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By: Matthew LeBar Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are often described as the future of education - or at least a significant part of it. But there may be a significant problem with them: a very small proportion of students who start them actually finish. This poses a serious threat to their legitimacy.

This brings up the question of what it means to complete something? And why is it so important to us? And why 'productivity', a thing somebody defined ages ago, is so important to our humanity? .. or is it anymore?

Because I am taking a MOOC course but also on campus at University, I receive credits and grades where this is definitely one of the motivations for me to contribute. Although I agree that completion of the course is not essential to attain knowledge, what about our motivations to learn? And what about our incentives? Not saying MOOCs are not interesting nor helpful, I like MOOCs, but I think people like recognition too. I think to just receive the "statement of accomplishment" is not enough to prove efforts made within the course. However MOOCs are not as well developed at this stage, there definitely will be adjustments in the near future.

"Increased access to information and knowledge, underpinned by universal literacy, is an essential pillar of sustainable development. Greater availability of quality information and data and the involvement of communities in its creation will provide a fuller, more transparent allocation of resources."

"In this context, a right to information would be transformational. Access to information supports development by empowering people, especially marginalised people and those living in poverty, to: - Exercise their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. - Be economically active, productive and innovative. - Learn and apply new skills. - Enrich cultural identity and expression. - Take part in decision-making and participate in an active and engaged civil society. - Create community-based solutions to development challenges. - Ensure accountability, transparency, good governance, participation and empowerment. - Measure progress on public and private commitments on sustainable development. "

Emotional expression and linguistic style in online collaboration differ substantially depending on the contributors' gender and status, and on the communication network. This should be taken into account when analyzing collaborative success, and may prove insightful to communities facing gender gap and stagnation in contributor acquisition and participation levels.

lubajong and taylor_cole thank you for your comments. From my part I will add a critical evaluation of this resource as well. The talk pages of Wikipedia provide a rich source for researchers to study communication patterns. On Wikipedia talk pages they have found signals for status differences between groups of participants, notably between admins and ordinary contributors. Those findings support in general the theories of the researchers about status differences and communication style differences between managers and employees in firms. They have also found differences in communication style bases on gender, which also support their general theories about gender (which is a social construct). What I - as a Wikipedian insider - finds missing in the article is the selection bias. Wikipedia admins aren't appointed by Jimmy Wales or some other body. Admins are community selected. The exact process differs per language version. On the English Wikipedia admin selection is by a community consensus process. Future admins are selected who show the preferred communication style of admins by other contributors including existing admins. For me, the patterns in communication style do not explain the gender gap on Wikipedia. There is a gender gap in many language versions of Wikipedia, but not in all. The Armenian language version of Wikipedia is a notable exception, showing a gender balance in the conbtributor base. An explanation of that exemption requires further research. What taylor_cole notes about neutrality and bias is a valid point. People volunteer to write for Wikipedia, and volunteer in topic choice. My guess is that in general people will opt to write about something they like, care about, know about. A lack of diversity in contributors will naturally reflect in lack of diversity of topics. For example nerdy males will write about things male nerds like. In general females tend to be interested in other topics than nerdy males. A lack of topics covered in Wikipe

Levels of participation influences emotional expression and phrasing? has the function of sex and status of the taxpayer. 4 strands to study and find a result! Interesting!

"Progress has been made toward making academic research, knowledge, and resources accessible to the broader public. This is a great cause. It is certainly a matter of justice and equality. Ironically, a number of scholars - particularly those from marginalized communities themselves (women, people of color, LGBT people) - cannot or are hesitant to participate in the move toward open access. However, many scholars, particularly marginalized scholars, participate in a different form of open scholarship: intellectual activism. "

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.

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

This article is interesting in that it introduces (although repurposes an existing term) the concept of participatory surveillance in the digital age as something a little less sinister than what Manzerolle argues against in his paper for the OK MOOC's 3rd module. Instead of seeing the user as a victim of the commodification of social media as Manzerolle suggests, Albrechtslund instead focuses on the fact that people are offering this information freely. Although this was written in 2008, a couple years before Manzerolle, I think these articles really balance each other. Albrechtslund focuses on the complexities of having a digital identity in a physical world and light-heartedly refers to surveillance as something users are aware of as they participate. Are users also aware of the commodification of their participation? I think many are, and for now users are ok with it. I appreciated Manzerolle's mention of options like Diaspora, which I think as a concept could play an important part of negotiating the tension between data ownership and digital social participation.

I think these types of discussion of the implications of privacy and surveillance need a full module--in each module i keep thinking its something we need to consider. here is a more light hearted take from the humorous news website the Onion: http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

This reminds me of a point made in Yevgeny Morozov's illustration video -- that dictatorial governments don't necessarily have to torture people to get information; they can simply follow Tweets and Facebook status updates. In the case of Rwanda, American religious social media is painting a picture of the Paul Kagame government that is at odds with what many dissidents in that country report. I agree with koobredaer -- a module on privacy and surveillance would be valuable.

