By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. RSS Readers: Narrowing Down Your Choices
Some good analysis giving us a good look at the use of different RSS aggregators. The results are based on FeedBurner's 1,000 largest-circulation feeds, with the impact of Yahoo default feeds removed. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. LiveJournal Founder Launches OpenID System
Report on Slashdot plus commentary about the launch of a working model of the OpenID system, an "actually distributed identity system for websites that accept user comments," created at LiveJournal. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. OECD/Canada/Alberta Conference on E-Learning in Post-Secondary Education: Policies, Practices, and Research
Presentations are now available online from this recent conference. Some really good stuff here (and some that is disappointing). I wish conferences like this would post audio recordings or transcripts. Some of the presentations I liked include: Candace Thille on cognitively informed web-based instruction (I disagree with the analysis, but not with the intent); Don Tapscott, who in addition to his usual n-gen perspective comes out in favour of open content; John Daniel, who also advocated open content, sort of; and Jeff Zabudsky, who walks a fine line between advocating something useful and taking a traditionalist approach. The rest were, well, disappointing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Australian e-Research Agenda
Good overview with many links related to e-research and the Australian government's new consulting exercise. Personally, I've grown weary (and wary) of consulting exercises - what I have observed in practise is that power (and decisions) remain centralized. Anyhow, some interesting items - Australia has an AUD 19 billion ICT trade deficit, and one in 20 Austrialians is now working overseas. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. It's Who You Know
George Siemens has been doing some interesting work recently on networks. This (mistitled) item links us to Barry Wellman, director of an interesting rpoject called NetLab. You will want to read his connecting Community: On- and Offline. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Technologies of Cooperation
Howard Jaqrche points to this useful paper by Andrea Saveri, Howard Rheingold, and Kathi Vian. The bulk of the paper is a survey of emerging technologies of cooperation, for example, self-organizing mesh networks, peer-to-peer networks, or knowledge collectives. This well-written (and well designed) paper illustrates each in detail, offering examples and 'strategic principles' to guide their development. More...