Group items tagged

Crowd sourcing for social change.

This recently published book, by a University of British Columbia journalism professor named Alfred Hermida, questions how the new culture of sharing and collaboration-and the pace of change that sharing enables-changes our lives. It's particularly interesting for us because it doesn't back away from the challenges that open access poses for us: how does being both creator and consumer change us? How does blurring the lines between these two change the way we think about the balance between copyright and the public good? Hermida doesn't tackle these last questions directly, but he provides a useful lens for thinking about our changing roles and how open knowledge and sharing need to reflect that. Considering the book's focus on sharing, it's somewhat ironic that it's not open access, but I highly recommend checking it out. It's received significant attention in the Canadian press and is exactly the kind of mainstream attention that can get conversations about open access started.

Not everything can be shared. Aside from the 14 reasons what makes people share knowledge is because they are trust each one with the knowledge that they will share will be beneficial to the receiver of the knowledge or learning. Knowledge is power when shared.

Dr Jane McGonigal (a professional game developer) talks about the time spent playing video games (which approximates to the span of human evolution), and that this time has to increase to make any major changes to the world. I have selected this resource partially in relation to week 3's Clarke's lecture (and others), which talks about using our idle time to do something meaningful - participate in citizen science games, for example. Dr McGonigal's talk very much illustrates this point - except that it talks about solving global issues through indirect games, e.g. a World Without Oil online game simulates a world in which you have to survive oil shortage. Creator's research shows, that people maintain the skills and habits they have taken up after playing this intense game, which include making better choices for our changing environment. The only difference here from actual citizen science games is that Dr McGonigal's games are fictional (rather than providing direct data / input for actual scientific research), however, they empower people to influence global change, which is the topic of the other lectures this week, especially Morozov's thoughts about the power of internet and connectiveness to create "revolutions". Although Morozov has taken up a rather critical view, suggesting only those who want it, take the best from the Internet, Dr McGonigal's ideas might be what bridges the two - taking games, which are integral part of many people's lives, especially in the younger generation, and turning them into real "life schools" may help more people get the idea and the essential skills to "fix" their environments. In all honesty, this is a video I would watch again and again, and recommend it to anyone who would listen (and that doesn't happen often for me).

Gamification for learning - using game elements - sounds very promising. Prior to the internet, technology, there were board games or hands on projects - all with the intent to engage and interact with each other. So it is no surprise to me given the appropriate design/project that students can learn and solve real world problems. Letting students choose their persona and role also allows them to make their own future and take ownership for how they want to participate. Just like the original promise of multimedia training that was purported to replace the traditional classroom events and enable getting the "best" teacher recorded for all to have the same experience...I believe it was then thought that the learning experience needs o be "blended". Different techniques - online, face to face, etc.. This is not my field of expertise so these are just personal opinions. If the online game approach can be combined with face to face and tactile/outdoor activities, aka a blended approach - I think that might be very useful. I do also believe that design solutions should be encouraging win win situations to reinforce collaboration and the feeling that all can succeed. One question I might have is how do you measure success in learning?

Gaming promoters unfortunately for me have a commercial agenda and its always difficult to make that balance of pure learning and commercialization aspect

"Every day we face challenges - from the personal, such as the quickest way to get to work, or what we should eat, to global ones like climate change and how to sustainably feed and educate seven billion people on this planet. At Open Knowledge we believe that opening up data - and turning that data into insight - can be crucial to addressing these challenges, and building a society in which is everyone - not just the few - are empowered with the knowledge they need to understand and effect change."

really good! I think this is a very good summary about what we are learning in this course: "We need to create a culture of "open data makers", people able and ready to make apps and insights with open data. We need to connect open data with those who have the best questions and the biggest needs - a healthcare worker in Zambia, the London commuter travelling home - and go beyond the data geeks and the tech savvy to make data be useful to all."

