As much as I'm concerned with the publishers' actions, what this article suggests about scientists' deceptive practices is even more worrying to me. There's definitely something wrong when the drive to get published trumps ethical research and writing norms.

Great topic--I'm analyzing a different EdX site for a research project, so I've been thinking about this a bit. A) I like how the discussion board can be tiered (can't remember the technical word) so responses are below what they are commenting on (I've used other platforms where everything is in a same-level list and it's impossible to see how conversations develop). I also like that it's possible to "follow" a discussion so you get update emails when someone else comments on a post. Another nice feature is if you go into the discussion board from a link in an instructional module, you see just the posts that are related to that module. B) As Letty noted, what really bugs me is that if you go in through the main link, however, the posts are chronological and completely unrelated. It's impossible to search, so you have to scroll through for pages if you're looking for a specific post. The only way I've been able to even find my own past posts is to post something new and click on my name to get to a list of my previous posts--and EdX only lets me see the most recent 10 or so (older posts can only be found by scrolling through the entire discussion board...). C) I would like to see an improved search capacity, so you can search by keyword, user, or maybe also by course module from where the post was originally created.

This site brings the concept of participatory culture to teacher professional development. I see it as an aspect of citizen activism because it is essentially taking the old idea of "professional development" (US teachers are probably all too familiar with sitting in a room while someone from a publisher makes them go page by page through a binder of photocopiable worksheets) and turns it on its head. #2minpd is teachers creating the professional development and sharing it in a format that does not demean participants.

To watch the actual videos, go to YouTube and search for the project name (#2minpd).

I'm actively avoiding Twitter because I just can't manage one more form of social media. I've seen it used in impressive ways at conferences, but in general I don't want to bother.

I found this one on Facebook today. It's an impressive project to show how social media can be used to manipulate one's digital identity.

This research study was an eye-opener for me. Until this point, I was completely unaware of these journal practices, although I had received several emails from journals I had never heard of wanting to publish papers based on conference presentations.

This list is not to be taken at face value (many of the publishers on it do have legitimate journals), but it serves as a reminder that there are many predatory journals that ask scholars to pay a lot of money to share their work, and many that also skirt traditional peer review processes in order to get money from unwary authors.