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Is There a Sustainable MOOC Business Model? Is "open" in open eduction will remain open and free from restriction? Can Coursera, Khan Academy, and other MOOC platforms be a $100-million business or a billion dollar business? It will take more time to learn the answer.

"In truth, publishing is flourishing, creating massive new fortunes for entrepreneurs and more choices for consumers. It's also attracting large investments by established companies and venture capitalists. Though not everyone prospers, there has never been a better time for publishers."

Good overview with fundamental advice for publishers: innovate

Good read, Kevin! :) I agree with this article that said "As long as people want to be informed, entertained, and inspired, there will be profitable opportunities in publishing." The main key to keep the business running is everyone must adapt. Traditional publishers need to moves to digital media in order to survive and meet the modern readers' needs.

YouTube, Full Sail University, Published on Mar 12, 2014 "Technology has made it easier than ever to publish your own work. This Full Sail University panel discusses how to successfully self-publish your own work, and how to do it without getting lost in the sea of all of the other content that's out there." A panel of successful self-published authors talk about the flexibility of new technology within the publishing realm to sell books/music: formatting your work, business models, copyright , print on demand options, music aggregators,, marketing, worldwide distribution, etc.

The video length of one+ hour might seem a bit daunting at first, but I ended up watching most of it in one go - this is really an excellent and easy-to-follow overview of all the important aspects of self-publishing. (I was especially pleased that this video listens to well in the background, as opposed to most other videos that I find require more "involvement" and that do not fit well with a busy day schedule.) What is best about this is that it is all based on actual people experiences - successful self-published authors participating in the panel, and sharing their knowledge & tips in real-time. I was especially curious to find out about the marketing side of of self-publishing a book, and was pleased to discover quite a few helpful ideas and tips. As someone who is thinking about self-publishing soon, this has answered a lot of questions and definitely sparked confidence in the process as a whole. Thank you very much for sharing! Hopefully, this will help and encourage many more self-publishers to be.

"The edupunks are on the march. From VC-funded startups to the ivied walls of Harvard, new experiments and business models are springing up from entrepreneurs, professors, and students alike. Want a class that's structured like a role-playing game? An accredited bachelor's degree for a few thousand dollars? A free, peer-to-peer Wiki university? These all exist today, the overture to a complete educational remix."

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.

Looks at the "Linux model" as a successful way of doing business."I think there is a general movement and a general recognition in the technology community that we need to reform the patent process. There's far too much effort and energy put into creating patents that do not end up fostering innovation," said Musk. "I think no reasonable person would say that the current patent system is ideally suited to foster innovation."

A true pioneer, Mr Musk is. I think he has an extra sense for the future. Patents seem to be an institution which increasingly focuses on short term profit instead of the common benefit on the long run.

Patents are the biggest responsible for the technological delays. The laws should change radically.

"In a nutshell, Knowledge Unlatched would act as an intermediary between a global library consortium and individual academic publishers. The latter would approach Knowledge Unlatched with titles they would like to see published in Open Access. Knowledge Unlatched would then regularly send out a list of titles to libraries which would opt in to fund the unlatching, that is, the publication in Open Access, of certain titles. The titles so funded would be released with a Creative Commons licence by the publishers which retain the right to sell special editions and extra services around the titles. "

What Forbes has to say about Open Data.

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"New technology and innovative business models offer proven opportunities for enhancing the sharing of scholarly information - research papers, primary data and other evidence, creative activity and other products of research and scholarship - across institutions and audiences. This scholarly communication - understood as the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use - promotes a shared system of research and scholarship. ACRL sees a need to vigorously re-orient all facets of library services and operations to the evolving technologies and models that are affecting the scholarly communication process. There is wide variance in the background understanding of and engagement in scholarly communication as a critical perspective and worldview for academic librarians. This Scholarly Communication toolkit was designed by ACRL's Scholarly Communication Committee as a resource for education and advocacy efforts in transforming the scholarly communication landscape."

"The current crisis, the deepest and longest in the history of capitalism, has opened a debate around the world about what appears, more clearly with each passing day, to be the simultaneous destruction of the two principal institutions of social and economic life: the State and the market. Never in living memory has the economic system been so universally questioned. On the other hand, never before have technical capacities been so powerful, and, more importantly, so accessible to people and small organizations. In fact, never before have so many small businesses taken part in the world market. Nearly free [gratis] P2P communication technologies let them create the largest commercial networks in history. The emergence of free software (which, by itself, represents the largest-ever transfer of value to the economic periphery) empowered them with unexpected independence. Millions of small businesses around the world, especially in Asia, were able to coordinate among themselves this way and hone their products just as new markets were opening up to them. It's "globalization of the small." It's not a marginal phenomenon: never before have so many people around the world gotten out of poverty."

