ADL Takes First Step to Repository Profile
Interesting. As Wilbert Kraan summarizes it, "With the publication of a report on 'Emerging and Enabling Technologies for the Design of Learning Object Repositories', ADL is taking the first tentative steps to designing a learning object repository application profile to complement its existing learning object reference model, SCORM." As I have discovered in my own work (and as OAI discovered in theirs), you can't just rely on learning object jetadata to make the contents of a metadata repository accessible. More...
The Blogging Phenomenon: An Overview and Theoretical Consideration
The Blogging Phenomenon: An Overview and Theoretical Consideration
A nice paper outlining the history of blogging and clearly sketching the movement's defining features. The second part of the paper, though, is a lot more original as the author surveys several theories of mass communication as they relate to weblogs: agenda setting, multi-step flow theories, gate keeping and the spiral of silence. More...
Renmin Voice
Renmin Voice
I am a strong supporter of the semantic web and so it was with some concern that I read Mark Pilgrim - someone who's writing I admire - speak out against the concept over the holidays. There's a link to his argument in this article, and also a reply offered by the author, a reply that is not so much a point by point rebuttal but rather a "testament to the virtues of Semantic Web." What we need to be careful about when we talk about metadata, RDF, and all that stuff is to avoid the trap of believing that there will be one set of mketadata tags, one vocabulary, one ontology, for all of us to use. It doesn't work that way. More...
Copyright, Ethics and Theft
Copyright, Ethics and Theft
The relation between copyright and ethics is not nearly so clear as supposed. While it is easy to piously pronounce that people who copy online content are unethical and even evil, it is also wrong. More...
School Launches Herculean Hot Spot
School Launches Herculean Hot Spot
Nice to have glimpses into the future, this one from the Netherlands as the University of Twente has launched a huge "hot spot" (area of wireless internet connectivity). "Students and staff are quick adopters of these nice facilities. The flexible way of teaching that this allows also helps with new students who have experienced new ways of (learning) at school. They're not used to classical ways of knowledge transfer anymore." Meanwhile, the press is reporting a wave of wireless venture startups. More...
IMRC - Metadata Training
IMRC - Metadata Training
The Canadian Treasury Board Secretariat has released an updated package of materials to assist people conducting staff training in metadata. More...
Fast Forward: 25 Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business
Fast Forward: 25 Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business
Maish dredged up this list of 25 predictions of changes in the workplace. This is an excellent list, and while some of the trends (such as the corporate management of kindergarten) are uniquely American, the bulk of then may be applied more widely. More...
I Like Pie
I Like Pie
The RSS community has gone through a difficult weekend as Dave Winer pulled his Scripting News site from the web for a few hours in order to muster support against the new Echo initiative (the name, once 'Pie', will change again because of conflicts). More...
XML for Federation and Content Management Services
XML for Federation and Content Management Services
This article doesn't go into a lot of depth but it provides an overview and some links around the idea of what are called 'federated services.' Think of a federated service as a single service that is provided through several sites. More...
Open Source Prepares to Kiss EU Patent Ass Goodbye
Open Source Prepares to Kiss EU Patent Ass Goodbye
Every time I run an item from the Register I get an unusual number of bouces from content filters, and today's listing is no exception. But their ire in this case is understandable as the European Parliament is poised to align its copyright regime with that of the United States. More...