To Each According to its Degree: The Meritocracy and Topocracy of Embedded Markets
J. Borondo, F. Borondo, C. Rodriguez-Sickert, C. A. Hidalgo, Nature.com, January 22, 2014
Interesting paper. "A system is said to be meritocratic if the compensation and power available to individuals is determined by their abilities and merits. A system is topocratic if the compensation and power available to an individual is determined primarily by her position in a network." Different structures create networks that are either meritocratic or topocratic. More...

Epidemiological modeling of online social network dynamics
John Cannarella, Joshua A. Spechler, arXiv, January 22, 2014
Well, this is putting your model to the predictive test. The authors write, "Extrapolating the best fit model into the future suggests that Facebook will undergo a rapid decline in the coming years, losing 80% of its peak user base between 2015 and 2017." I for one would not be surprised to see that happen. More...

General Education's Remake
Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed, January 23, 2014
To be clear, I don't think competency-based education is bad, per se, and I think it is certainly a better approach than what might be called curricular or subject-based edducation. More...

Deep Learning
Hugo Larochelle, YouTube, January 23, 2014
I spent the better part of the day Thursday watching Hugo Larochelle's presentation on deep learning. This is basically the use of neural networks to support unsupervised machine learning. More...

Global OER Remix Challenge: STE{A}M
January 22, 2014
I found this site really frustrating. The idea is really good, on the surface: to provide a bunch of OERs, maybe some remix tools, and encourage people to use these to make something new (and in particular, "a standards-aligned, integrated STE{A}M lesson that incorporates various media, draws on existing open resources, and supports inquiry-based learning"). But none of the links ever seems to take me where I want to go. More...

More Competition for Online Certificate Students
Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed, January 22, 2014
Original title (before being probizwashed(*)): "After failed talks academic partnerships and coursera both introduce online course [specializations]". Notwithstanding the messy way in which these were created (there's no honour among education providers) the concept of the 'specialization' is interesting and could pose a longer-term challenge to the traditional form of credential. More...

Where are all the classroom teachers at BETT 2014?
Leon Cych, Vimeo, January 22, 2014
Reviews of Bett (or the Bett Show, or formerly the British Educational Training and Technology Show show, or cynically, Better Education Through Tablets) (link here - caution, autoplaying video with sound) are coming in, as the show is now on in London. Here's the Bett Blog (featuring iPads, apps, competitions, simplicity, competitions, big data, and apps). More...

Beyond MOOCs: Sustainable online learning in institutions
Li Yuan, Stephen Powell, Bill Olivier, CETIS, January 22, 2014
Three themes emerge from recent MOOC experiments, write the authors:

• Openness – new approaches to online learning, including models for scalable provision that may generate revenues, and promote open learning
• Revenue models – different revenue models taking the established ideas from technology start-ups
• Service Disaggregation – experimentation with business models that include unbundling and re-bundling of courses and delivery related services.

There are some good tables in the document itself, including a nice distinction between xMOOC and cMOOC, different models of course provision, pedagogic dimensions, self-assessment, and emerging business models. More...

Rasmussen College Announces Public Benefit Corporation Status
Press Releases, Rasmussen College, January 22, 2014
This item was flagged in a securities alert from Wells Fargo's Trace A. Urdan (I don't play the stock market but the reports are interesting). More...

MITx Working Papers
Kimberly Allen, MIT, January 21, 2014
I've received an email from Kim Allen at MIT concerning the results of the MITx and Harvardx MOOC projects, which I'll quote at some length. More...