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"Just as important as learning these helpful tools, however, is unlearning and avoiding the most common pitfalls of common sense. Reminding us of where society is most vulnerable to those, Sagan writes: In addition to teaching us what to do when evaluating a claim to knowledge, any good baloney detection kit must also teach us what not to do. It helps us recognize the most common and perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric. Many good examples can be found in religion and politics, because their practitioners are so often obliged to justify two contradictory propositions.He admonishes against the twenty most common and perilous ones - many rooted in our chronic discomfort with ambiguity - with examples of each in action"

The 20 fallacies: "ad hominem - Latin for "to the man," attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously) argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia - but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out) argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous - perhaps even ungovernable. Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives) appeal to ignorance - the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist - and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don't understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - each in their own way enjoined to

Wonderful post, Kim! These are great guidelines alongside which to test ideas.

eminário Acesso Aberto ao Conhecimento. Descrição: Debate com o doutor em Direito Civil pela Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) e consultor da Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca (ENSP/Fiocruz), Allan Rocha de Souza e o pesquisador da Universidade do Minho (Portugal), Eloy Rodrigues, durante o Seminário Acesso Aberto ao Conhecimento. Esse é o segundo seminário que a ENSP realiza para debater o acesso livre ao conhecimento científico. O primeiro ocorreu em abril de 2011, na abertura do ano letivo, e reuniu especialistas nacionais e internacionais para discutir questões como os impactos do acesso aberto na produção acadêmica, as mudanças na comunicação da divulgação científica e a inovação no ensino. O segundo discutiu o processo institucional que resultará na adoção de uma política institucional de informação baseada nos princípios do Acesso Aberto na ENSP. Arquivo disponível para audição e/ou download no link abaixo: http://www5.ensp.fiocruz.br/biblioteca/dados/aud_403987461.wma

The year I graduated high school, the media was overrun with speculation about a new technology set to shake the foundation of the world. What was it? We weren't told, exactly. All we knew was that code name "IT" was so revolutionary that we would have to rebuild our cities from scratch.

It is interesting that whenever a new innovation is introduced, the current one is declared dead before its final time arrives. Books in whatever format are appealing to different audiences for various reasons. To think that the introduction of e-books was going to lead to a declaration of war on printed books is laughable. Books will be with us for as long as we are still in this world. Does format matter? only time will tell.

Long back Lancaster wrote about paperless society but still we are heavily depending on paper only. Technology has fast evolved. First we talked about e-libraries then virtual libraries and now contemplating cloud based libraries. Many technologies have come and gone but paper is still ubiquitous.

Publishing has transited from traditional to Electronic format making information resources available to users without much subscription. E-publishing is engendered by the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT), this development has brought about increase in the number of scholarly communication in circulation. The awareness and rate of e-publishing differs among faculties, it based on this that this study was carried out to survey the situation of e-publishing and open access of librarians in three federal universities in Southern Nigeria, five research questions were formulated to guide the study. The methodology adopted is descriptive survey, questionnaire was given to a total population of 64 librarians consisting of librarians from the institutions understudy, the data collected from the study shows that though librarians are aware of e-publishing but they have not being publishing as should have been expected in University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) out of the 95% that aware of electronic publishing only 30% have published there articles electronically, in University of Lagos (UNILAG) 100% indicated that they have published electronically while in University of Benin (UNIBEN) 45.4% percent indicated yes while 54.5% said they have not published their articles electronically. On availability of open access it was discovered that they have access as a total of 84% from UNN responded Yes, UNILAG 100% said Yes while in UNIBEN 90.9%. The following problems based on their scoring militating against e-publishing and open access in Nigeria. Inadequate power supply; inadequate computer terminals; inadequate funding for subscription payment.

The change has come more slowly to books than it came to music or to business correspondence, but by now it feels inevitable. The digital era is upon us. The Twilights and Freedoms of 2025 will be consumed primarily as e-books. In many ways, this is good news. Books will...

when I take a book in my hands, I always start with smelling paper (old or new), can we do the same thing with technology?

I do like physical book in my hand, but I find e-books more convenient either when I am writing my research paper or I want to read certain book right away. I heard that more and more universities are supporting e-book system, and getting rid of physical textbooks due to costs and other reasons. A lot more e-books will become useful in the future. I think paper books will exist, but it will be rare in the future.

