By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Five-Tool Scholar
Rick Hess, Education Next, 2017/01/17
I found this an interesting concept. The five tools are: "disciplinary scholarship, policy analysis and popular writing, convening and shepherding collaborations, providing incisive commentary, and speaking in the public square." The list is an attempt to explain Rick Hess's "Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings". More...
Modern Workplace Learning Magazine is launched
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Modern Workplace Learning Magazine is launched
Jane Hart, Learning in the Modern Workplace, 2017/01/17
Another publication in our field. As always, I welcome the new voice and look forward to future news and opinions from another perspective. More...
Diversity in the Open Access Movement
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Diversity in the Open Access Movement
Kent Anderson, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2017/01/24
This is a good two-part article (part one, part two) discussing some of the divisions in the open access movement. Part two lays them out quite nicely: are embargoes permitted, yes or no; is charging for access permitted, yes or no; and is the non- commercial license permitted, yes or no. More...
How I Built that Free Microlearning Template
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How I Built that Free Microlearning Template
Tom Kuhlmann, The Rapid E-Learning Blog, 2017/01/24µ
'Microlearning' is the new buzzword in the rapid e-learning community, but be careful. As this article shows, it is often realized as a quick Flash animation. I, however, am viewing the internet on a 4K screen. These animations appear like postage stamps in the middle of my screen. More...
Looking Beyond the LMS: Why a Single App Won't Work
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Looking Beyond the LMS: Why a Single App Won't Work
David Raths, Campus Technology, 2017/01/24
I think this vision of the future of educational technology is fundamentally correct, though the description in this article is lacking. More...
Struggling = Learning
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Struggling = Learning
Karl Kapp, Kapp Notes, 2017/01/24
Papert called it "hard fun". We;ll, it has been fun but I've been swearing a lot recently. Getting to understand technologies like Docker and Vagrant - and all the associated middleware and protocols and conventions - has been a lot to undertake. More...
Understanding Metadata
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Understanding Metadata
Jenn Riley, National Information Standards Organization (NISO), 2017/01/20
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has published an updated guide on understanding metadata (49 page PDF). It's a guide, so it begins at a pretty basic level. More...
Tips for a PhD defense or viva #phd
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Tips for a PhD defense or viva #phd
Inge de Waard, Ignatia Webs, 2017/01/20
Inge de Waard has earned her PhD and by way of celebration she gives us a certifiably useful guide to preparing for your defense (or viva), as it is known in the UK. More...
Publishing's Prestige Bias
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Publishing's Prestige Bias
Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, 2017/01/20
A study reports that journals tend to disproportionately select papers by authors from elite institutions. More...
The Explanatory Force of Network Models
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Explanatory Force of Network Models
Carl F. Craver, Preprint, 2017/01/11
Interesting paper that looks at network analyses of things (including brains) and asks about their explanatory power. A quick case in point (my own example): if we say a person knows P because she has network configuration C, does C explain why she knows P? Or does P explain why she has configuration C? This may seem trivial, but if we want to produce P in a person, the explanation is important, as it (maybe) tells us what causes what. More...