Group items tagged

"It is an irony of the digital age that at a time when we are used to having easy access to seemingly endless information and knowledge, so much of it is disappearing into a digital black hole. For 450 years the concept of legal deposit has helped to preserve the nation's intellectual record.| There is this aspect of disappearing data as well.

See my bookmark post 'Academic citation practices ...' for some geeky stuff on the reference / citation issues.

Jacynthe, you are welcome, and Phillip, many thanks!

8 elements of digital literacy This video has merit despite the some of the distractions which divert the viewers' attention from the valuable content. Belshaw's introduction of his topic and objectives are clearly identified when he's in the street, he then walks into a building (at an accelerated time speed), sits down to describes the difference between the traditional mode of literacy found in print and books to that of digital media e.g. smart phones. This works well until he's suddenly in a railway station and later back in the street with all the commotion linked to these settings. This makes it very difficult to hear what is being said. However, his re-cap of at the end is helpful. Although reading and writing is necessary in both traditional and digital milieus, this is in figurative sense with the digital setting. There are numerous definitions for digital literacy (DL), but he describes digital literacy as being "a social linguist construct" rather than an intellectual concept. He describes an intersection between information and digital literacy. DL is divided into 8 elements: Cultural, Cognitive, Constructive, Communicative, Confident, Creative, Critical and Civic. The order of importance of the elements is dependent on the context in which the DL is found. There is no one correct choice as geography and networks have an impact.

A recently published report by the National Digital Stewardship Alliance shows the results of a 2013 survey of web archiving institutions in the US. "from October through November of 2013, a team of National Digital Stewardship Alliance members, led by the Content Working Group, conducted a survey of institutions in the United States that are actively involved in, or planning to start, programs to archive content from the web."

Well, a Link to another Diigo List... Online UCF's List: Open Source Digital Content - This section is a collection of open online learning materials, categorized by disciplines. It covers resources such as Merlot, MIT Open Courseware, open textbooks,, Google Scholar, and more.

"Not long ago producing multimedia digital content required expensive equipment and deep levels of technical expertise. Now anyone can create, publish, and share compelling works with nothing more complex than a web browser. Open licensed media is easy to find/re-use, and combing that with our own content and a set of free tools, means we have powerful ways to express ideas beyond text and bullet points. "

Medievalists are often considered, like their subject matter, a stodgy old-fashioned bunch who are the vanguard of old academia. But there are a few exceptions, like the Digital Medievalist site. Open to scholars and enthusiasts of varying skills and experience, it runs a long-standing open-access journal, a small wiki dealing mostly with aspects of the digital humanities, and a list of important news and upcoming conferences for professional scholars. Overall it's a great place for those interested in what's going on in the medieval academy. It's not perfect, though: the journal only publishes a handful of papers each year, and most of the rest of the content isn't very expansive. It feels like, and probably is, a side-project that a few scholars work on in their free time rather than the comprehensive resource it could be; and that makes it a cautionary tale. If we freely offer only the barest bones of what constitutes a journal (or any other scholarly resource), we run the risk of presenting open access as an inferior model that can only take readers so far. It's important to remember that open access takes real sustained effort to make it a viable alternative to traditional models of scholarly publishing.

A lot to absorb here.

" it is important to note that one of the drivers of OA is the notion that the more content and ideas that are shared, the more likely breakthroughs will materialize; OA is associated with innovation."

Beware of impostors: Research has shown that 'citizen journalism' is no replacement for the real thing. Photo: Michael Fitzjames "Citizen journalism is an oxymoron," says Rakhal Ebeli, managing director of Melbourne-based news bureau Newsmodo. "I mean, how can someone who is not a journalist be a journalist?" I am adding this not that I am in agreement but its an example of negativity towards this area.

I think that this article does a good job of discussing some of the "darker" aspects of citizen journalism. It distinguishes how citizen journalism often deals with trying to change public opinion, whereas traditional journalism, in theory at least, aims to be objective and truth-based. While it is a large stretch to call traditional journalism "truth-based," there are typically certain measures in place to promote accuracy, such as fact checking, review, etc. I like how this article supports the professional integrity and need for trained, educated journalist, comparing "citizen journalism" to "citizen-pharmacy and crowd-sourced obstetrics." While there is certainly value in IndyMedia and citizen journalism, the flip side is that information distributed in this manner is not by any means guaranteed to be accurate or fair.

I am a professional journalist (Bachelor and master degree in Journalism) and I can tell you that a journalist that works for a media is not truth-based, accurated or with professional integrity. A professional journalist is an employee in a company with economical, policital and social interests supported by the content that is being published. I have the content of my articles changed from my managers in order to "match" the diary interests. And what was finally published was far from being truth (then I denied to put my name in the article, but it was still published). So citizen journalism might include emotions, prejudices and non contrasted impressions from citizens, but are still free and natural. I am totally towards citizen journalism.

This is an interesting post. Thank you for your sharing. As mentioned in this post, new research shows that electronic readers promoted more deep reading and less active learning. However, from my own experience, I feel like electronic reading leads to less deep reading but more active leaning. For me, I will never choose to read electronically if I have the physical version of the book because reading from digital devices, such as e-readers, tablets and smartphones, make me feel it's not like reading, it's more like looking through some online content or some one else blog posts. When read electronic books, it easy for me to skip around, and lose focus, attention or patience. I always need to read a second time for fully understanding a paragraph, when I read electronically. Also, with out the convenient of highlighting and making notes, reading electronic books prevent me from better understanding the content and thinking deeply. However, reading electronically, especially reading online might promote active learning because in some online reading website or softwares, there's interactive section on the side where readers of the book or article post their own opinions or form a discussion. This promote people to read, think and learn actively and collaboratively.

