By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Jaschik: Too Much Information?, Inside Higher Ed October 11, 2005

The author highlights two professors who were denied tenure at Chicago, and while careful not to link their blogs and their denial, writes a story about it. "Asked if their blogs hurt their tenure bids, Carroll and Drezner answer in nearly identical ways: They are certain that their tenure chances weren't improved by having a blog, and while their chances might have been hurt, they don't have any certainty about that." Which to me points to the real problem - the secrecy in which such decisions are made. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Allan Carrington and Cynthia Golden: Getting the Most Out of the Conference Experience ...., Educause October 10, 2005

I haven't had the chance to listen to this yet, but it has been bookmarked in my Bloglines for the last week or so (so I'm going to). That said, it seems like it would be a good link in view of the next two (conference-based) items. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Elgg Gets Right
I have mostly good things to say about ELGG, though I see the development as a bit too company-centric, a bit too site centric (though that probably can't be helped; people always prefer to use your free service rather than to download and install your free software). I wish the weblogs had more inspired names. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Pollard: Knowledge Sharing & Collaboration 2015, How to Save the World October 7, 2005

"Bad news rarely travels upwards in organizations." Well, we knew that (I mean, how often do we write a critical email to the director?). But traditional knowledge management simply ignores this and many other truisms of information flow. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Mace: Asterisk - Open-Source VoIP PBX, IT Conversations October 6, 2005

I listened to quite a good interview today with Brian Capouch, the author of the forthcoming book about Asterisk, an open source internet telephony exchange (aka PBX). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Godfrey Parkin: Learner-Created Learning, Parkin's Lot October 4, 2005

I like the idea of 'learner created learning' as described in this article. I'm less thrilled with the term 'prosumer' - the term, of course, is short for 'producer - consumer' and it is yet again another commodification - like 'human resources' - of people. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Christian Crumlish, Gene Smith, et.al.: You’re It!, You’re It! October 3, 2005

New blog on tagging containing links such as Ian Davis on Why Tagging is Expensive and defense of tagging to counter Gene Smith argument. Tagging is the rage these days, especially in Web 2.0 circiles. And as Rashmi Sinha observes, it is cognitive cheaper than selecting categories. Still. I'm not going to go back and tag 8,000 posts every time a new tag is developed (which is about every other day). More...