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Beware of impostors: Research has shown that 'citizen journalism' is no replacement for the real thing. Photo: Michael Fitzjames "Citizen journalism is an oxymoron," says Rakhal Ebeli, managing director of Melbourne-based news bureau Newsmodo. "I mean, how can someone who is not a journalist be a journalist?" I am adding this not that I am in agreement but its an example of negativity towards this area.

I think that this article does a good job of discussing some of the "darker" aspects of citizen journalism. It distinguishes how citizen journalism often deals with trying to change public opinion, whereas traditional journalism, in theory at least, aims to be objective and truth-based. While it is a large stretch to call traditional journalism "truth-based," there are typically certain measures in place to promote accuracy, such as fact checking, review, etc. I like how this article supports the professional integrity and need for trained, educated journalist, comparing "citizen journalism" to "citizen-pharmacy and crowd-sourced obstetrics." While there is certainly value in IndyMedia and citizen journalism, the flip side is that information distributed in this manner is not by any means guaranteed to be accurate or fair.

I am a professional journalist (Bachelor and master degree in Journalism) and I can tell you that a journalist that works for a media is not truth-based, accurated or with professional integrity. A professional journalist is an employee in a company with economical, policital and social interests supported by the content that is being published. I have the content of my articles changed from my managers in order to "match" the diary interests. And what was finally published was far from being truth (then I denied to put my name in the article, but it was still published). So citizen journalism might include emotions, prejudices and non contrasted impressions from citizens, but are still free and natural. I am totally towards citizen journalism.

Shule.Info is a project that puts data about Tanzanian schools online, providing information for the overall country, regions, and individual schools. The website is also in both English and Swahili, the language of the majority of Tanzanians. This is a great attempt at making this open data accessible and understandable to the people to who need it. "We all know that education in Tanzania is in a state of crisis. Massive failure rates. Not enough teachers. Not enough books. Poor teaching. And many more problems. So what do you do if you are a parent, brother or sister and want to find a good school? What if you are a council or national government leader and want to track progress? Right now it is very difficult to do so, because data is not easily available. And when you can access data, it is very difficult to understand and use. Open data is in fact relevant to all of us in making beter decisions. It is not just a concept for technical experts. If we knew which medicines were available in our nearest health centres we would save ourselves wasted trips. If we had live traffic updates we could better plan our travel. And if we had data on school performance we would have the chance to make better decisions about our children's education and potentially shape the course of their future differently."

The wonderful blog, Hack Library School, has recently posted a piece on open access publishing. This piece is a great overview, which covers many of the basic concepts covered in Module 6. The article discusses what open access is (and what it isn't) and some of the biggest discussion points on the issue today. It's a great overview and well worth the read if you want an overview or a refresher on the topic!

This blog covers a lot of relevant concepts related to OA, but a finer point need to be clarified. Regarding Google Scholar, not everything retrieved from GS is OA. GS is a web crowler, it crows wherever it is allowed, including references and citations to articles behind paywalls. On the other hand, many librarians are working to make their paid journals subscriptions available to their faculty and students via Google Scholar. So when faculty/students are on their universities' network, they can search GS, find articles from journals. If their library subscribes to that journal, there is a good chance a link to the full text will be available.

I agree with the point that "findability" for green OA articles is a current problem. We need a PubMed or Web of Science for green OA articles!

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.

Who owns the Data or the question should be, who is manipulating the Data? The article by Alistair Croll on who owns the Data asks big questions but fails short to highlight the fact that there is someone out there manipulating the well intended, innocent data into their own profit motive agendas. Many times, I have received emails, phone calls and SMS from sales people trying to sell me something. How they got my contact details is definitely my guess that someone is busy manipulating the data, I gave away for profit motives. At the end of the article the writer makes an opinion that, we are using the internet for free? Which I disagree, because our data makes and runs the internet. Without our data, the internet will not be the internet. Without our data on Facebook, facebooks or twitter will be blank, no value and worthless. If companies are paying people to participate in surveys and opinions, then it means our free data we upload on the internet, facebook and twitter is a payment for us to use the internet. After all we have to pay to the internet service providers for us to access to use the internet, and face book. Or someone is even suppose to pay for our data, in fact we have made things easy for the marketing people who now just sit behind their laptops and manipulate our free given data for their own consumptions. Or maybe I should console myself that, since the article is old, maybe someone has answered my question?

