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I was lucky to be in Berlin with some colleagues earlier this month for the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival and associated fringe events. There's really too much to distill into a short post-from Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, making the case for " Embracing the open opportunity," to Patrick Alley's breathtaking accounts of how Global Witness uses information, to expose crime and corruption in countries around the world.

A useful summary of some of the key take-aways from the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival, courtesy of Tariq Khokhar From the article: 1. There are some great open data initiatives around the world and two common themes are the need for a strong community of technologically literate data re-users, and the sustained effort needed within governments to change how they create, manage and publish data in the long term. 2. Spreadsheets are code and we can adopt some software engineering practices to make much better use of them. There are a number of powerful tools and approaches to data handing being pioneered by the scientific community and those working in other fields can adopt and emulate many of them. 3. Open data fundamentally needs open source software. App reuse often doesn't happen because contexts are too different. Reusable software components can reduce the development overhead for creating locally customized civic software applications and a pool of high quality civic software components is a valuable public good worth contributing to. Reading time: 15mins

I see that Google are the sponsors of the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival but despite having little knowledge about Google's role and interest in the Open Knowledge , I also feel they are the culprit when it comes to data manipulative for their own profit motives.

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 .

Interesting open text book created by the Free Technology Academy that outlines the history, culture, and use of free software. "Free Software" is ambiguous in English and not the commonly used terminology. However, in Spanish and French it is possible to make a distinction between "Libre software" and "gratis" software. The authors argue that the term "open source" is too technical focused, while "libre software" better focuses on the rights of the users and community. Interesting and worth skimming for reference. Available in English, Spanish, Catalan, and Italian. Authors: Jesús M. González-Barahona, Joaquín Seoane Pascual, Gregorio Robles Coordinators: Jordi Mas Hernández, David Megías Jiménez Licenses: GNU Free Documentation License, Creative Commons Attribute ShareAlike License Information: 291 Pages; 3.2Mb Free software is increasing its presence in mainstream media and in debates among IT professionals, but it is still unknown for many people.

Introducción al software libre, en Español: http://ocw.uoc.edu/informatica-tecnologia-y-multimedia/introduccion-al-software-libre/materiales/view?set_language=es

Muy buenos aportes @koobreader

En este trabajo se presenta el resultado de la etapa exploratoria, específicamente del relevamiento de universidades que mantienen repositorios institucionales en América Latina, España y Portugal, así como resultados separados para Argentina. Como finalidad el relevamiento procuró la detección de recursos políticos, legales, de capacitación y de asesoría que esas instituciones emplean para la gestión del derecho de autor en relación con los repositorios.

Provides a list of important skills and how those skills are embedded within the curriculum.

Thank you Kevin Stranack for sharing. Tony Bates ends with five questions: 1. Have I covered the main skills needed in a knowledge-based society? What have I missed? 2. Do you agree that these are important skills? If so, should universities explicitly try to develop them? 3. What are you or your university doing (if anything) to ensure such skills are taught, and taught well? 4. What roles if any do you think technology, and in particular online learning, can play in helping to develop such skills? 5. Any other comments on this topic - My answers: 1. Frustration tolerance and keeping a balance between work and private life is a necessary skill 2, The skill set mentioned is important, but more likely trained in college than in university 3. I do have a personal coach and a counseler, and I'm enrolled in #OKMOOC 4. The activities required in every module of #OKMOOC ask to reach out, connect, build relationships, Have you answered the feedback questions?

This question is really the elephant in the room in a lot of university programs, especially in the humanities. I myself was a doctoral student in the humanities before leaving because, as I eventually learned, there were essentially no employment opportunities and my skillset in today's economy was sorely lacking. But the old mantra that "we teach critical thinking" is become a worn excuse. Do we really need four years to teach people the skills to survive "out there"? How much of our specialized knowledge will really be useful outside of the academy? These are questions we just don't have the answer to, and I'm not sure there are many people willing to ask them. But more to the point, I didn't see anything in this link about the changing ways that millennials (I promise that I hate the term as much as anyone, but it's a useful one) are engaging with information, and how that is changing how they actually think. There have been arguments made that digital natives (again, a pretty terrible term) think about and process information in very different ways that have serious implications for contextualization and long-term research. I'm not saying that universities don't teach these things in their own ways, but it's an important issue that needs addressing. I know that the link talks about the important of knowledge management, but there's a huge difference between simply knowing how and when to access information and quite another to properly contextualize its place in a larger hierarchy (or web) of knowledge. I would argue *that* skill is the one that universities are best poised to provide, and maybe why we keep hearing talk about how undergraduate degrees are the new highschool diplomas.

