Group items tagged

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.

Ranking digital rights, human rights resources.

"the data lead us to argue that any journal rank (not only the currently-favored Impact Factor) would have this negative impact. Therefore, we suggest that abandoning journals altogether, in favor of a library-based scholarly communication system, will ultimately be necessary. This new system will use modern information technology to vastly improve the filter, sort and discovery functions of the current journal system."

Talk about an ambitious suggestion! As we've talked about this in class, I'm not surprised to find scientific research that impact factor is bad scientific (not to mention business) practice. I'm also very interested in this idea of alternative scholarly communication systems; and if libraries are to play a central role, I have to assume that projects like institutional repositories would play an enormous part in this new system. I wonder what this suggests about altmetrics, though? Are we just putting a band-aid on a deep wound, and treating the symptom instead of the disease?

Why it "works" Network Effect Wikipedia benefits tremendously from the network effect. The network effect is when a user of a product benefits more from a product if other people also use the product. Telephones are a textbook example. If only a few dozen consumers have telephones, then the telephones aren't very useful. But if millions of consumers have telephones, they become more useful since each telephone owner can contact many people. The large number of Wikipedia users benefits Wikipedia. First, the more editors there are, the the higher the accuracy and quality of the articles. Secondly, it gives an incentive to users to edit. Since editors know the each article will be read by thousands of users, the sheer influence of each article is a strong enough incentive to edit, even though Wikipedia is free. Openness Wikipedia is free and open for any user to edit, even anonymously. This means there is a very large number of editors. This helps Wikipedia ensure accuracy since each mistake and inaccuracy will have to get by hundreds of editors. With so many writers, the scope of Wikipedia articles is very large, minimizing the amount of missing information. Although the openness of Wikipedia provides a powerful self-correcting method, it also makes Wikipedia vulnerable to vandalism. In addition, editors are anonymous and may have a conflict of interest, or might have inadequate knowledge of the article's subject. Yet, because Wikipedia is open to any edits, it is also likely to be corrected. It operates by a system of checks and balances from many editors. However, it has some guidelines to protect it against misinformation and bias: 1. Verifiability principle. To prevent bias and to protect the encyclopedic quality of its articles, all edits on Wikipedia must in theory be a verifiable fact. Moreover, it must have a reliable source to verify each fact. 2. No Original Research. As an encyclopedia, it is mean to be a secondary source of infor

Scientific journals are surely important. They provide the most effective means for disseminating and archiving scientific results, and so are a key part of an enterprise on which our health, security, and prosperity ultimately depend. Publications are used by universities, funding agencies, and others as a primary measure of research productivity and impact. They play a decisive role in hiring, promotion, and salary decisions, and in the ranking of departments, institutions, even nations. With big rewards tied to publication, it is not surprising that some people engage in unethical behavior, abuse, and downright fraud.

You can help proof read pages for the digital upload of public domain books!!

To determine the ranking we count the times each file gets downloaded. Both HTTP and FTP transfers are counted. Only transfers from ibiblio.org are counted as we have no access to our mirrors log files. Multiple downloads from the same IP address on the same day count as one download.

Kay, R., Lauriclla, S. (2011). Exploring the Benefits and Challenges of Using Laptop Computers in Higher Education Classrooms: A Formative Analysis. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. 37:1

a. Laptops and mobile devices are ubiquitous in todays classrooms as students are digital natives. Because of decreasing prices of technology over the past few decades, an overwhelming majority of the university students surveyed own a laptop (87%). Because of this quick onset of technological adoption, culture has lagged, in terms of re-defining the social institutions that such mobile and computer technologies affect. According to this analysis, students feel that the use of a laptop helps in aiding studies, is useful for gathering course and supplementary materials and engaging in peer collaboration. Several challenges have been noted: communication based challenges, relating to social media, email and messaging services; and entertainment based challenges, relating to media consumption. These challenges serve as potential sources of distraction for the student using the technology and others. In their findings, 16% of students reported being distracted by pornography during class, on their own or others' computer screens, which ranked higher than computer games, at 1%. The authors conclude that the benefits of laptop use in class outweigh the challenges 2:1. Possibly, if the functionality of student laptops are integrated into course curriculum further, students can benefit from further peer collaboration, increased academic benefit and decreased distractions.

There is no dumbing down with a professor's Caltech Parallel Session - how do campus and online students feel about the shared course? When a professor at the world's number one university (according to Times Higher Education's World University Rankings) set out to produce a massive open online course, he was keen to create "an honest replica of the campus version".

Wikipedia provides Internet users with millions of articles on a broad range of topics, and commonly ranks first in search engines. But its reliability and credibility fall well short of the standards for a school paper.

Me parece que wikipedia sigue siendo un recurso de importancia, y los diez puntos por los que no habria que utilizar o citar Wikipedia, pueden transformarse ne los diez puntos a considerar al consultar y citar Wikipedia. Escritores de la talla de Gabriel Zaid la usan extensivamente y aparece citada en sus artículos y ensayes, sobre todo en Letras Libres; de modo que la vigilancia heurística debería permitirnos usar este recurso.

However, it offers a valuable starting point from which students can go from understanding the topic, to thoroughly researching it in primary sources.