Understanding Online Interaction
With the first part of a course he is teaching in the fall, David Wiley wonders "why we don't peer review each others course materials all the time" and then observes "Oh, right, most people are trapped in proprietary, closed LMSs." There's a certain risk to posting your course on the open net like this - especially when you know I will be one of the first to read it and comment (and you can see my comments in the discussion thread). More...
The Semantic Web: 1-2-3
So I Googled someone who spammed the educational lists with a book review today (a book misleadingly called an e-book, since it's not even online) to see if she was related to trhe author or publisher and got sidetracked. Just as well; revenge surfing doesn't really suit me. More...
Universities Beef Up Anti-Downloading Tactics
NewsScan is citing a Wall Street Journal article (which I won't link to, since a subscription is required) describing the increasing use of anti-downloading tactics on university campuses. More...
Urchin
From the announcement (thanks for the heads up, John): "Urchin is a Web based, customisable, RSS aggregator and filter. Its primary purpose is to allow the generation of new RSS feeds by running queries against the collection of items in the Urchin database. However, other arbitrary output formats can be defined and generated using XSL transformations or HTML::Template templates. More...
A major Quebec university is joining a growing movement towards allowing students – including transgender students who’ve long sought the provision – to use a name other than their given name on campus, reports The Canadian Press. More...Three academics from the University of Bristol have come up with a series of recommendations which, they say, would make United Kingdom universities more accessible and responsive to a changing economy, reports FE News. More...After finding itself caught up in national debate – and, at times, outrage – over the practice of ‘facilitated communication’, University of Northern Iowa administrators have decided to no longer host an annual conference featuring the controversial technique, writes Vanessa Miller for The Gazette. More...The Ministry of Education in Malaysia wants to attract more foreign universities to establish branch campuses at the Pagoh Higher Education Hub and will approach universities in Indonesia, Japan and South Korea, reports the Malay Mail. More...Hundreds of researchers in Taiwan have signed an open letter urging the public to vote to continue the phase out of nuclear power in an upcoming referendum. Last year, Taiwanese legislators added a clause to the island’s electricity act to shut down all nuclear power plants by 2025, writes Andrew Silver for Nature. More...The project, named Health Protection Plan Against Pseudo-therapies, comes two months after 400 Spanish scientists signed an open letter calling for action against pseudo-science following the death of a cancer patient who refused traditional medicine. It seeks to “eliminate pseudo-therapies from health centres” and “guarantee” that only health professionals with “officially recognised qualifications” work there and aims to remove any degree that includes pseudo-therapies from the country’s universities. More.../https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
