Communication Management and Control in Distance Learning Scenarios
I don't really agree with the conclusion of this paper, but I know many people do: in the recommended communications environment, "a tight, scheduled support structure is applied to the communication processes of students and tutors. An integrated communication platform offers appropriate communication channels according to the actual communication needs of a student or tutor." I just don't deal with time well enough to support a tight schedule of anything. More...

Eduplone Reveals Initial IMS Learning Design Support
Plone is an open source content management system (CMS) that has won a wide following for its ease of use and functionality. This article describes one of the advantages of open source: it allows people to innovate in ways not considered by the original designers. Hence, eduplone is the same CMS platform rigged to work with learning objects. More...

Distributed Digital Rights Management: The eduSource Approach to DRM
Full text of my paper, in PDF, presented at the ODRL Workshop in Vienna. This paper described in detail the DRM startegy we designed for the edusource project, with architecture diagrams and screen shots. By Stephen Downes, et.al., Stephen's Web, April 23, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Distributed Digital Rights Management
Slides from my second presentation to the Learning Object Summit, describing the eduSource approach to digital rights management. Additional papers and slides (as well as video, even) should be available on the site shortly. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, March 30, 2004. More...

What Every Citizen Should Know About DRM a.k.a. "Digital Rights Management"
Gerry sends along this link to a straightfoward guide on digital rights management for non-technical readers. The guide is grounded in good common sense and its understanding of the problem is precise: The aspect of the Internet that most bothers content companies is an aspect that is central to its design. In effect, it is exceedingly difficult to craft a law or regulation that categorically outlaws peer-to-peer file sharing without, in doing so, outlawing the Internet itself." Exactly. More...

Total Quality Management Strategic Plan for Distance Course Development
It's enough to make some academics shudder, of course, but this article describes the development and application of an evaluation rubric to distance learning courses. The think with measuring quality is that you have to be sure you are measuring for the right things. More...