By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An experiment with the oerpub editor
David T. Jones, The Weblog of (a) David Jones, 2015/08/04

The OERPub editor is an interface where you can create your open source textbook on GitHub using a relatively intuitive text editor with various tools. It is in this way a lot like the old Connexions project (now repurposed and called OpenStax). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Letter on Open Access
Various authors, Google Docs, 2015/08/04
Cable Green writes: "Today, a broad coalition of more than 90 organizations representing the education, library, technology, public interest and legal communities released a letter calling on President Obama to open up educational materials created with federal taxpayer funds." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Employability and quality of life
George Siemens, elearnspace, 2015/07/31

This is a set of slides on the employability narrative for higher education, which as George Siemens says, is becoming overpowering. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How big data is unfair
Moritz Hardt, Medium, 2015/07/31
Is justice 'fairness'? Is there a requirement that big data be fair? That is the underlying presumption behind this paper that argues that the needs and interests of minorities are subsumed under the unflinching generalizations of big data. Empirically, I think there's no doubt that Moritz Hardt is right. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Developing a framework for teaching open courses
Alec Couros, Open Thinking, 2015/07/31

Long and enormously useful post from Alec Couros describing 'semi-structured' open courses. The concept is drawn from Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. One Thing
Andrew Nachison, We Media, 2015/07/30
Are newsletters making a comeback? As social media becomes less and less useful, maybe people are turning to (as this We Media updates suggests) that 'one thing' that they can rely on to be relevant. I've long since given up making any guarantees :) so I'm quite happy to pass along this notification. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I am not sure what Kevin Carey is imagining here….
Steve Krause, stevendkrause.com, 2015/07/30

I mentioned Kevin Cartey's post in another item a few days ago; this post is a good antidote to the specious reasoning Carey offers his New York Times readership. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. On Labor, Learning Conditions, and Affordable Education
Tiffany Kraft, Hybrid Pedagogy, 2015/07/29

"Here are three takeaways," writes Tiffany Kraft. "1) Students cannot afford the price we pay for higher education. 2) The debt-for-diploma exchange is gutting our Millennials. 3) The antidote for corporate academe is student activism." These have been true since I was a student in the 1980s (and hence, a student activist). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tablets in education
Michael Trucano, EduTech, 2015/07/29

This post contains links to 14 tablet initiatives in countries around the world (and another three in which the governments are taking them back). More...

By Deena Al Hilli. University students graduating from class 2015 are said to have the highest student debts in history according to the recent UK graduate career survey, by High Flyers Research. This is the first cohort of graduates that have had to pay the increased university fees of up to £9000 which has left many of them with average debt of more than £30,000. This is more than a £10,000 increase to the students who graduated in 2012. This figure will be even higher for medics who have to study five years, sometimes six depending on the university, which could potentially leave the students with debts that they can’t pay back or will be paying back for majority of their working life. This figure is lower than the predicted figure of £53,000 than that predicted in 2011 by The Push University Guide[i]. However the UK graduate career survey study also shows that more students are now likely to find jobs than in previous years[ii]. More...