Restrictions Impeding Web-based Courses
Documentation of the results of two typical requests an instructor might make of a publisher while creating an online course. More...

Google Searches Repositories: So What Does Google Search For?
This commentary deflates the enthusiasm about Google's plan to search institutional repositories, arguing in essence that there is nothing there to search for. Could be. More...

After 40 Years' Work, Gravity Experiment Will Get Off The Ground
When you watch a lifetime's work, a $700 million 40-year-old project, blast off on a rocket, you get a little nervous. But no matter what the result, I have nothing but admiration for the sort of dedication it has taken to make this project a reality. More...

Is Google the Future of E-mail?
Good discussion of the implications and issues surrounding Google's new email service, GMail. I was interested to see the discussion about the implications for privacy in this new service, since Declan and I exchanged a few emails about this last week. More...

Fighting Music Swappers
My response to the Globe and Mail article, as a letter to the editor. The debate over file sharing isn't simply a matter of protecting honest vendors against thieves. It is about whether these vendors should be able to hold a privileged position in the marketplace. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, April 13, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Creating and Capturing New Knowledge
What is it about a community that causes it to not only produce, but also transfer, knowledge? It is certain that a community produces artifacts, codifications of the knowledge it creates – look at any academic society and the first evidence of its work is the set of journal articles and other publications it produced. More...

Writing on the Brain
This commentary on Alice W. Flaherty's The Midnight Disease asks the question: why do people write? Perhaps, the author suggests, it's a disease? Certainly the list of great writers has no shortage of manic and drug-addled basket cases. More...

Fundamental Issues With Open Source Software Development
The five major issues outlined in this article correspond with my own experience, especially bad user interface, poor documentation. The other issues speak more to the functionality of the software: feature glut, programmer centered design, and blindness to good features in commercial software. More...

Beyond Just School: Goa Project Tries to Ensure Children Actually Learn
Interview with Marita Adam, the coordinator of this project run out of the health-focussed non-profit organisation Sangath in the Alto Porvorim locality in Goa. More...

ODRL Workshop, Day One
I am in Vienna, Austria, attending the first Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) workshop. With about 10 minutes of internet access time, I cannot provide a proper newsletter, however, I am pleased to make available my summary notes from Day One. Day Two will follow tomorrow, and if I can find a cybercafe on the weekend, I will provide a catch-up issue of OLDaily as soon as I can. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, April 22, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...