From June 2014, lecture at the Open Data Institute, UK. Professor Carr explains how the open web we know is just one of many attempts over the last century to build a planet-wide network of information. Why was this one successful? And will it continue to be so? Professor Leslie Carr is a Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton where he researches the impact of network technologies on our lives and economy, and in particular on the research and knowledge industries. Slides for this talk can be found here - http://www.scribd.com/doc/230569908/Friday-lunchtime-lecture-Open-data-open-web-Just-a-passing-fad-with-Professor-Leslie-Carr (recommended) From the slides, I thought this was interesting: "......The loss of ignorance, by all agreeing to share information The loss of privacy , by all agreeing to share a public space " also: "......The development of society as a whole (nuanced and structured and refined) is inextricably related to the technology of information provision, consumption and dissemination (e.g. writing, reading, printing, education). Different parts of society have different objectives and hence incompatible Web requirements, e.g. openness, security, transparency, privacy."

Oscar's Art Books, an independent bookstore that has been operating for 24 years in Vancouver is shutting down. Chain bookstores were once thought to be the biggest threat to small, independent bookstores, but it appears the rise of e-books, not Chapters or Indigo is behind the demise of Oscar's Art Books. Appparently this is not the first bookstore to close the down due to people preferring e-books. What started this? Local bookstores are already competing with chain bookstores, but now, they have new threats that they have to face. If more and more people are turning to e-books, there may be possibility that printed will become a rare thing. There has been a lot of debates of printed vs. ebooks, by the looks of it, e-book is winning.

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.

Por mais de três anos a IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning e a IFLA New Professionals Special Interest Group tem oferecido, com muito sucesso, diversos webinars abordando temas de interesse para bibliotecários, associações de bibliotecas, escolas de biblioteconomia, tomadores de decisões e profissionais atuando em bibliotecas.

4a. Jueves, 05 de noviembre 2014 - 14h * Ponente: Claudio Ruiz Tema: actualizada sobre la situación actual de los derechos de autor en América Latina y la información más reciente tendencias Idioma: ESPAÑOL Biografía: Claudio es el Director Ejecutivo de la ONG Derechos Digitales, Chile. Dirige proyectos relacionados con la defensa y promoción de los derechos fundamentales involucrados en el internet, en particular la libertad de expresión, derecho de autor y el acceso al conocimiento. Colabora con la IFLA en varias iniciativas internacionales. Él es un profesor de grado en Propiedad Intelectual

"11 academic publishers, including major players like Taylor & Francis and Oxford University Press, would be raising the cost of short-term e-book loans effective June 1. In some cases the increase would be as much as 300 percent."

En este articulo se recoge una reflexión sobre el futuro de los MOOCS.

Open e-learning course about open access, new science comunication models  for everybody

"Social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), microblogging services (e.g. Twitter), and content sharing sites (e.g. YouTube and Flickr) have introduced the opportunity for wide scale, online social participation. Visibility of national and international priorities such as public health, political unrest, disaster relief, and climate change has increased, yet we know little about the benefits and possible costs of engaging in social activism via social media. "

This article reminds me to the activism of a Spanish councellor to promote activism through social net against the independence of Cataluña in Spain: http://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2014/10/12/54390135ca474179608b4571.html

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El documento tiene por objetivo compartir experiencias de enseñanza, aprendizaje e investigación educativa en la incorporación de Recursos Educativos Abiertos (REA) en la practica docente. Abordando los temas básicos de estrategias cognitivas, estilos de aprendizaje y enseñanza, así como los retos inherentes en el uso de tecnología y los desafíos que se tienen en el proceso de apropiación tecnológica, descubriéndose nuevas habilidades en la práctica educativa que potencian el aprendizaje significativo en el salón de clase.

El documento tiene por objeto compartir experiencias de enseñanza, aprendizaje e investigación educativa en la incorporación de Recursos Educativos Abiertos (REA) en la practica docente.

Education South Africa - February 2013 With the 2012 Limpopo textbook delivery saga, and the rising cost of printed textbooks, one public school has decided to take a bold step into the future and convert to using E-books for all their learners.

This sounds like a good idea but then the students must have the tablets and computers to be able to read the books. Unfortunately I don't think this will work in many of the poorer rural schools that need it most.

The great idea of this project could be used by every educational organization, as the article say, the cost are clearly low.

Nuestras licencias públicas de derechos de autor incorporan un exclusivo e innovador diseño de "tres capas". En conjunto, estas tres capas de las licencias garantizan que el espectro de derechos no sea sólo un concepto jurídico. Es algo que los creadores de las obras pueden entender, sus usuarios pueden entender, e incluso la propia web puede entender.