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"Yes, government financing supported much of the early research, and private corporations enhanced and commercialized the platforms. But the institutions responsible for the technology itself were neither governments nor private start-ups. They were much closer to the loose, collaborative organizations of academic research. They were networks of peers."

On Saturday U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) spoke at Podcamp East in Wilmington, Del. The fact that he is one of the few elected members of Congress that not only "has" social media but uses it made him the perfect candidate to talk to a completely engaged and social audience about the use of social media in the political and government sphere.

"Who created the Internet and why should we care? These questions, so often raised during the Bush-Gore election in 2000, have found their way back into the political debate this season - starting with one of the most cited texts of the preconvention campaign, Obama's so-called "you didn't build that" speech. "The Internet didn't get invented on its own," Obama argued, in the lines that followed his supposed gaffe. "Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet." In other words: business uses the Internet, but government made it happen."

We're speaking over the same overtaxed cellular networks that he hopes will enable Datawind to educate every schoolchild in India through the world's cheapest functional tablet computer. But it's a losing battle, as his connection to one of the 13 separate cell carriers in Mumbai buckles under too much competing traffic. He has to repeat himself when he tells me the ultimate price university students will pay for his tablet, after half its cost has been subsidized by the Indian government. It's $20. In India, that's a quarter the cost of competing tablets with identical specifications. Similar tablets in China, the world champion in low-cost components and manufacturing, go for $45 and up, wholesale. Which means the Aakash 2 isn't just the cheapest fully functional tablet PC on the planet because the Indian government has decided it should be-it's the cheapest, period.

Education Governance

The open-source world has learned to deal with a flood of new, oftentimes divergent, ideas using hosting services like GitHub -- so why can't governments? In this rousing talk Clay Shirky shows how democracies can take a lesson from the Internet, to be not just transparent but also to draw on the knowledge of all their citizens.

"ReCon is designed to raise and discuss current issues to do with research communication in academia and beyond. These issues range from the use of metrics for evaluating research, access to publications, how to share and store data, government policy to how this affects careers and incentives for researchers. ReCon includes speakers from government agencies, academics, publishers, people working in outreach and founders of startups working in the research space."

"We urge the US to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight."

"Decisions are only as good as the implementation that results. Marketing isn't a plan, it's a system of feedback loops from the market that need to be adjusted in real-time. It's one thing for politicians to sign a bill into law, but another to ensure that the bill's intentions are actually encoded into the software that powers government."

Colleges are raising tuition and fees every year, at a rate of increase that far outpaces any reasonable expectation. One might think this is the kind of thing that couldn't continue forever, but that's precisely what has been happening over the past several decades. Prices have gone up, and buyers have poured in anyway, buoyed by a flood of seemingly cheap government money in the form of student loans. As with any bubble, there are doomsayers who are mostly ignored and cheerleaders who say that this time it's different. But-as with any bubble-reality is starting to intrude.

"Postsecondary students in British Columbia may get a bit of a break when it comes time to buy their textbooks this fall. In the first move of its kind in Canada, the B.C. government said it will make available up to 20 free and open online textbooks for some of the most popular first- and second-year university and college courses. There's no guarantee that faculty will choose to assign the new textbooks, but proponents of the project are hoping that rigorous quality control measures and a little nudging from students will win them over. The textbooks also will be available to institutions, faculty and students across Canada to use at no charge."

Yes, I see that it is Canada, once again, leading the way.... :) If enough faculty adopt open online textbooks a new norm will be achieved! Of course, the quality must be equivalent....or, perhaps, better.

The state of Washington did it first. The Pacific North West leads the way.

In 2010, Roberts was a graduate student working for the federal government while teaching introductory psychology at night. He didn't set aside a summer, a month or a few weeks to prepare his book - he created it on a week-by-week basis, often putting sections together late at night or early in the morning. Roberts, who provides his book free of charge to the university's PSYC 100: Introduction to Psychology classes, is part of a national growing open educational resources movement. These resources are published under a Creative Commons license, which allows for free use and sometimes editing, much like Wikipedia. Roberts' psychology textbook draws from free online information, videos and graphics.

"The university's Arts & Sciences Council, the governing arm of the undergraduate faculty, voted down a proposal to join a consortium of top colleges offering for-credit online courses through 2U, a company that specializes in real-time, small-format online education."

"Although it's not getting enough attention, Open SUNY will have an outsized impact on the future of online education in the US. State-wide initiatives, whether driven by the systems or the state government, are becoming one of the biggest factors in how higher education is changing in the US. I suspect that other states will be watching SUNY and adopting this model in part or in whole."

"Google announced that you can now add up to 15 people to a Google+ Hangout if you are business, government or school using Google Apps with Google+."

This is great I wanted to use it for the class I am teaching but we have 14 students. Now I can use it... Thanks for up-date.

"As Hurricane Sandy bears down on the east coast of the U.S., here's a roundup of accounts suggested by local and state government officials you can follow to get real-time emergency information, plus tips for using Twitter during a crisis."

Open access as the default sounds ambitious, but is consistent with recent trends, particularly for research funded by taxpayers. A growing number of governments and funding agencies have already embraced mandatory open access requirements, recognizing that if the public funds the research, it is entitled to access the results.

"For the fiscal year 2017 budget, the U.S. Department of Education (Education) estimates that all federally issued Direct Loans in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans will have government costs of $74 billion, higher than previous budget estimates. IDR plans are designed to help ease student debt burden by setting loan payments as a percentage of borrower income, extending repayment periods from the standard 10 years to up to 25 years, and forgiving remaining balances at the end of that period. While actual costs cannot be known until borrowers repay their loans, GAO found that current IDR plan budget estimates are more than double what was originally expected for loans made in fiscal years 2009 through 2016 (the only years for which original estimates are available). This growth is largely due to the rising volume of loans in IDR plans."

"the reports really show that the shift to a contingent academic work force was motivated by economic (and, I would argue, political) concerns -- disempowering the faculty by making them economically precarious of course reduces their influence and weakens shared governance, giving administrators more power."

"Colon's legitimate expectation of privacy ended when he disseminated posts to his 'friends' because those 'friends' were free to use the information however they wanted -- including sharing it with the government," the judge wrote.