Scholars Discover Weblogs Pass Test as Mode of Communication
This is a short introduction to research in blogging and education followed by an interview with four researchers in the field, including Alex Halavais and Jill Walker. Most of the focus of the discussion is on the question of whether blogs ae a form of journalism, something that has preoccupied writers in that field over the last yer. More...

Blog Navel Gazing
This article looks at what blogs are good for (and they're good for a lot of things), and while the comparison is between blogs and newspaper articles, the same comparison could be made between blogs and academic writing (up to and including the stilted Victorian style in which they are written). More...

InDiscover
Those of you who heard my talk in Winnipeg last week (or viewed the slides online) will recall my discusion of recommender systems. InDiscover is one such site, a service designed to help bring independent music to new listeners by recommending songs based on users' tastes. More...

Copyright Arrest in Japan
A Japanese professor who developed a file-sharing program called Winny was arrested "on suspicion of developing and offering free downloads" of copyrighted material. Isamu Kaneko, a 33-year-old assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, developed Winny in 2002. More...

Is a Degree Still Worth Having?
Questions are being raised about the usefulness of a university degree, at least according to a couple of new studies described in this BBC article (referred via elearnspace). In particular, the university degree is no longer the ticket to a better paying job that it once was, leaving students who take out large student loans looking at dim financial prospects. More...

What Is Social Capital
There seems to be this desire on the part of some to reduce every sort of good to some sort of 'capital' - human capital, knowledge capital, and now, social capital. Social capital is, according to one definition, "the degree to which a community or society collaborates and cooperates (through such mechanisms as networks, shared trust, norms and values) to achieve mutual benefits." According to another, "Over time, social capital builds what may be termed as social infrastructure." Bleah. More...

The Great Blogger Relaunch
Blogger has upgraded its software, probably the largest upgrade since Pyra launched the service. The new interface (I tried it out this afternoon) will feel familiar to Blogger users, and some of the new features - comments, syndication using the Atom format, enhanced templates, email blogging, personal profiles - will be well received. More...

Google Blog
For the last few week, this page has served as a place-holder with one word suggesting what was to follow. The Google blog has finally launched with what I think is the best single response to complaints about outsourcing to India and elsewhere: "It's not their fault they have a lot of brilliant computer scientists who don't care to relocate to the States." Speaking as another person who does not care to move to the United States, it's worth observing that one person's outsourcing is another person's home, family and local industry. More...

IMS/SSP Comes So Close...
David Wiley is back to doing cool things with the launch of his Open Learning Support pilot project, which adds discussion board support to half a dozen or so OpenCourseWare courses at MIT. More...

Scholars and Scripts, Eyeballs and Epistemes: What it Means to Publish
These PowerPoint slides are well worth a quick view, displaying graphically as they do the increase in journal prices and the increase on open access publications and requests. Some neat discussion as well about the different publishing traditions in different disciplines. More...