If we're in the idea business, how to protect those ideas? One way is to misuse trademark law. With the help of search engines, greedy lawyers who charge by the letter are busy sending claim letters to anyone who even comes close to using a word or phrase they believe their client 'owns'.

"Focus on being the best tailor with the sharpest scissors, not the litigant who sues any tailor who deigns to use a pair of scissors." I am 100% behind this ending point. We live in a world where you are now challenged to create great ideas, not just sit on what you have. Keep striving! Woohoo!

Learning the language of code empowers a new kind of entrepreneur to make extraordinary creative leaps with their business. There are many examples, such as Andy Puddicombe who has used technology to bring meditation and mindfulness to the world with his business HEADSPSACE, and Lily Cole who has created IMPOSSIBLE - a way of allowing people to utilise the gift economy online.

Back to face-to-face encounters: In an era where people flock to Facebook to find friends or communicate solely via text, a growing niche of entrepreneurs is building businesses that help people meet the old-fashioned way: in person. As digital connections have blossomed, so too has a sense of loneliness among some users.

Argues that increasing corporate control is undermining the foundational values of higher education.

Here in Spain we have a similar evolution of higher education; private postgraduate private schools give masters that guarantee the access to top jobposts, but they are not focused on analysis, creativity and critical minds, but on pure business. What you need to be on your future job post is what you learn. Public institutions are still on air, but they are struggling with less and less public resources to survive. So I guess this is not only going on in USA.

Italy is going even worse...i'm an Adjunct Professor for maybe 1000 euro per year ... surviving by scholarships, call center mid term contracts, collaborations where i'm asked to pay for taxes the university should pay, all levels teaching.. I like "Some of the basic principles underlying effective pedagogy, such as small class size, individual attention and the importance of mentoring, are being sacrificed in order to increase head count, limit labor costs and create a one-size-fits-all educational experience." The problem is that universities are to make profits from fees (that's why they hire me instead of employing me) and offer any kind of courses, masters to increase their income! The problem is: how can we expect to increase the quality of learning as far as decisions are taking by political, business, organizational sides instead of scientific and educational ones?

"Journalists, as 2013 ended, were busy declaring the death of MOOCs, more formally known as massive open online courses. Silicon Valley startup Udacity, one of the first to offer the free Web-based college classes, had just announced its pivot to vocational training - a sure sign to some that this much-hyped revolution in higher education had failed. The collective sigh of relief from more traditional colleges and universities was audible."

It's unquestionable that Research4Life has had a significant impact in improving access to research information for communities in developing countries. I do have a number of criticisms about how the program is organized and delivered, however. 1. Publisher participation in the program is 'entirely voluntary', without 'a single contract (being) signed between any of the partners' (Aaronson, 2004), meaning that publishers can opt out at any point. This issue was highlighted in 2011 when Elsevier, Lipincott Williams & Wilkins, Springer and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, publisher of Science Magazine) withdrew access to over 2500 journals through the HINARI system. Following international attention, and widespread condemnation, publishers restored access, with Elsevier announcing that they were in discussions with the government in Bangladesh to transition towards a paid licensing scheme (Wise, 2011). 2. Countries that meet the eligibility criteria of the program (which are based on the World Bank's listing of Lower and Lower Middle Income Countries) are sometimes excluded. Take for example India or Pakistan- although these countries are in the lists of eligible countries, the publishers deliberately exclude participation to protect whatever business they may have in these countries. So although hundreds of institutions could benefit, they exclude access to protect the business they receive from a handful of institutions. 3. Access to content is delivered through a single username and password for each institution. This is problematic for librarians, as they are unable to ensure the security of the password (a well-meaning researcher may share the password with a colleague in another institution, violating the license agreement). Abuse of institutional accounts has severe consequences, and librarians are sent messages from Research4Life threatening to not only cut off the institution, but all institutions in their country if they

Research4life is a great program by committed government and non-government organizations dedicated to produce valuable researches that will improve the life of people. Librarians play an important role in assisting researchers find valid, current, relevant information in order to produce a reliable output or results that will help humankind's betterment of living.