The End of the American Experiment
Umair Haque, Medium, 2017/07/26
Patrick Watson gave us the same message some three decades ago: democracy requires prosperity - universal prosperity - in order to survive. More...

A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review 
Jonathan P. Tennant, et.al., F1000 Research, 2017/07/27

This is a detailed and well-thought-out contribution to the future of peer review. It is definitely needed. More...

We Need More, Not Fewer, Collaborations With Tech Companies
Mary L. Gray, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2017/07/27
The reasoning here is that since resources for research are so limited, it makes sense for academia to partner with business, and if there are problems with the relationship (as there most certainly are) then the focus should be on making it work better, not on ending it. More...

Practical User Research: Creating a Culture of Learning in Large Organizations
Sam Moore, A List Apart, 2017/07/27
What I like about this article is that it merges the idea of learning and research. It's set in a corporate environment, but the commentary could apply to anyone. The idea here is that companies need to be constantly learning about customer needs and how to provide for them, but it's a challenge to build this need into a learning culture. More...

Here (with 2 Years of Exhausting Photographic Detail) Is How To Write A Book
Ryan Holiday, The Mission, Medium, 2017/07/20
This is a terrific post delivering exactly what the title promises, running from ideation, proposal, research, writing and editing, and even cover design and legal review. The value of the post isn't in giving aspiring writers a recipe they should follow - indeed, the method is completely paper-based and therefore more cumbersome than necessary. More...

Personalized Learning: Budget cuts spur new teaching model
Sarah Julian, NonDoc, 2017/07/20
This is a post touting Momentum Schools, Oklahoma's version of personal learning. "Momentum gives students the choice of how, when and where they attend school [and]  instead of traditional group class time, students schedule meetings with individual teachers to assess schoolwork. Students work at their own pace to ensure they master the content." Doing what? I wonder. More...

Information Underload
Mike Caulfield, Hapgood, 2017/07/20
Mike Caulfiend comes out with a gem of a post questioning the concept of 'information overload'. The problem isn't too much information, he writes. The "big problem is not that it’s a firehose, but that it’s a firehose of sewage. It’s all haystack and no needle." He has numerous examples: numerous cancer studies, no cancer cure. More...

Beginning the  Conversation…A Made-in-Canada Approach  to Digital Government
Government of Canada, 2017/07/20
Some of the key conversations taking place in our field are echoed in this report on digital government in Canada. Most of the interestinbg stuff is near the end of the document: connecting with external tralent ("mechanisms like Interchange and newer flexible staffing regimes make it relatively easy and fast for hiring managers to bring outside professionals into government for short-term assignments"), user-centric design skills (" a skills gap that needs to be addressed in the public sector at the intersection of user-centric design and agile prototyping and development"), cloud and open source technologies ("open source platforms have become an increasingly important foundational element for digital transformation in public sector organizations across the world"), digital identity ("many participants expressed a desire for the federal government to play a stronger leadership role, and to pilot digital identity solutions"), and digital literacy ("digital literacy was identified as being needed across government, at all levels and functions, to support smart decision-making"). More...

Facebook Says It Will Start Testing a Subscription-Based News Product in October
David Cohen, AdWeek, 2017/07/19
I have to believe that Facebook will be a lot more diligent about policing 'pirated' news content in user posts and groups than it ever was abusive content and  fake news. More...

Amazon Inspire
Amazon, 2017/07/19
As the EdSurge article says, "After more than a year of invitation-only private beta, Amazon just opened its free library of open-education resources, called Amazon Inspire." You can't post your own resources on the site yet - but a statement from Amazon says this feature is coming soon. More...