By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Guanxi
Some interesting working coming out of the Bodington open source learning management system (LMS) community. Guanxi "supports federated authentication and authorization services. It includes OS implementations of the SAML specification and the Shibboleth extended profile specification for the IdP..." It will let students sign on to one LMS and use resources and services from another LMS. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Our Welcome From (and to) the Community
The RSS list amendments proposed by Microsoft are in a state of flux right now as the proponents react to changes sugegested by the community. It is welcome news that the specifications are proving to be fluid, not just because the result will be something that meets wider needs, but because it demonstrates a willingness by Microsoft to engage in the (very fluid and mostly chaotic) RSS development community. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Google Video Launches Today
Still some bumps to smooth out, but Google's video search launches today. Google's special video viewer, based on the open source VLC Viewer, installed easily but is for Windows only (no doubt ports will soon be available). Second, despite having signed on a number of providers ("PBS, CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and the Learning Channel") all the searches I tried resulted only in screenshots and a "video not available" message. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Let the Experiment Be Made
The author of this column argues against professors resisting online learning by saying, as the title suggests, let the experiment be made. After all, he argues, "The slippery-slope scenario says less about online education than it does about the lack of trust that exists between faculty members and administrators." Fair enough. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Packing Up the Books
Here's a scare headline if I've ever seen one. "U. of Texas becomes the latest institution to clear out a main library to make room for computers." Oh no, they're getting rid of books! Well, not exactly - they're just moving them to another facility. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Big Fish
Not really about online learning, but if you want to add to your knowledge of internet lore, this longish history of the magazine website, suck.com, is worth a read. Started with (secret) backing from Wired, Suck emerged in the halcyon days that also saw the births of Slate and Salon. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Grokster Loses Copyright Case
Americans are still weighing the impact of today's Supreme Court essentially ruling against Grokster and other file sharing services. "We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement," wrote Justice David Souter in the majority opinion. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Social Bookmarking Tool Comparison
OK, this is not - despite the title - a comparison of social bookmarking tools. It is a description of the concept of social bookmarking, a list of social bookmarking tools, and a set of benchmarks for comparison. The actual comparisons are planned for the future. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. TV Stations Must Embrace Personal Media Tools
Quoted, which gives you the idea: "Web researcher Gordon Borrell says, 'The deer now have guns,' and he's right. With a PC, a $100 web camera, a $200 piece of real-time TV production software that includes a teleprompter, free blog software, FTP access to a server, a small digital camera, editing software, and an imagination, anybody can be a TV station, a newspaper or a multimedia news operation." More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Report on the Meeting of Experts on Digital Preservation: Metadata Specifications
Interesting report (if you like this sort of thing) on a collection of metadata experts from major American libraries discussing digital archives preservation. The report contains a useful list of the different metadata formats adopted by various institutes (Dublin Core and Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) were the most popular). More...
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