Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Ergo
Ergo, May 28, 2014
Most philosophy publications are closed-access, so I haven't really kept up, but this week markes the launch of Ergo, an open-access philosophy journal. "Ergo is a general, open access philosophy journal accepting submissions on all philosophical topics and from all philosophical traditions. This includes, among other things: history of philosophy, work in both the analytic and continental traditions, as well as formal and empirically informed philosophy." Interestingly, the articles in the initial issue are also being blog-commented in the Mod Squad group philosophy blog. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Defending Commencement Protest
Michael Rushmore, Inside Higher Ed, May 28, 2014
I have never attended any of my graduation ceremonies and have no idea who spoke at them. I would probably have disapproved; I think that universities often celebrate the wrong people (the selection for this year's University of Calgary speakers makes my point: the outgoing Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, a science journalist, the CEO of the Calgary Stampede, and an executive in the grain and energy industries). But simply skipping graduation is not an option for many students, and given that they're being dragged into association with the speakers, they do have, they believe, the right to make a statement about that selection. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Who Gets to Graduate?
Paul Tough, New York Times, May 28, 2014

So this is part of what we're up against when we're trying to support a more egalitarian system of education: "whether a student graduates or not seems to depend today almost entirely on just one factor — how much money his or her parents make.... it will always be the case that the kids who have need are going to have been denied a lot of the academic preparation and opportunities for identity formation that the affluent kids have been given." I can speak to that from experience. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Unizin is a Threat to edX
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, May 28, 2014
e-Literate a week or so broke a story on Unizin, an initiative from the Indiana University designed to, as Michael Feldstein says, "run the table" on online learning technologies. In this post he adds more; it's an oddly personalized look at the initiative: "If you want to understand Unizin, you really have to understand Brad Wheeler.... Unizin has his fingerprints all over it." Well, maybe. More...