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Wits University said yesterday that it was partnering edX, a non-profit provider of such online courses that was founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. edX has more than 200 000 students in Africa who will now be able to access free courses offered by Wits without having to pay a cent.

this is a good innitiative by Wits, Its good to see African University keeping up with the world trends in education. Considering the cost of education in SA this will make life easier. However acess to broadband and internet is still a problem.

The Verge posted an interview yesterday of Oyster founder Willem Van Lancker. He makes some bold claims about the future of books, including that the phone is the future of ebooks: Where are people reading more, tablets, phones, or on the web? We've always been really big believers that the device of the future for books is ...

Netflix - much more than late-night movie streaming

Open data initiatives may hold much promise and value, but more attention is needed on how these projects are developing as complex socio-technical systems. Rob Kitchin elaborates on four specific areas that have yet to be fully interrogated.

With the development of technology, more and more people can join the media and become reporters. However, the rise of citizen journalism also has revolutionary effect on different kinds of careers, such as publishers and other aspects of news and sociey.

Dated from 2012 but an interesting read that really puts the importance and significance of citizen journalism into perspective

Citizen journalism is especially powerful when it disagrees with the popular paradigm of the mass media platforms. This article specifically talks about occupy, Syria, and other movements where the media was not necessarily on the side of the protesters. This is particularly powerful because it disinter mediates the mass media and shows a balanced perspective - something that history prior to the internet lacked all too often. Citizen Journalism, although often biased and unfiltered, gives a raw perspective on events which helps people form more informed opinions.

khampepe-zimbabwes-2002-elections-not-free-and-fair

from website: "Bioline International is a not-for-profit scholarly publishing cooperative committed to providing open access to quality research journals published in developing countries. BI's goal of reducing the South to North knowledge gap is crucial to a global understanding of health (tropical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology, emerging new diseases), biodiversity, the environment, conservation and international development. By providing a platform for the distribution of peer-reviewed journals (currently from Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda and Venezuela), BI helps to reduce the global knowledge divide by making bioscience information generated in these countries available to the international research community world-wide." The site offers a range of journals, with full text access. Areas include zoology, health, agriculture, and nutrition. There aren't a lot of journals so the site is manageable. Good source if you are a scientist seeking data/information from areas other than the west.

There are two versions (at least) of this text. One earlier version is a first draft of sorts "A BOOK CROWDSOURCED IN ONE WEEK MAY 21-28, 2010" http://hackingtheacademy.org/ The url supplied above (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=dh;c=dh;idno=12172434.0001.001;rgn=full%20text;view=toc;xc=1;g=dculture) gives you access to the slicker version. Both can be read online. The text professes to a hacker ethos: "1 The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved. 2 No problem should ever have to be solved twice. 3 Boredom and drudgery are evil. 4 Freedom is good. 5 Attitude is no substitute for competence." One of the opening chapters encourages academics to "get out of the business." "Burn the boats/books" focuses on the need to move away from "librocentrism." Something I hadn't thought of: "A PDF document is not a web-based document. It is a print-based document distributed on the web." This is to make the point that online materials should be interactive, which a pdf is not. The focus is hacking scholarship, teaching, and institutions. Seems worth dipping into here and there .

Comparto algunas ideas sobre este curso :D

In this 2009 bulletin, Leslie Chan discusses the growing inequalities in access to publications. A striking example he mentions is that of a doctor in Africa who makes a decision to alter a HIV programme based on an abstract. It's interesting to think about the strides we have taken to bridge inequalities in access in the past five years. It seems that though some gaps in access have been addressed, there are still obstacles to be overcome. Another point to be addressed is not only allowing access to information published by developed nations to reach those who cannot afford it, but also hearing the results of research and findings of institutions in the developing world.

Colleges and universities aren't just teaching businesses about the value of technology, they're leading by example. At the core of their lesson is an essential technology: the video content management system. With it, universities are able to use low-cost computers and anything from high-end cameras to consumer webcams to record every lecture in every classroom across campus. Some go beyond recording, broadcasting live courses to remote learners around the world.

