In October and November 2014, H-Soz-Kult publishes a series of essays on "The Status Quo of Digital Humanities in Europe". TABLE OF CONTENTS: Editorial: The Status Quo of Digital Humanities in Europe by Torsten Kahlert and Claudia Prinz, Humboldt-University of Berlin The Status Quo of Digital Humanities in Sweden: Past, Present and Future of Digital History by Thomas Nygren, HUMlab, Umeå University, Department of Education, Uppsala University and Department of History, Stanford University; Anna Foka, HUMlab, Umeå University; Philip I. Buckland, Department of Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Umeå University From "Humanities and Computing" to "Digital Humanities": Digital Humanities in Portugal with a focus on Historical Research by Daniel Alves, Instituto de História Contemporânea, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa Digital Humanities in the Netherlands by Joris van Zundert, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, Royal Netherlands Academy of Art; Karina van Dalen-Oskam, Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences / University of Amsterdam The Status Quo of Digital Humanities in Greece by Helen Gardikas-Katsiadakis, Modern Greek History Research Centre, Academy of Athens The Past and Present of Digital Humanities: A View from Russia by Irina Garskova, Moscow Lomonosov State University Vernetzter Geist? Stand und Tendenzen der Digital Humanities in der Schweiz by Eliane Kurmann / Enrico Natale, infoclio.ch A historical perspective on the digital humanities in Spain by Paul Spence, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London; Elena Gonzalez-Blanco, Dpto. de Literatura Española y Teoría de la Literatura, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia The Slovenian Digital Humanities Landscape - A Brief Overview by Jurij Hadalin, Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana Some thoughts on Digital Humanities in Norway by Von Espen S. Ore, Dept. of Linguistics and Sca

See this HASTAC page for related content, "Badges for Learning Research" Workshop is scheduled for 12 August 2014 for more information: https://sites.google.com/site/obie2014ws

BadgeKit to create, design, assess and issue badges that easily move to the Mozilla Backpack - must download the code from GitHub and implement it on our own server

Ashton Anderson and Jure Leskovec (Stanford) Daniel Huttenlocher and Jon Kleinberg (Cornell) re Coursera students' activities/user rates: "engagement taxonomy" 5 different categories based on student interactions with the platform (http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/news/mooc-study-creates-new-taxonomy-engagement): Bystanders are registered for the course, but their total activity is below a very low threshold. Collectors primarily download lectures, but don't participate much. Viewers watch lectures, handing in few if any assignments Solvers hand in assignments for a grade, viewing few if any lectures All-Rounders balance the watching of lectures with the handing in of assignments QUESTION: what about the way-finders - those who help create signposts for others to follow as learners navigate the course? or the web-makers - assisters/facilitators who help craft communities among learners?

"a model for open access (OA) publishing"

by Judith A. Pirani, a consultant at the EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) and president of Sheep Pond Associates.

Co-founded by open education visionary Dr. David Wiley and education technology strategist Kim Thanos; finding quality content and mapping it to course learning outcomes; incorporating OER into academic strategy and curriculum decisions via consulting services; faculty training services; analytics and other outcomes to maximize student success

Code by Luca de Alfaro and Michael Shavlovsky at the University of California Santa Cruz - hosted on Google AppEngine for security, availability, and data backup - see article: L. de Alfaro, M. Shavlovsky. CrowdGrader: Crowdsourcing the Evaluation of Homework Assignments. Technical report UCSC-SOE-13-11, August 2013. http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.5273

The MOOC Business Plan- With millions of students taking high-quality MOOCs for free, schools and course providers are searching for a viable business model. Editorial: MOOC Shake- MOOCs will change higher education radically, but not in the way we expect right now. Assessment Tools for MOOCs- As MOOCs are made available for credit, scalable assessment options are essential. Building a Sense of Community in MOOCs- Massive class sizes can breed feelings of isolation, but they also enable more student interaction. Blended MOOCs: The Best of Both Worlds?- Combining in-class instruction with high-quality MOOCs may resolve some of the hurdles facing xMOOCs, but questions about cost and the impact on faculty remain unanswered. Watch video: Catheryn Cheal, AVP and senior academic technology officer at San Jose State, discusses how the school adapted a course for use in a blended MOOC. The Rise of MOOCs… What does it mean for higher education? Watch video: Cathy Sandeen, VP of education attainment and innovation at ACE, talks about the potential of MOOCs to increase the number of Americans gaining a post-secondary degree. cMOOCs: Putting Collaboration First- Alternative MOOC models are fostering creativity and collaboration with peers. How to Convert a Class Into a MOOC- The sheer size and diversity of the student body in a MOOC require a new approach to teaching. C-Level- The role of MOOCs in learner-initiated learning. MOOC News & Analysis- Georgia Tech's MOOC Degree

"an increasing interest in online OER discussion across languages, particularly outside academic journal databases. Additionally, a widening "language gap" between OER discussions in English and other languages was identified in several platforms. This research reports some of the cultural and language challenges caused by the expansion of the OER discussion and highlights relevant findings in this field."

Myth #1. It's Simple Myth #2. It's Free Myth #3. It's Just Facebook Myth #4. Social Media is the "Silver Bullet"

"... massiveness and low teaching involvement during delivery stages is one the biggest challenges for MOOC design"

from CHE website

Read the full text - download available. Issue is MOOC as a "tool" for educators and learners, not as an end in itself - so assessment strategies must be above and beyond test scores, satisfaction and completion rates.

Don't get seduced by retention/persistence rates - it's about the design principles, stupid!

Using Wiley (2007) definition of sustainability as "an open educational resource project's ongoing ability to meet its goals." Wiley's three models that he characterized as follows: - The MIT model: "highly centralised and tightly coordinated in terms of organisation and the provision of services, relying almost exclusively on paid employees" - The USU model: "hybrid of centralisation and decentralisation of both organisation and services, and work is distributed across some employed staff and a number of volunteers" - The Rice model: "almost fully decentralised and volunteers provide almost all services"