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I think more and more people are leaving the real world and going to the World Wide Web

Aunque un tema de equidad es el diseño e implementación de iniciativas de OA que den voz a los participantes del "Sur", nosotros que habitamos el "Sur" deberemos mantenernos al tanto de los desarrollos y posibilidades originadas en el norte

En México el acceso al conocimiento, sea acceso libre o pagado, depende en gran medida del uso de la lengua inglesa. Los planes de estudio de las licenciaturas suelen incluir el aprendizaje del idioma inglés, lo que demuestra su orientación global en este sentido. Propongo dejar de ver el idioma como una forma neocolonial de dominio, y enfocarlo como una herramienta de empoderamiento.

This is about the inequitable global power and how it dynamics the confronting global knowledge production in nowadays.

Underlying this notion of global knowledge production inequities is how developed countries "The Global North" dominate modern knowledge systems. This hegemonic control of global knowledge, driven by increased globalization, places pressure on virtually all societies to adopt global values and services. While this development does have positive implications (e.g. better understanding of modern health practices, nutrition, environmental protection, governance systems, etc), on the negative side, the imposition of cultural forms from the developing world could be considered a form of political and economic domination. This leads to the increasing homogenization of cultures and a threat to local knowledge, and the exacerbation of local differences and inequalities through uneven access to such knowledge and the means for it's application. The production of knowledge implicates and is implicated in power relations, as those with superior technology cannot only generate but also store, monopolize and disseminate information to safeguard their interests. Foucault (1972) suggests that the relationship between power and knowledge has its origin in the ownership of the means of material production and technical expertise. According to Said (1978), Western powers in a colonial and post-colonial context, using agents in developing countries, have been able to develop elaborate cultural and political institutions where knowledge production exists with supporting mechanisms that dominate and suppress African communities. In a critical examination of development policies and programs in Africa, Okolie (2003) considers these to be shaped by knowledge and assumptions about knowledge production that are primarily Euro-American centered, and are consequently "exclusionary and often contemptuous of other ways of knowing" (Okolie, 2003). The establishment of the continent's universities and research centers was primarily driven by Western powers, and the African elites who h

Brief and interesting survey on who, what and why choose MOOCs. Of the incoming students surveyed, 76% said they signed up because of the topic, 75% because it was free, 61% for professional development, and 44% because they wanted to find out what MOOCs are all about. It turned out that 72% of those who enrolled were themselves professional educators.

A timely article on the Outernet, a service that can broadcast e-books and culled information from the internet to less wealthy nations who do not have access to the internet. A few criticisms of the emerging technology do arise: addressing literacy in less developed locations, questioning whether the information broadcast is information that would be suited for that community, and finally whether there would be a prioritization of information with paid net-connected organizations.

"But what about for the many people in the world that lack internet connectivity? The answer is still yes - at least according to Syed Karim, who explained how at TEDGlobal. The entrepreneur had been invited to the human ingenuity-themed event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to speak about his company, Outernet. The business aims to address the fact that about two-thirds of the world's population still has no internet access."

Thank you for posting this article about Syed Karim's TED talk as I had not seen it before and found it very interesting. With the outernet, I believe people living in places where this is inadequate or no access to the internet will be able to accrue information. However, I still believe more efforts need to be done to expand the web so that all can partake.

El objetivo del presente artículo pretende destacar la importancia de las Redes de Innovación Socio Productiva (RISP) para el fortalecimiento del desarrollo local sostenible, bajo la convicción del papel protagónico que debe asumir el Estado para facilitar el desarrollo y consolidación de éstas.

Este artículo me parece interesante por su punto de vista localista y aunque el estudio tiene ya varios años, espero que siga funcionando. Un saludo Julia Echeverria

"The results further showed that 64.8% of households in South Africa had no access to the Internet. Of those households that had access to the Internet, 16.3% accessed it via cellphone, 8.6% from home, 5.6% from elsewhere and 4.7% from work."

It's unfortunate that South Africa is still plagued by inequality. While it is good that some are accessing the web via mobile, ideally more efforts would be done to create infrastructure to serve entire communities.

El artículo introduce y discute el concepto de Empresas de Servicio Intensivos en Conocimientos; explora la evolución de estas empresas de servicios profesionales, científicos y técnicos en México y examina la importancia de las KIBS, para el crecimiento económico.El análisis de variables socioeconómicas establece que la mayoría de las KIBS en México corresponden a la categoría de KIBS tradicionales

ISKME is non-profit organization pioneering open education initiatives!

"MOOCs offer opportunities but are also pose the danger of further exacerbating existing educational divisions and deepening the homogeneity of global knowledge systems."

Very interesting! Thanks. "MOOCs and MOOC-type courses have added a new dimension to the educational landscape by strengthening the non-formal educational space and providing opportunities to experiment with the disaggregated components of the educational experience"

After watching the Willinsky video, this hit home even more. I think the value of quality education is extremely important, and creating a "global village" of learning is still in its growing pains. Having a face-to-face instructor/professor/facilitator lets you ask the questions that pop to mind and being in a classroom setting allows an idea to flow and develop into other ideas. There are a lot of social media tools that are familiar to a lot of students living in a Western culture, but those social tools are not always available to developing countries; many do not have access to schools or even have a computer - as this article indicates, MOOCs are certainly a venue that opens learning opportunities for those who do not have access to learning in a formal environment, but may have access to the internet. What I particularly found interesting were the various MOOC categories - Gateway: MOOCs for prepping to get into higher learning; Research showcase: promote an institute's research areas; Professional skills: MOOCs for those who need to "upskill" or specialize…and there are others. The main reason for taking this course was to improve my knowledge of what social media is out there (MOOCs are part of it), how it is being used, and how useful is this "new" media is within the publishing realm. It is a challenge.

El curso esta a punto de finalizar. Existe mucha retroalimentación en los post publicados y mucho por aprender.

one solution to help inequality problem?

Good crowd-funding project that tries to help solve the digital divide problem by providing infrastructure to those who lack the money to purchase a computer. In addition to providing the physical infrastructure of the computer to allow those without one to catch up to society, perhaps another solution to conquer the digital divide is to educate those who have just received computers how to use the internet to look for information, consume, produce and distribute the information.

Honestly I think public libraries need WAY more computers.

Beacons are a new type of device that could change the way people shop in stores and revolutionize how retailers collect consumer data and interact with shoppers. Retailers can use beacons to trigger location-based features on customers' smartphone apps, including targeted coupons, store maps, and hands-free payments.

seems like there are some clear privacy issues here but I'm pretty conflicted on the use of these as it is advantageous for all parties when consumers allow businesses to target them more efficiently

This paper throws light on the growth and development of open repositories registered with OpenDOAR database. The study explores various facets of open repositories and tries to present a lucid picture of their overall development. The study provides a detailed description of repositories in terms of continent, country and subject wise distribution. The study further delves deep into the Asian contributions and brings to light detailed profiles of Asia

An investigation into the low levels of published African scholarly research by Emerald. Although this study is from 2008, the findings are still valid even in 2014.

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.