A mi me pareció que el artículo señala dos puntos centrales, aunque resolver el tema es una empresa peliaguda. El asunto de lo gratuito en un sistema basado en la ganancia y la capacidad de aprovechar los resquicios que abren las situaciones nuevas y una buena dosis de desorientación generalizada: 1. As we use the Internet for "free," we have to remember that if we're not paying for something, we're not the customer. We are in fact the product being sold - or, more specifically, our data is. 2. The important question isn't who owns the data. Ultimately, we all do. A better question is, who owns the means of analysis? Because that's how, as Brand suggests, you get the right information in the right place. The digital divide isn't about who owns data - it's about who can put that data to work. Tal vez, como menciona natashasana, el problema sea más complejo, y reducir la manipulación al negocio deje temas relavantes fuera. Y la información que usan/manipulan es la que todos aportamos. Cierto, pero no todos la usamos o aprovechamos de la misma forma.

Teachers are discovering the value of imparting media-literacy skills, from critical analysis of news programs, commercials, and films to basic design and video-production techniques.

This is an excellent video summarizing all the skills and necessity of them in a participatory culture. Everyone is spending more and more time in the multimedia world these days, especially the youth, who can be considered the most vulnerable. An ability to perceive all the information we are getting through a critical lens is profound, as is an ability to dissect and understand the logic of multimedia. Learning the tricks of graphics, cinema, music studies (collectively called "communication studies"), young people learn to understand and create media, find new ways to express themselves efficiently in an ever-changing world and supplement the traditional ("written") curriculum, which is behind the needs of today's man. The point is illustrated nicely by George Lucas, founder of The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF): "Everybody is affected by this, and it should be taught in school." I agree 100%.

Re-thinking communication skills is absolutely essential for all educators, since much of the communication students are faced with during a day comes in the shape of different kinds of media. But the result of this is also that we need to address the fact that not all educators are necessarily equipped to teach about media because it's rarely included in teacher's programs (especially if you were trained twenty or thirty years ago). So the video makes a lot of good points about media-literacy and hopefully our educational systems will make sure that educators are given the tools to include this in their classrooms.

Indigenous knowledge is unique to a culture or society. It shows us how to connect and to sustain through the environment. This kind of knowledge is passed down to generation to generation. Back then our ancestors did not have Internet or computers to store or to share their ideas. Our ancestral knowledge is very fragile and can easily be lost. Knowledge is history and our roots, which are passed down from our ancestors to us and these knowledge should be kept and be preserved. New information is also valuable, but so is our past. Here is a site that helps us to learn about what Indigenous knowledge is and activities to help us how to preserve Indigenous knowledge.

It is a good idea. We should remember our indigenous knowledge and pass it down to following generations. People without past can not value the present. We shouldn't let these knowledge be destroyed by fast information on the internet.

Peter Suber is Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication Office at Harvard, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, a Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Senior Researcher at SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). He is widely considered the de facto leader of the worldwide open access movement.

Algunos datos recientes sobre academia y acceso abierto/some recent figures about academy and open access (http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4370) "Today, there are more than 9,000 fully open access, scholarly peer-reviewed journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the DOAJ's net growth is a fairly consistent three-four titles per day. There are over 2,000 open access repositories listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). A cross-search of open access repositories using the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine encompasses over 40 million documents, a number that is growing by the millions every quarter (Morrison, 2005-). The producers of academic journal are the same that consume such journals: "Returning to the topic of academic library budgets as the primary support for scholarly journals, Michael Mabe (2011), CEO of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), recently affirmed that about 80-90 percent of the US$8 billion in revenue that goes to producers of the world's peer-reviewed scholarly journals comes from library subscriptions, as reported by Ware and Mabe [4]. Ware and Mabe's analysis is based in part on research by the Research Information Network (2008), which found that journals publishing revenues are generated primarily from academic library subscriptions (68-75 percent of the total revenue), followed by corporate subscriptions (15-17 percent), advertising (four percent), membership fees and personal subscriptions (three percent), and various author-side payments (three percent)."

Thank you very much for sharing.

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 .

"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.

Breaking new ground for the open-access movement, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of global health research, plans to require that the researchers it funds publish only in immediate open-access journals. The policy doesn't kick in until January 2017; until then, grantees can publish in subscription-based journals as long as their paper is freely available within 12 months.

