An Alternative Perspective on Group Dynamics
Jenny Mackness, May 16, 2014

In this post Jenny Mackness offers a rethink on the need for group formation. "How could it ever be right to not support the weakest member of the group? ... There were some lovely people in our walking group who shared these values, but also some who didn’t seem to understand that in a situation such as walking the West Highland Way, commitment to the group was important." It's an interesting challenge. More...

Why We Hate Recommending Software Downloads To Our Readers
Editorial, HowToGeek, May 16, 2014
Good article pointing to some of the problems associated with software download sites (and I would add that it's not only freeware - you will be subjected to these scams on pay sites as well). Even good and reliable sites change hads and start doing things like bundling search-hijack services (like Conduit, which actually in stalls software that blocks your attempts to change your search provider back to DuckDuckGo). More...

LAe-R: A new learning analytics tool in Moodle for assessing students’ performance
Ourania Petropoulou, Katerina Kasimatis, Ioannis Dimopoulos, Symeon Retalis, Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Learning Technology, May 16, 2014

This paper summarizes the state of the art in Moodle analytics tools and presents "a new cloud-based assessment tool, called Learning Analytics Enhanced Rubric (LAe-R), which has been developed as a Moodle plug-in (version 2.2+). More...

“In Over Our Heads” – My Simmons commencement address
David Weinberger, Joho the Blog, May 16, 2014

David Weinberger hits the mark with this talk about information overload. We don't feel overloaded by the effects of 1.3 million apple pie recipes or 7.6 million cute cat photos. Why not? Because we're not expected to master them. More...

Bitnami
Bitnami, May 15, 2014
This is very nice. "Bitnami is an app store for server software. Install your favorite applications in your own servers or run them in the cloud. Select one app to get started or learn more about what makes Bitnami special." No, it's not free (of course). There are demo modes, but they're short-lived. For your own cloud server you'll need to enter your Amazon Web Service credentials. More...

Achievement Standards Network
Achievement Standards Network, May 15, 2014

From the website: "The Achievement Standards Network ASN) provides open access to machine-readable representations of learning objectives published by education agencies and organizations including the Common Core State Standards." It was acquired by Desire2Learn last March. More...

Are MOOCs Just Moneymaking Scams? Providers Challenged To Substantiate Grandiose Claims
Keith Button, Campus Technology, May 15, 2014

So the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education has launched a video and campaign against MOOCs, depicting MOOCs as schemes designed to make money. This follows the release of three working papers  last year "questioning the basic positive assumptions about online education." I will admit, Coursera, Udacity and EdX make good targets. But it doesn't make sense to tar all MOOCs (and all online learning) with the same brush. More...

Statement about embargo periods
Kathleen Shearer, Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), May 14, 2014

For a while, supporters of open access have accepted embargo periods as a necessary evil to promote the transition from closed source to open access publications. Embargo periods delay the publication of open versions of paid articles for a period of time. Now they are seeing the cost of that compromise. More...

Employers must start investing in skills training or risk having public policy nudge them along
David Munroe, Financial Post, May 14, 2014

I've long considered this sort of item inevitable. The more employers argue that education should focus on skills development for employment needs, the more the onus falls on them to pay for that. More...

Open Policy Network
Open Policy Network, May 14, 2014

Creating Commons is launching new Open Policy Network website. More...