By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Declan Butler: Science in the Web Age: Joint Efforts, Nature December 6, 2005

Writing in Nature, Declan Butler wonders why more scientists don't blog. "many researchers still see publications in the formal scientific literature as 'the' means of scientific communication... for most scientists and academics, blogs and wikis remain unattractive distractions from their real work. Many consider them an online version of coffee-room chatter, background noise that goes against the very ethos of heavily filtered scholarly information". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Phil Jones: Alternatives to the Semantic Web?, Platform Wars October 24, 2005

What is the alternative to the semantic web? How about this: "I'll suggest the alternative to the SemWeb is the SynWeb, a web which doesn't need 'key identifiers'. A world with lots of online data, marked up with syntactic cues which make it easy to parse (eg. good old fashioned XML, or Markdown or YAML); more powerful tools and libraries for parsing and querying data with these formats; plus lots of programs which scoop up the data and combine them in interesting ways". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Micah Dubinko: Microformats and Web 2.0, XML.Com October 20, 2005

Useful article on the development of microformats and the philosophy of developing XML formats in general. "Vocabulary proliferation is one of the biggest XML annoyances around. If you're like me, your brain can hold three, maybe four markup languages at a time". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Lowell Monke: Charlotte's Webpage: Why Children Shouldn't Have the World at Their Fingertips, Orion October 11, 2005

I guess people make a living publishing articles like this, which doesn't seem really fair to me. The gist of the article is that computers harm education, mostly because they deaden childrens' encounters with the real world. The author cites what seems to be example after example - the (uncited) Fuchs and Woessman report, the cancellation of recess, the glee with which students set about hacking the school network. The idea is that children are being shown a false reality. For example, "If computers discourage a sense of belonging and the hard work needed to interact responsibly with others, they replace it with a promise of power." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. John Patzman: Examples of Instructional Materials on the Web, September 20, 2005

The author writes, "Many people know that I regularly search the Web for examples of good instructional materials. Because folks often ask me for a list of the good ones that I find, I've decided to keep a web page with these good instructional examples. Please note that every example isn't necessarily wonderful in all respects... but each shows good use of certain types of instructional strategies and interactions." useful list. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scott Crevier: Web Site Link Checker, EDUCAUSE Blogs September 13, 2005

This isn't really a news item, I'm just saving the link because I'll need it later to help someone out. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ewa Callahan: Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Design of University Websites, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication November 7, 2005

I'm not sure how useful this is, but I nonetheless found this exploration of cultural differences in university websites fascinating. "Certain characteristics occurred more frequently than in other countries: use of photos in Sweden, art depiction in Greece, use of animation in Malaysia and Ecuador, pastel colors in Japan, etc." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Adam Bosworth: Learning from The Web, ACM Queue November 7, 2005

I think this is a pretty important article, at least, the first half is, because of the advice it gives people who are trying to develop systems and standards. It repeats a mantra I have been known to utter on occasion: learn from the web. What, specifically? Well, things like this: "Simple, relaxed, sloppily extensible text formats and protocols often work better than complex and efficient binary ones." because they're easier to use, and when you want abillion people to use something, it needs to be easy. More...