By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Luigi Canali De Rossi: New Music Recommendation System Is Based On FOAF Personal Profiling, Robin Good October 5, 2005

The first sentence of this article - that "Foafing the Music is the first music recommender system based on user's profile" - isn't accurate. Personal profiles have played a role since the 1998 Firefly system and continue to be important in Yahoo!'s Launch or the Canadian inDiscover recommender system. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Unattributed: Victim Sues RIAA Under RICO Act, P2pnet October 5, 2005

File sharing, it has been well established, doesn't actually cost the music industry any money. The lawsuits launched to prevent file sharing, however, may have a long-lasting impact. What sort of impact? Consider the language in this statement: "Copyright infringement is wrong," Andersen's lawyer, Lory Lybeck, told p2pnet. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Michael Geist: Coming Clean on Copyright October 5, 2005

As this article outlines, the Canadian government is under heavy pressure from lobbyists, most notable the U.S.-based RIAA, to sign the latest WIPO treaty. Fortunately, Canada has not done so, is under no obligation to do so, and - contrary to reports about the widespread adoption of the treaty - is among the majority of nations, those taking a 'wait and see' attitude. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Elliott Masie: Learning 2005 October 5, 2005

While I will not be able to attend Elliott Masie's new conference, Learning 2005 (aka L5) (I will be in Gander, Newfoundland), I thought this was pretty neat: articles and podcasts of the major presentators, available ahread of time and for free whether or not you are going to Florida, with an RSS feed to keep you posted on new additions. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors: eyeOS October 5, 2005

The idea of the internet as platform is a hard one to grasp, but one application that helps point the way is the eyeOS, the internet operating system. Basically, it's your computer desktop delivered from a remote site. I've set up an instance of eyeOS on my own site - downes.ca/eyeos (Userid: Demo password: demo ). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jakob Nielsen: Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005, Alertbox October 4, 2005

Jakob Nielsen is back with his annual list of common errors in web design and this year the usability specialist has a solid line-up. Personally, I think my own site fares pretty well (especially after my having spent the last week on number five). But I want especially to direct this list to the designers of SchoolPlaza, which commits every error on Nielsen's list. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dave Cormier: Living the Game - Modelling in Ed-tech, Dave’s Educational Blog October 4, 2005

Dave Tosh points us to this new blog by Dave Cormier and in turn I link here to his latest post, a reflection on whether those who promote ed tech should model it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Barbara F. Meltz: Don't Judge a Preschool by Whether it Has Computers, Boston Globe October 4, 2005

Of course not; that would be silly. In today's age of mobile computing, you should check to see whether your prospective preschool has wireless. Heh. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Godfrey Parkin: Learner-Created Learning, Parkin's Lot October 4, 2005

I like the idea of 'learner created learning' as described in this article. I'm less thrilled with the term 'prosumer' - the term, of course, is short for 'producer - consumer' and it is yet again another commodification - like 'human resources' - of people. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Brian L. Hawkins, Julia A. Rudy, and Robert Nicolich: Core Data Service: Fiscal Year 2004 Summary Report, Educause October 4, 2005

Piles of data "about campus information technology (IT) environments at 890 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad" and some interesting commentary on the "fallacy of relying only on input measures." The authors write "This effort to 'keep up with the Joneses' is untimately an inflationary pressure that can be dysfunctional." More...