Awareness will make a difference since privacy is the price we pay for freedom.

Una de las características fundamentales, que ha permitido el crecimiento exponencial de la red mundial de información, es que ha sido una plataforma abierta, lo que ha dependido de tres factores esenciales: "1) unlimited links from any part of the Web to any other; 2) open technical standards as the basis for continued growth of innovation applications, and; 3) separation of network layers, enabling independent innovation for network transport, routing and information applications" (Berners Lee, 2007).

FAIR USE CULTURE

Buen contenido.

"This paper provides a brief overview of the ideas and principles underlying the connected learning movement, highlighting examples of how libraries are boosting 21st century learning and promoting community development by partnering with a range of organisations and individuals to incorporate connected opportunities into their programmes"

Thanks Kevin for sharing this.

El lado oscuro de las bibliotecas: "¿Quieren leer? Pues a pagar" Es un delirio: cuando tomemos prestado un libro de una biblioteca será preciso pagar un canon http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2014/08/27/babelia/1409137321_870906.html

This article relates to Module 1 and the lack of online privacy that we have with the increase of social media. This also affects intellectual property, and nothing is ever concealed or anonymous.

Es un comentario de los foros de discusión que me parece importante leer y compartir El autor es: RaulViveros

A video conversation with Howard Rheingold and Buffy Hamilton, a high school librarian. According to Buffy, "The library is the shared story of human experience". She works with students to help them "create the story of their lives".

Introducción al concepto de Identidad Digital. Basado en Castañeda, L. & Camacho, M. (2012) "Desvelando nuestra identidad digital". El profesional de la información, julioagosto, v. 21, n. 4 l, pp. 354-360. Disponible en abierto en http://eprints.rclis.org/17350/1/2012EPI.pdf

Tengo que reconocer, con rubor, que el tema de la identidad digital me empezó a preocupar este lunes cuando inició el módulo 2 de este curso, y que caigo por completo dentro de la categoría de quienes construimos nuestra identidad digital aun sin ser conscientes de ello. En eso coincido con los sujetos de la investigación. En lo que no tengo nada que ver es con el papel de lurker (aunque no soy un escribidor compulsivo, trato de usar las redes de manera constante, y a pesar del tiempo que demandan). Claro que por mi edad, y por varias otros aspectos, yo no experimento con mi identidad como lo hacen los jóvenes holandeses que menciona el artículo que compartiste. Aunque uno usa las redes para practicar distintos aspectos (los jóvenes holandeses del estudio lo hacen para explorar su identidad y practicar, con éxito, sus habilidades de sociales), yo tendré que pensar con cuidado para qué. Coincido en que he borrado cosas que puse (otra coincidencia con los sujetos estudiados). Y como ellos, debo reconocer otra vez contra mi voluntad, uno intenta poner cosas que lo hagan parecer inteligente (o no muy pazguato), y, si es posible, interesante. Mi inicio en el uso constante de las redes parece estar vinculado a un posgrado. La búsqueda e intercambio de información son la puerta de entrada de buena parte de la participación en redes sociales. Y al contrario de los entrevistados, hay gente en la red que ejerce mucha influencia sobre mí, y estoy muy agradecido de su aporte, inconsciente y desinteresado, a mis propio desarrollo. FInalmente, comparto la afirmación de las autoras: "Creemos firmemente que conocer la forma en que la identidad se crea y configura nos llevará a una mejor comprensión de la naturaleza de nuestros experiencias sociales y culturales y puede ayudarnos a mejorar de forma consciente nuestros procesos de aprendizaje y relación con el entorno." Muchas gracias por compartir el texto.

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.