Great idea and a bold vision. And there is a way to participate for individuals and groups.

Participatory media may still have a ways to go if the 1% rule is correct. That rules says that the consumption of online media runs along these lines 90% passive consumers, 9% participants; 1% initiators. This article provides three takes on the accuracy and relevancy of the 1% rule and provides a long list of resources to learn more.

As a rough guide this will apply to OKMOOC students as well. Two of the course instructors will be the most active on the Google+ group, Twitter and Diigo. The big question is not who will be the top creator in the class, but who can effectively transform ideas gained and relations builded in new productive and profitable off line activities. Studies show that out of 100 MOOC students eventually 2 will finish the course with credit.

Mark Thorley (Conventry University): Participatory music culture: the challenges for identity, creativity and recognition The advent of recording technology served to break down the link between musician and audience (Eisenberg 2005), and the music participant became the music consumer. Emerging digital technologies are now reversing this trend and music participation is all the more possible.

"The Web Literacy Map is a map of competencies and skills that Mozilla and our community of stakeholders believe are important to pay attention to when getting better at reading, writing and participating on the web."

This is terrific. As someone who works in, on and around the web, a list like this makes it easier for me to describe to clients, colleagues and vendors just what it is I can do.

Thanks for pointing to this useful resource, could use it both for teaching and evaluation, and for finding gaps in my own web literacy skills

Research often involves teams of scientists collaborating across continents. Now, using the power of the Internet, non-specialists are participating, too. Citizen Science falls into many categories. A pioneering project was SETI@Home, which has harnessed the idle computing time of millions of participants in the search for extraterrestrial life.

This blog about Open Data Developments in Asia analyses the recent state of Open Data adopted in Asia and highlights some of the 11 Asian countries participants that attended the Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva in 2012. Of the 11 countries that attended the conference, the author of the post focuses on the East Asian and Pacific countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and discusses their state and role in Openness. The author does a good job at providing statistics of the different countries in terms of the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), which analyzes the economic rankings of countries. The author then compares economic rank to that of openness, stating that countries low on the economic rank contribute little to no open data within their own countries or externally to other countries. Next, the author talks about the overall internet penetration in Asia as being only 27.5 percent and in that statistic, there is still a wide gap between North and South East Asia in terms of internet use and information distribution and acquisition from citizens and others. Moreover, the author continues to compare how many social, economical, political and cultural influence information distribution, contribution and acquisition in Asia countries. Openness is growing in the more developed Asian countries, but openness is limited, or even nonexistent, in developing (authoritative) countries. After reading this article, I've had a greater understanding of the current state of Open Data in Asia an the influences that contribute to enabling Openness. What I expected from the blog post or something that would've made the post even better could be some examples or projects of Openness or Open Data in Asia.

The Open Education is one of the most discussed topics on education internationally today. Can be defined as open education practices that characterize the opening of access to knowledge, ways of learning, learning technologies, educational systems, models of educational management, leadership and certification. Integral part of the Open Education are OER (Open Educational Resources), materials of teaching, learning and research, in any format or media, licensed to allow their reuse, adaptation and sharing by others. Since 2006 ABED disseminates OER and Open Education. Prof. Fredric Litto in 2006 wrote about open content and in 2009, the publication of the book 'Distance Education: State of the Art vol.1', ABED - Pearson Education, which won the Premio Tortoise brought the seventh of chapters on concept of openness in ODL open University of Brazil, REA, learning through virtual and digital libraries and digital repositories and virtual, written by Andreia inamorato dos Santos, Ronaldo Mota, Fredric Litto, Ana Paula Leite de Camargo and Ana Cristina Birth , respectively. Since then, in Brazil, have sprouted traces of a theme that would be provided shortly international prominence - Open Education. To expand the discussion of the topic in Brazil and international trends, ABED creates workgroup ABED OPEN. Coordinator for the group, ABED invited Dr. Andreia inamorato, international researcher in the field of open education, OER and ODL. "The group intends to involve the participation of teachers of basic and higher education, researchers, students, educational administrators, publishers, departments of education, nonprofits and private institutions," says Andrea. "The goal is to have the collective and representative participation of various social actors to be a working group with legitimacy, representativeness and goals, and can promote discussions on educational priorities in Brazil with respect to open education", says the researcher.

A description of the future of libraries being makerspaces - centres of production as well as consumption.

Gracias por compartirlo, esta nueva tendencia de la BIblioteca como espacios de creación y producción es muy enriquecedora.

This video shows the possibilities for libraries: Encouraging users to create content in addition to absorbing it. Melanie Florencio provided excellent exemplars, spanning generations (the old and the young) and showing that all can participate.