"electronic readers promoted more deep reading and less active learning" Some of my observations. I believe the future is for electronic reading only.

For me, maybe I am old school, it depends on the mood. I am wired towards both the print and electronic books. I cannot wait to have a printed book in my hand this Christmas holiday. The smell of the new selection of books and the paging through is a wonderful experience.

Young, K. (2004). Internet Addiction: A new Clinical Phenomenon and Its Consequences. American Behavioral Scientist. 48:402

a. Although this is a psychology article, it poses an important concern over the rise of internet addiction in connected populations. This article is relevant to this course, as it relates to the notion of critical consumption; some users are unable to filter information effectively, which should be recognized as a concern. Young states many statistics from educators and researchers discounting internet use in the classroom as it is far too distracting and the loss of productivity (in both students and the workforce) is immense.

Some might argue that this article shows the downside of connected learning and e-resources, however this is not the case. Certain web activities mentioned in the paper such as chat rooms, social media, and video games are not the focus of this course. Open Knowledge deals with the light side of the internet, which is the interconnectivity, the accelerated learning, and the ability to publish ones own content. The internet can definitely be misused, but not every web activity is "junk food". If someone obsessively became a mathematician and ultimately ended up being the best mathematician in the world due to "addiction" people would call him or her a genius. The trick is to filter which content and activities one engages in.

The right to privacy, as guaranteed in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many other provisions - including Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 16 of the Convention in the Rights of the Child, and Article 14 of the Convention on the Protection of Migrants - is a core tenet of democratic societies.

The report was released as part of the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Technology Watch series. Title Preserving eBooks (DPC Technology Watch Report 14-01; June 2014) Authors Sheila Morrissey Ithaka S+R Source Digital Preservation Coalition Abstract This report discusses current developments and issues with which public, national, and higher education libraries, publishers, aggregators, and preservation institutions must contend to ensure long-term access to eBook content.

The Open Education is one of the most discussed topics on education internationally today. Can be defined as open education practices that characterize the opening of access to knowledge, ways of learning, learning technologies, educational systems, models of educational management, leadership and certification. Integral part of the Open Education are OER (Open Educational Resources), materials of teaching, learning and research, in any format or media, licensed to allow their reuse, adaptation and sharing by others. Since 2006 ABED disseminates OER and Open Education. Prof. Fredric Litto in 2006 wrote about open content and in 2009, the publication of the book 'Distance Education: State of the Art vol.1', ABED - Pearson Education, which won the Premio Tortoise brought the seventh of chapters on concept of openness in ODL open University of Brazil, REA, learning through virtual and digital libraries and digital repositories and virtual, written by Andreia inamorato dos Santos, Ronaldo Mota, Fredric Litto, Ana Paula Leite de Camargo and Ana Cristina Birth , respectively. Since then, in Brazil, have sprouted traces of a theme that would be provided shortly international prominence - Open Education. To expand the discussion of the topic in Brazil and international trends, ABED creates workgroup ABED OPEN. Coordinator for the group, ABED invited Dr. Andreia inamorato, international researcher in the field of open education, OER and ODL. "The group intends to involve the participation of teachers of basic and higher education, researchers, students, educational administrators, publishers, departments of education, nonprofits and private institutions," says Andrea. "The goal is to have the collective and representative participation of various social actors to be a working group with legitimacy, representativeness and goals, and can promote discussions on educational priorities in Brazil with respect to open education", says the researcher.

Identity development is a role that partakes every person's life. Whether their identity falls under race, gender, sexual orientation, or culture each person can connect with one of these classifications to differentiate themselves from the next. Of course there will be those who share the same classifications of identity, but will find a different aspect of themselves to further identify themselves. This article introduces the the "borderlines" of how race, culture, sexual orientation, even physiques connects and is influenced by the digital/cyber world.

About the book: Information Literacy and Cultural Heritage: Developing a model for lifelong learning Kim Baker, Cape Town, South Africa - covers cultural heritage in the museums, archives and... Kim is our fellow co-student from Cape Town. She already created a digital project, her blog. She also has created an analog project: a book, you know, something printed on paper :) Kim is a GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) expert. Her book covers anything digital and GLAM or cultural heritage, at least that is what the content section promises. So I'm very glad to have such an expert in her field in the class.

Thank you very much. :) And I am so happy to be here and learn from so many experts around the world!

An article by an anonymous author on the Knowledge Commons Brasil. The article attempts to show how the Global North dominates the internet. Internet users as well as content (exemplified by geo-located entities) tend to cluster in the rich industrial countries of the so called "developed" wordl. This critique resembles the lament of the so called Media Imperialism spearheaded by the McBriede Report to Unesco (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0004/000400/040066eb.pdf) "Many Voices, One World)". It should be noted that here more detailed studies suggested that news agencies reflect the interests of their audiences. So it would be interesting what the distribution of geo-tagged entities in the Igbo version of Wikipedia is like. Does it mirror a bias towards West Africa (Igbo being one of the principal languages of Nigeria)?

The co-founder of Coursera on digital revolution and online education. The results can be better than traditional lecture-model in the classroom. Better results means more students passing with results above average. And "It turns out, maybe not surprisingly, that students like getting the best content from the best universities for free". ;)