Aaron Hillel Swartz (8 de noviembre de 1986, Chicago - 11 de enero de 2013, Nueva York)1 fue un programador, escritor y activista de Internet. Recibió atención de los medios después de la recolección de artículos de revistas académicas JSTOR. Fue cofundador de Reddit y Demand Progress, y previamente cofundó la Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Asimismo fue director técnico de Open Library.2 También se centró en la sociología, la conciencia cívica y el activismo. En 2010 fue miembro del Centro de Ética de la Universidad de Harvard. Cofundó el grupo Progreso demanda en línea (conocido por su campaña en contra de SOPA)3 y más tarde trabajó con Rootstrikers grupo activista internacional y de EE.UU. y Avaaz. En junio de 2013, Swartz fue incluido póstumamente en el Salón de la Fama de Internet.4 5

Different news in different states

La tendencia global, según lo he aprendido en este MOOC, es la participación de personas con un grado académico en los MOOCs. Aunque en principio se quiere expandir el acceso al conocimiento entre un público mayor, ¿por qué no dirigir los MOOCs decididamente hacia el público universitario y académico?

why you are addicted to devices and the internet, not the reward, but anticipation of reward--oh yeah, and designers know about your cognitive psychology and are trying to exploit it for profit! "In the 1940s, two researchers named James Olds and Peter Milner accidentally uncovered some peculiar properties of a special area of the brain. The researchers implanted electrodes in the brains of lab mice that enabled the mice to give themselves tiny electric shocks to a small area called the nucleus accumbens.

Wikipedia made by government is not what "wiki" concept is about.

Free internet for Africa

The sooner Africa gets the internet the better. The cost of internet is too high and out of reach for many people. Free internet will facilitate access to information. I hope this will reach rural areas and maginalised communities.

yes, it is very good to get free internet for Africa so that knowledge dissipation happens and open knowledge can will be useful to all of them and also benefit from that OK. IT infrastructure and internet is required to benefit from open accessible open knowledge.

This article sintetiza a instancia de parte del Trabajo de Tesis de Maestría en Propiedad Intelectual. FLACSO Argentina, Titulada "Propiedad Intelectual y Derechos Humanos. Tensiones existentes Entre la Ley 11.723 y el marco constitucional de los Derechos Culturales en Argentina."

Actualmente se emplea el derecho de autor en el entorno digital no no altera sus derechos morales y económicos

Se trata de un Manual en el que se presentan los aspectos que hay que tener en cuenta para escribir y publicar artículos científicos con calidad suficiente para que sean aceptados en revistas de impacto elevado. Puede resultar de gran interés para jóvenes investigadores y para todos aquellos que deseen conocer más a fondo el mundo de la publicación científica Entre otros, se tratan los siguientes temas: - Tipos de publicaciones: ponencias, posters, informes y patentes. - Publicación en revistas científicas: identificación de las revistas, criterios de calidad de las revistas tanto internacionales (factor de impacto JCR, SJR, etc.) como nacionales (INREC's, DICE, CIRC…) - Preparación del manuscrito. Recomendaciones sobre la redacción del título, la forma del nombre del autor, la elaboración del resumen, palabras clave, referencias bibliográficas, partes del artículo, redacción del texto, uso de ilustraciones, tablas, gráficos, etc. - Ética de la publicación científica para autores, editores y evaluadores. Conflictos de intereses, detección de plagio. Organismos que velan por la ética en las publicaciones. - Como seleccionar la revista a la que enviar el artículo - Publicar en acceso abierto: El open access y la calidad, editoriales OA, repositorios temáticos e institucionales - Promoción del artículo y marketing profesional. Seguimiento del impacto.

Lists cover a range of topics related to: institutions that support open access, university actions for open access or against high journal prices, what you can do to help the cause of open access, etc.