By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Unanswered Questions about Open Access
The purpose of this," writes the author, "is to put the brakes on the Open Access bandwagon." But despite its being published by a professor in a published journal, the article is filled with weak argument and outright misinformation. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 'Blog People' Respond
Facing criticism on the American Library Association Council for an article criticizing Google Scholar published in the L.A. Times and an ill-conceived follow-up about the "Blog People", ALA President Michael Gorman is now claiming to have written in jest. "The piece (LJ, February 15th 2005) was intended to be satirical," he writes on the ALA Council list server. Does anyone believe this? Of course not. This is satire. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Concepts and a Design for Fair Use and Privacy in DRM
I don't think this is the answer, but the reasoning in this article is worth sharing. "We propose approaching this problem by a set of new design concepts bringing access to process context information to DRM license control systems. These concepts provide privacy by separating user and product identities and by enabling distribution history tracking." All very fine, but I doubt that I will ever see "hardware locking" as an "advantage". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Drugs That Speak To You
I have spoken on numerous occasions of fishing rods that teach you to fish and strawberry jam that gives instructions on the manufacture and use of the product. Learning, I said, would be embedded in everyday fixtures and devices the way writing is today. The devices would use RFID and content would be located via a distributed learning resources network. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Implementing Real-world Structured Searches
Is this how folksonomies are supposed to work? "Hint to conference planners: If you want the blogosphere to synchronize its coverage of your event, pick a tag and promote it." No, that's just the big spike speaking again. This is better, isn't it: "there are also implicit tags - namely links - that identify items about the conference." Of course. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. RAND Worldwide Launches SOLO Learning Tool
From the press release: "Rand A Technology Corporation... is launching a new learning tool called SOLO (Searchable Online Learning Objects). SOLO provides users of engineering software applications from developers such as Dassault Systemes, PTC, and Autodesk, access to an online searchable database of learning objects that will assist them with their day-to-day use of the software." Oh, hey, does that mean users of these learning objects will not be signing up for 39-hour university classes or programmes of study. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Do the social sciences need a shake-up?
Amanda Goodall, Andrew Oswald, Times Higher Education, 2014/10/10
This reminds me of the call not so long ago to reform the teaching of economics. Students in that discipline issued a manifesto calling for the teaching of less orthodox (and hopefully more accurate) theories. In this case, though, the call comes from an editorial in the New York Times from Nicholas Christakis, head of the Human Nature Lab at Yale University. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Nigeria: How Policy Somersaults, Corruption, Indiscipline Plague Public Schools, By Educationists
Ujunwa Atueyi, allAfrica, 2014/10/10
I can't reconcile the hadline with the story, which is about Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Oppen Online Courses (MOOCs) in Nigeria. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. View From Nowhere
Nathan Jurgenson, The New Inquiry, 2014/10/10
Interesting article commenting on Dataclysm, "a new book-length expansion of OkCupid president Christian Rudder's earlier blog-posted observations about the anomalies of his dating service’s data set." OkCupid is a matching site which posed questions to men and women and pairs them with their best matches. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Can Scientists Speak?
Karen Magnuson-Ford, Katie Gibbs, Evidence for Democracy, Simon Fraser University, 2014/10/10
I'm not sure what I can say about this report. :) Just kidding. I can say what I want about it (though I can't issue a press release about it, which I can't say surprises me). This report co-sponsored by an organization called 'Evidence for Democracy' and Simon Fraser University criticizes the Canadian government for imposing speech limitations on its scientists. More...
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