"The paper explains the effect of biased technological change (BTC) on total factor productivity (TFP) from the new perspective of appropriate technology. We have certified that the assumption of neutral technology progress of Solow is ostensible and also to get the general technological progress which can be divided into three parts: effect of knowledge progress, effect of capital intensity improvement and scale effect."

VERY interesting angle - thank you for sharing.

"In this paper, we examine the evolution of the impact of non-elite journals. We attempt to answer two questions. First, what fraction of the top-cited articles are published in non-elite journals and how has this changed over time. Second, what fraction of the total citations are to non-elite journals and how has this changed over time. "

In this seventh episode, Michele Cushatt and I discuss the changing world of book publishing. If you are an author-or an aspiring author-this episode is for you.

In this seventh episode, Michele Cushatt and I discuss the changing world of book publishing. If you are an author-or an aspiring author-this episode is for you.

BBC Click's Dan Simmons looks at how 5G has the potential to change our lives. [We've only just begun! The development of new technology will see major changes in education and publishing as it closes the connectivity gap between individuals, cities, states, countries.]

In this article I could see that the privacy is a topic very important in the life of each person in America, with the increment of technology, people can enjoy of many services that help to make any task in a easier way, but the government has taken a lot of actions "worried" about social welfare, finishing with the privacy that new technological services can offer. So, I think that the providers of these services should explain the rules to use them in a clearly way, and people must decide about what personal information to share and specify that this have to respect, and think in alternatives to change this trend where government wants to control everything, well, it's just a review.

Thank you for sharing the resource on library statistics. The site attracted my attention first of all because it is a Scandinavian resource. The material contains lots of useful theoretical and practical material. In the introduction the author states "It contains a number of research papers, but the framework is different. This is collection of texts, tables, graphics and links that are aimed at the people who actually run libraries." Statistics is a useful tool if used correctly and wisely. It may inspire changes and innovations and also measure the importance of changes. Besides, collection and interpretation of statistical data also changes with the course of time. The author has very clearly explained library statistics with good examples. .

you really get the feel of the dynmics: Bells indicate additions and string plucks indicate subtractions. Pitch changes according to the size of the edit; the larger the edit, the deeper the note. Green circles show edits from unregistered contributors, and purple circles mark edits performed by automated bots. You may see announcements for new users as they join the site, punctuated by a string swell. You can welcome him or her by clicking the blue banner and adding a note on their talk page.

I would love to see things changing - the universities could be much more effective if they would select their students by having passed Basic MOOC modules. This would reduce basic lecturing and focus on quality.

The issue of subjectivity in peer reviewing an open access journal article where the name of the author is disclosed.

What I appreciated most about Costa's account of her first time experiences with an open peer review where author/reviewer are known to one other is that the changes it invoked in her behavior ought to have been possible in under traditional peer review. There is another article in the Diigo, Is Social Media Saving Science?, where I discuss this a bit, but what Costa's comment highlight is that traditional peer review processes are partially problematic simply because we've become too comfortable with the process, enabling us to take shortcuts. That is, we know what our responsibilities and duties are to one another as peers, but we are not fulfilling them because there are not external pressures. I agree with Costa's insights. Simultaneously, I find it concerning that there is a need for "peer pressure," in a sense, for us to fulfill our responsibilities. It makes me question how we can change our practices in a way that make us actually want to do our best, regardless of external pressures. For me, this raises very big picture questions regarding how we can change the meaning of work so that it doesn't invoke us to cut corners because we are not wholly invested and/or enjoying how we are spending our time.

Great insight on the costs in the long run of technological change.

Abstract: The purpose of my paper is to explore the meaning and scope of the changes in perspective that occur sometimes either when -viewing things from a theoretical point of view- there is a change of knowledge paradigm or when -viewing things from a practical point of view- there is a change of ...

"Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Open UBC Week. The Open Access 'Megajournal' (a class of journal defined by the success of PLOS ONE) is a reasonably recent phenomenon, but one that some observers believe is poised to change the publishing world very rapidly."