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An alternative perspective on "openness".

The argument will be with us for a very long time. I think this is based on the side of the fence that one is sitting on. It is just like a case of what came first a chicken or an egg. The fact is Open has place to occupy in our learning space. The jury is still out there.

Thanks for sharing this well presented write up. Big question put forth is are we really getting the outcomes expected from the open society. Open vs. quality is a big issue. At times restricting access helps a great deal.

In this article, Barker believes that technology has somehow become harmful to communicate in person among teenagers. Teens prefer to write to each other such as pick up their phones to ping each other, communicating by texting though instant messaging and social networking sites like Facebook, Twtter rather than talking to each other in person. Thus this has given out a general that is technology has become a problem in communication since cell phone has become widely used in society. Therefore, within the development in cell phone technology, smartphone was invented, which a mobile phone is built on a mobile computing platform that not only a communication tool to make phone call or text message but also allows people to go on internet or play game for their pastime. Hence this with the development for technology, people spends more time on their smartphones rather than having interaction between people which has become an issue in our life. By reading this article, it leads my thought to online education. Being honest, I enjoy the in person discussion rather than online written discussion however digital platform has provided a convenient way for people to share their ideas. However this article did raised a good question, technology makes everything easier for people but does it somehow hurt the communication among people?

The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science is an open community offering countless ideas, DIY instruction and kits for carrying out science projects from your own kitchen (literally). Even better - you can become a part of a collaborative community, which shares ideas & tips, and all data collections are available under CC!

I particularly like the open source approach of the Public Lab, which ensures a collaborative building of creative solutions, which are then available under fair and open terms. Thanks for sharing the resource. Balthas

Relating to the digital copyrights issue, here's a recent article regarding Satellite radio…in this day and age where new and old music is being played, it's become more confusing as to what rights music services (or other arts) have. They might be playing music that they may or may not have the right too (and yet bands have no idea). Unfortunately copyright laws seem to have a long way to go before they become untangled. In the battle between today's digital-music services and yesterday's oldies artists, score one for the geezers. The founders of the '60s rock band the Turtles won a summary judgment on Monday against Sirius XM Radio Inc., in a lawsuit alleging that the satellite-radio company violated California copyright law by playing the band's songs without permission.

"The focus of this paper is on describing how, after countless millennia of gentle evolutionary change, the Internet is challenging us to discover new forms of sociality and, with it, new forms of social literacy to help us become more effective learners and citizens."

I've saved this because it identifies a facet of open knowledge that is becoming increasingly important - the concept of "open manufacturing". Additive manufacturing - or 3D printing as it is more commonly known - is being used in more industry sectors than ever before. New materials and use cases have led to 3D manufacturing in Health, Entertainment, Automobiles, Fashion, Construction etc. I particularly liked this quote from David Rowan at Wired: "The democratisation of manufacturing will empower anyone with a compelling idea to prototype, make and launch a physical product ay speed and low cost".

There's a lot to digest here, particularly if you want to read the whole report as well as the edited summary. I particularly liked the responses from JP Rangaswami: "The quality of real-time information that becomes available will take the guesswork out of much of capacity planning and decision-making......The net effect will be to reduce waste everywhere: in physical flows and logistics, in the movement of people and goods; in logical flows and logistics, in the movement of ideas and information; decisions will be made faster and better, based on more accurate information; prior errors in assumption and planning will be winkled out more effectively." And from Howard Rheingold: "We will live in a world where many things won't work, and nobody will know how to fix them." On a personal note, I can see there might be benefits with the IoT, particularly the use of sensors and actuators for monitoring and improving health, but will it put the final nail in 'privacy' and enable marketers to push their products and control my thoughts 24 x 7 through the pervasive use of wearable devices and biological interfaces with technology? Reading time: 60 mins

Ricochet is an independent Canadian news service. "Ricochet is crowdfunded media serving the public interest" For $25 you can become a member--membership fees help pay for writers. Launch is set for this fall--$83,000 has been raised to support their writers.

"Is Luciana Fasani too cool for school or better prepared than most teens for a rapidly changing workplace? A qualified make-up artist and hair consultant and now studying the performing arts, the 14-year-old Cape Town teen tells Nelia Vivier about stepping up to today's job market and life in future.. "The educational system today only values one type of intelligence - if you do not fit into that mold, you are made to feel unhappy and stupid" "Schools and schooling ar becoming increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No-one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes, or politicians in civic classes, or poets in English classes - John Gatto"."Our school crisis is a reflection of the greater social crisis (in South Africa) - children and old people are penned up and locked away to a dgree without precendent... a community that has no future, no past, only a continuous present". "We live in networks, not communities and everyone I know is lonely...school is a major actor in this tragedy....We appear to be creating a caste system, complete with untouchables who wander..."

