The Pros and Cons of Six Different Competency Models
Kerry Williams, Avilar, 2018/08/23
The headline of this post is a bit misleading. A competency model is "a framework for defining the skill and knowledge requirements of a job. It’s a collection of competencies that jointly define successful job performance." More...

Fairness without demographics in repeated loss minimization
Adrian Colyer, The Morning Paper, 2018/08/23
The key to representing minorities fairly is to recognize that there are minorities. But what if information about minorities isn't in the data? A lot of machine learning datasets have this problem, which is why they perform poorly with respect to them. A speech-recognition system might perform poorly with minority accents, for example. More...

BU, ACC developing virtual reality look at First World War internment camp
Brandon Sun, 2018/08/23
This is a part of our history that has to a large degree been expunged and forgotten, but during the first world war internment camps were set up across Canada to isolate "so-called 'enemy aliens' -  immigrants who’d come to Canada from countries that were fighting against the British Empire." The records of these camps were destroyed in the 1950s. More...

Exploring blockchain for better business
National Research Council Canada, 2018/08/23
This is a very nice implementation of blockchain technology - Ethereum, to be specific - to provide public access to data about National Research Council (NRC) Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) grants to companies in different research areas. Coverage in Coindesk. You can see the implementation here. More...

Spitball brings the blockchain to decentralise elearning
Alex Hamilton, IBS Express, 2018/08/23
This is very similar to other blokchain applications to create DRM-like capabilities in e-books and other publications. For example, Scenarix is a company that has worked with NRC to build blockchain publishing solutions; it anticipates rolling out its Bookchain application for general use in October of this year. More...

“Netflix for Books"
Matt Reed, Inside Higher Ed, 2018/08/21
This is an opinion column discussing the plan whereby "a student pays a set rate per semester, and has unlimited access to new copies of the latest books provided by that publisher." Matt Reed's main criticism is that "this publisher only carries what it publishes. It would be as if Netflix only carried content provided by Fox Studios." Moreover, the subscription model tends to promote a single-publisher monopoly at an institution (because using any other materials creates an extra expense). More...

The “Always Check” Approach to Online Literacy
Michael Caulfield, Hapgood, 2018/08/21
I really like the first part of this article: "the only viable literacy solution to web misinformation involves always checking any information in your stream" before you believe it or share it or whatever. No doubt, and he makes the case convincingly. More...

Cut the Bull
Dave Truss, Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts, 2018/08/21
Simple is rarely more efficient, and is not accomplished by seeking efficiency. This is a great lesson drawn by Dave Truss from Picasso and applied to lesson planning. Truss writes, "Picasso didn’t do his final drawing by asking, 'How can I use the least amount of lines to draw a bull?' In each drawing he took away the non-essential components, leaving behind only what was necessary." An excellent point. Additionally, I would note that you get to the six-line bull only after having created and abstracted from the original bull. More...