This serves as a significant catalyst to change the mentality of both the researcher and the funder. The Gates Foundation is a leading organization in resolving world health issues. This action demonstrates their drive and desire toward their cause; and will hopefully it will start a trend amongst authors and other research funding NGOS.

As mentioned in class discussions, this is the only reasonable response. Bill and Melinda have put their time forth into creating charities, and attempting to control content which was given from charitable grants is lunacy. It is comforting to see the Gates foundation scrapping the 6-12 month window of restriction. WIth this said that said, this draws interesting parallels with journals that receive government grants due to the fact that the privately sold resource is already being funded by the tax payers.

Knowledge is becoming an increasingly recognised asset within business. But what exactly is it? This short animation guides you through the main terms you'll come across when discussing knowledge, including tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, codification and diffusion.

Back to basics. In order to evolve knowledge, we have to re-ask ourselves what we think it is.

This video does a good explanation about the difference between data, information, and knowledge. In our class discussions, we talked about the differences too, which I never knew there were any. So data is just the facts of the world, information is capturing data within the context, and knowledge is what we know about plus our experiences.

This article is not only about open education or open learningm, but about trends in tech that trainee teachers should be aware of. One of them is the MOOC trend. What is missing is the OER trend and its implications.

This is exactly what I need to learn as I develop our home school. I would be grateful for more insights.

"The Norwegian Electronic Health Library - information in English The Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no) is a publicly funded online knowledge service for healthcare professionals and students in Norway. 02/01/2014 | Hans Petter Fosseng Prof. Magne Nylenna MD is editor-in-chief for the Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no). Photo: Hans Petter Fosseng The Norwegian Electronic Health Library is accessed online through the website www.helsebiblioteket.no. The website provides free access to point-of-care tools, guidelines, systematic reviews, scientific journals, and a wide variety of other full-text resources for health-care professionals and students."

"The Norwegian Electronic Health Library - information in English The Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no) is a publicly funded online knowledge service for healthcare professionals and students in Norway. 02/01/2014 | Hans Petter Fosseng Prof. Magne Nylenna MD is editor-in-chief for the Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no). Photo: Hans Petter Fosseng The Norwegian Electronic Health Library is accessed online through the website www.helsebiblioteket.no. The website provides free access to point-of-care tools, guidelines, systematic reviews, scientific journals, and a wide variety of other full-text resources for health-care professionals and students."

What happens when you troll Tor developers hard? You get unmasked. Towards the end of last week, a troll who had sent various aggressive tweets to a host of security experts and privacy advocates associated with the Tor project and browser, which enables online anonymity, had his identity exposed.

It is important to stand up against all kinds of bullying, in this case it is cyberbullying. But what is the difference when it comes to someone bullies you, and you bully that person back? It is still bullying. Although I think some actions should be taken to tackle the people trolling, it is difficult because of the massive amount of people who are leaving angry or horrible responses. To monitor every netizens activity is impossible and inefficient, it also violates privacy rights (even when we know we are monitored at some point). What do you think about creating filters? I think that will restrict the freedom of speech people have. So is having freedom and open access such a brilliant thing? Would it not cause moral conflicts? Education and moral standards would not always relate, because emotions is one of the measures too.

Thanks for your sharing. A lot of people have been the victim of cyberbullying, the reason of cyberbullying has become increasingly common might has some relationship with the advanced technology and also due to people can say whatever they want to say by hiding behind their digital identities, so they do not care about moral standard any more. And it's true that it's really hard to take action to everyone who involved in cyberbullying because the amount is huge.

The pan-European data regulator group Article 29 has issued new opinion on how websites and advertisers can track users and the permissions they require. The new opinion dictates that "device fingerprinting" - a process of silently collecting information about a user - requires the same level of consent as cookies that are used to track users across the internet.

It is impossible to ban all tracking, just like if I am using Chrome, it is normal for me to think that I am tracked by Google. If I am using Safari, then it is normal for me to think I am tracked by Safari. I believe that there is not anything wrong with people collecting my "non-identifying material", since it is only data. But if it is more like personal information, it should be banned. Also, there are a lot of sites when we ban cookies, the photos or some content will not appear. So no cookies means no content. In the end would not there be no effect on how people uses the websites? If we do not accept it, we could not use the site, the only difference is we are informed about it, and we should assume every site or software once it is connected to the internet, it implies some kind of tracking.