Online discussions and post-publication analyses are catching mistakes that sneak past editorial review. This article describes the pitfalls with editorial review and pre-publication peer review, and advocates for post-publication crowd-sourced reviewing through social media platforms.

I think having a comments section is a great way to provide feedback on the information provided. Often when I read articles the comments section allows me to understand different perspectives and interpretations of the information.

This article, while not necessarily explicitly, managed to hint at what I find to be a source of problematic practices/outcomes in the academy, publishing, etc. That is, it is not necessarily that traditional peer review processes are ineffective at finding errors or misconduct, but rather it is when our processes and practices become so systematized that we can mindlessly or effortlessly engage in and reproduce them without our full, critical attention that they can produce problems. While I think there are good reasons to critique the notion of peer and "expert" culture within traditional peer review processes, an additional and separate critique is the problems that arise with systematization. The article implicitly addressed this when the author commented that current post-publication environments "provide a public space that is not under the control of journal editors and conference organizers." Yet, as White indicates, there exists skepticism of the value of post-publication reviews along with a simultaneous effort to build post-publication systems that have standards that put those questioning it at ease. The National Institutes of Health establishing requirements that potential post-publication reviewers must meet demonstrated this. That is, they are trying to figure out how to systematize post-publication. For me, what this article indicates is that we ought to figure out how to keep our academic and publishing processes "fresh," so to speak. This way we don't become so comfortable with our methods and practices that they allow us to simply go through the motions without fostering innovative and critical inquiry.

Are you agree that social media profile becoming as important as your resume?

Actually I don't think so. Personally think Facebook is more about personal use and private, but resume is more professional. For example you wouldn't never put a photo that your friend and you was in a pub on your resume, but you may put this on Facebook. However, LinkedIn do better in professional online profile in terms of social media networking.

I would argue that LinkedIn and Twitter are better indicators of professional accomplishment. I would like to think that as of now Facebook is still relatively private considering its primary function is to serve as a social (more intimate/private) communication tool rather than a networking platform. I have heard employers openly admit to using LinkedIn as a preliminary screening tool. Regardless of the forum, social media will continue to play a significant role in reflecting our personal and professional identities.

A great resource on curating ideas created by Corinne Wiesgerber, a professor at St. Edwards University, for her communications class. Includes a slide-share with helpful definition of curation. You can follow Corinne on Twitter: @corinnew.

Thanks for sharing this! I particularly like the emphasis on using social search in addition to a standard google search. Thoughtful curation is a critical part of effect learning networks.

Considering digital identities, here's an interesting article over a new form of data privacy: our health. As health devices (i.e. smart watches) become more available and mainstream we should consider what type of data we want 'floating' around the internet such as our weights/BMIs or whatever other personal information the health device may obtain. This is one issue that the increase in technology and social communication has brought to us (not entirely a bad thing)…more personal data becoming easily accessible for advertisers. "This week, Apple has updated its privacy policy to try and ensure that developers don't market personal healthcare data to advertisers and brokers. The company is betting big on its new HealthKit platform, part of iOS 8. It gives developers a set of APIs to share their apps' data with Apple's […]"

On my navigation searching for initiatives to see how Open Knowledge are making the difference on the Latin America society I found this... nowadays unfortunately on South America (and in other places as well) open knowledge initiative are not divulgated. Universities seem to be not interested about promoting these initiatives and few people know about them. I was amazed reading the text from Francisco J. García-Peñalvo (Open Knowledge. Challenges and Facts) and seeing that a lot of Universities on Europe and North America are promoting and working with open and free access to texts and online courses. It's incredible how people have the possibility of learning in a world that each day is more competitive. I really hope that this great news about Brazil helps more and more people to understand the impact and the changings on the educational process.

"implying that publishers have willfully disregarded their ethical responsibilities over profits: And my theory is that academic publishing has drifted so far from its original idealistic roots with scientists taking care of the whole last step in the scientific process, from experiment to sharing the news about it, [that] in this world of the Internet and expensive publishing processes, basically a cottage industry grew up that has now grown into a massive multi-billion dollar industry that has become estranged from the ideals, that were probably naïve to begin with. But you can be idealistic and do a good job and make a profit. That is not mutually exclusive."

I was reading one of the week 12 additional resources, PKP School: Becoming a Reviewer http://pkpschool.sfu.ca/becoming-a-reviewer/ and came across the term Predatory Open Access Publishing. I guess no matter what, someone is going to try to make a buck. There is also a site that others have posted here, http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ that is where Beall's list is housed. Beall's list is a list of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers - a good place to check if you are thinking of writing or reviewing for a journal, if it's on the list do more digging and research on the journal itself before committing to anything. The journal names all sound pretty impressive so you can't tell by name alone.

In a short time, Banksy has become a cultural icon with a distinct place in history. [Publishing the story through art.]