ODRL Workshop Day Two
With my ten minutes of internet access for today, another very short newsletter (if you are trying to email me, I have not seen email for four days now, so please be patient). This link is to my summary notes from the Open Digital Rights Language, Day Two, featuring summaries of presentations and notes from the dicussion in the afternoon. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, April 23, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Distributed Digital Rights Management: The eduSource Approach to DRM
Full text of my paper, in PDF, presented at the ODRL Workshop in Vienna. This paper described in detail the DRM startegy we designed for the edusource project, with architecture diagrams and screen shots. By Stephen Downes, et.al., Stephen's Web, April 23, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]. More...

Institutional Archives Registry
Listing of known Open Archives Initiative (OAI) repositories with numbers of records and growth charts. So far, something like 180 repositories are listed (view them by type and by country of origin by clicking 'browse') though as Stevan Harnad indicates in his email, there are more out there. More...

Google IPO Could Re-energize Valley
Everyone is going ga-ga over the possibility of a Google IPO. Let me go on the record as being (possibly the only person in the world to be) opposed to the idea. Sure, an IPO would generate a whack of cash. But Google makes money now, good money. More...

Will Publishers Perish?
"Many authors," offers this article, "have become frustrated with conventional publishers, entrenched by market projections, annual styles and the unmentionable word 'returns.'" Count me among them, not because I don't think I could get a 'real book' published, but because I don't care to sign my life away to do it. More...

World Finance Officials Focus on Poverty
Bonnie Bracey summarizes this item nicely in WWWEDU: "A number of countries, led by the Netherlands, Norway, Britain, France and Canada, announced new commitments for a World Bank fast-track program to get more support to 40 poor nations judged to have the best plans for achieving universal education. But education advocates said the effort was being held back by the reluctance of other wealthy countries including the United States to commit enough money to the program." Though Bonnie linked to an AOL source in her email, which requires a registration, I have loctaed this open access alternative. More...

As Wealthy Fill Top Colleges, New Efforts to Level the Field
A university degree from a prestigious institution, they say, is synonomous with academic excellence. Of course, this may be a relic of the past, as a university degree from these institutions is becoming increasingly a sign of how wealthy your parents are. More...

Implementation of WSIS recommendations at National Levels
It would appear that publishers are now alerted to the danger that WSIS might promote open access, if this commentary on the WSIS process in Britain is any guide. This item contains a scathing comment from Francis Muguet, who chairs the WSIS Working Group on Scient ific Information. More...

Specification for an OAI Static Repository
A Static Repository is an XML file containing metadata records that is made accessible at an HTTP URL, a lot like an RSS file. This new specification describes how to create static OAI repositories. More...

The GMail Saga
This well reasoned article captures the essence of the concern about Google´s new email service. More...