By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. SWORD APP Profile 1.0
I was snarky with them in a post a while back, so it's only fair that I link to the release of Version 1.0 of the SWORD Profile of the Atom Publishing Protocol (APP). SWORD stands for Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit and is a Jisc-funded project. "The SWORD Profile specifies a subset of elements from the APP for use in depositing content into information systems, such as repositories. The Profile also specifies a number of element extensions to APP, defined to adhere to the extensions mechanism outlined in APP." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Handheld Learning 2007 Nuggets
A set of 'nuggets' from the Handheld Learning conference in London, with oddments varying from fears about WiFi to the unfortunately named Asus miniBook to yet another Presnky next-generation lecture (it's time to get some new material, Marc) to the Learning Everywhere project. Good stuff. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CERIF 2006 - 1.1 Full Data Model
The CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) is a model format to manage Research Information designed for the European Current Research Information System. There's some good thinking here - but once again, I have to ask, why build this entirely from scratch, with no real recognition that anything else exists? For example, one of the core entities is 'Person'. Well good - we could use OpenID, FOAF, and the like. But no. It's all set up like a database, so you're working with a person ID (not a URI) and you're up and away (here's the ER diagram that shows what you're in for). I also wonder why the other core CERIF entities are OrganisationUnit, ResultPublication (which sometimes shows up in the diagrams as ResultPatent) and Project. I ask this because I'm wondering whether you want to create a set of (institution-based) core elements. More...