFeeds provides a custom mobile RSS reader for any Java Phone/SmartPhone, Blackberry, Palm or PocketPC which synchronizes with your online subscriptions". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Habits of Judgment and Authority
Something to think about. A librarian quoted by Will Richardson says, "I've been a librarian for ten years and I have to tell you, I feel like a fraud. I don't really know where to start when it comes to figuring out whether a site is believeable or not". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Atom 1.0
The successor to RSS is, according to Tim Bray, "cooked and ready to serve." The question of whether it is widely adopted still depends on the users, but most (if not all) aggregators will support both. Here is a list of the differences between Atom and RSS 2.0". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Longhorn to Require Monitor-Based DRM
Let me ask you, is there any consumer demand for monitors that don't work? I thought not. Howabout software that breaks your monitor? No? How, then, does it make sense to do this: "if Longhorn detects that your monitor is not 'secure' enough, then your premium video content won't play on it until you buy one that is. Who gets to decide? The content providers of course". More...