By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Freedom in an Age of Algocracy
John Danaher, 2020/01/30
Today's word is 'algocracy'. As in, rule by the algorithm. This paper examines the concept, revisits the concept of 'freedom' in the light of it, and looks at how algocracy and freedom intertwine, presenting "five mechanisms through which algocratic systems can promote and undermine freedom." They can promote freedon through choice filtration.- "they can help to filter choices and reduce thefeeling of being overwhelmed" - and through cognitive slack - "by offloading some decision-making domainsto algocratic systems." Conversely, algorithms can threaten the rationality of decision-making, manipulate our choices. More...
20 février 2020
Freedom in an Age of Algocracy
14 février 2020
Free Textbooks for Law Students
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Free Textbooks for Law Students
Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed, 2020/01/03
This article questions whether some open access law textbooks count as open educational resources (OER) because they do not allow derivatives to be made from them. The article doesn't actually link to the texts, but they are freely available: here's the Trademark Law text (862 page PDF), and here's the Copyright Law text (702 page PDF). Both are CC non-commercial licensed, and only the Copyright Law text includes the no-derivatives clause. So is it OER? The story quotes Cable Green from Creative Commons as stating that they are not OER. My official and well-considered view on the matter? I don't care. More...
Free Learning and Control Learning: On the So-Called Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Free Learning and Control Learning: On the So-Called Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching
Text of my presentation to SURF Education Days, 13 November 2007, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Stephen Downes, Half an Hour December 20, 2007 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]. More...
Economics in a DRM-Free World
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Economics in a DRM-Free World
After my previous post, Doug Johnson asked me to explain the economic model of a DRM-free world. This has been done by others on numerous occasions, so this link should only be thought of as a summary. Stephen Downes, Half an Hour December 25, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Digital Rights Management (DRM)]. More...
07 février 2020
Further Investigations Into Free Screencast Software
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Further Investigations Into Free Screencast Software
Sure Waters takes a look at the free screencasting software on offer. While Jing offers an easier interface and nicer looking video, she notes that it saves files in Flash format, the hardest to convert to other formats, which you need to do if you want to upload to sites like YouTube or integrate into other videos. What Jing seems to be doing is directing people toward their own hosting service - but it's not clear that their own hosting service will remain free. Camtasia and camStudio, meanwhile, offer more flexible video formats, but not such good image quality. More...
03 février 2020
OER Introduction Booklet and Free
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. OER Introduction Booklet and Free Webinars
Links to a useful PDF booklet describing 'Open Educational Resources'. There's an accompanying course, but you don't have to take it. The booklet notes, "A resource accessible for free over the Internet does not always signify that it is not protected by a copyright nor forbidden for reuse and reproduction. In fact, most of the time, the content is protected by copyrights not allowing reproduction. Where else an OER is distributed, licensed and shared with the background willingness to enable the user to adapt and use the content freely". More...
Free Learning and Control Learning
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Free Learning and Control Learning
So I delivered my opening keynote address at SURF Education Days today. It was not the usual Web 2.0 rant people were expecting - instead, I focused on the Kirschner Sweller Clark paper I mentioned yesterday (thank you for the posts and emails - they were extremely helpful) and delivered what amounted to a thorough criticism. This paper, though it has been around for about a year, was relatively new to me. I was rather surprised when I read some summaries a couple of weeks ago, and quite concerned when I read the paper itself, just recently, especially given that it was published in a first-rate journal. The responses, in my mind, missed the heart of the critique, and allowed the authors to walk away relatively unscathed. Not after today. There ought to be a certain standard in our field, especially in that part of it that represents itself as the academic and professional part. Slides are also here. There's audio and video, which will be posted later. Stephen Downes, Slideshare November 13, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Audio, Books, Web 2.0, Video, Academia]. More...
02 février 2020
Call on member States to remedy quickly and effectively any threats to media freedom
Threats to media freedom and the safety of journalists have become so numerous, repeated and serious that they are jeopardising not only citizens’ right to be properly informed but also “the stability and smooth functioning of our democratic societies”, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly said today. More...31 janvier 2020
Technorati Free Fall
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Technorati Free Fall
Miguel Guhlin points to his falling ranking in Technorati, but I'm suspicious. One day last week I slipped more than 1000 places. Odd. Also odd is that the search page for Stephen Downes shows links that are 16, 28 and 44 days old - when we know that people have been writing about that topic more recently. So I think that Technorati is melting down. More...
