By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Proposal: Chat and Discussion Interchange Datamodel
The proposal that prompted my discussion of Metadata the other day is now out in the open, thanks to Norm Friesen, the lead author. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Odeo Goes Live
Odeo is a new service for podcasting, allowing people to subscribe to podcasts, synch their MP3 player, add podcasting feeds and (eventually) create their own podcasts. OLDaily Audio is in there with 77 shows and 6 subscribers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. PostgreSQL and XML updated
For those of us agonizing over how to deal with XML data and relational databases, this is welcome news. PostgreSQL is an open source database engine and its XML functions are useful indeed. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. "Building Open Source Communities" Presentations Go Live
More open source projects starting in our field all the time. And open source communities offer a good example for open educational content development. So this selection of presentations on the development of open source communities - using Apache, Moodle, and Sakai as examples, among others - should offer some insight. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Social Machines
Good article touching on many themes I've been addressing here and in my talks. The author brings together two important trends: first, the rise of social computing applications on the internet; and second, the arrival of ubiquitous computing in the form of wireless and mobile computing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning in an Online World: Progess Report 2004
Overview report that concludes, essentially, that "Australian schools have continued to make progress in the use of ICT to improve student learning and to prepare children for the future." Statistics on bandwidth, internet use, embedding of ICT in the curriculum and teacher preparation. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sloan-C JobLine
Looking for work? Lauched Thursday, the Sloan Consortium's new job board advertises openings for online, distance and blended learning staff. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Correction - ALT-C
OK, a correction from last week. alt-i-lab is an annual "advanced learning technology interoperability" conference run by IMS. That's not the one I'm going to. No, I will be at ALT-C, the annual conference of the UK's Association for Learning Technology. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Economy of E-Learning
Something I wrote over the weekend on business models in e-learning. Economic opportunities will exist, not in the production of new goods that will not be purchased, but rather in the support and servicing of increasingly self-managed educational activity. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, July 10, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...