Group items tagged

Interesting article by Cory Doctorow on why the anti-piracy drive is harming the Internet. 

Article wondering about the negative side of Moocs. No great insights though.

Article on demise of Coursera course.

Short, simple article on passwords basically saying same as xkcd.

"Today's XKCD comic inspired this article. It details the rise of Tumblr and the subsequent fall of blogs. That's in terms of simply the popularity of the term as it's used across the web. While not an exact measure of blogging or Tumblr, it's an important turning point in the age of the web."

Thoughtful article by George on the future of education and the role of business, entrepreneurs and innovation.

In growing numbers, scholars are integrating social media tools like blogs, Twitter, and Mendeley into their professional communications. The online, public nature of these tools exposes and reifies scholarly processes once hidden and ephemeral. Metrics based on this activities could inform broader, faster measures of impact, complementing traditional citation metrics. This study explores the properties of these social media-based metrics or "altmetrics," sampling 24,331 articles published by the Public Library of Science.

Guardian Article. "As the demise of the Sopa anti-piracy act showed, established arguments for protecting the rights of content creators are almost impossible to apply to a digital world"

Article on the social aspects and non coding benefits of Git & GitHub.  Record creativity, share OERs etc.

"Late Friday, the federal district court in Nevada issued a declaratory judgment that makes is harder for copyright holders to file lawsuits over excerpts of material and burden online forums and their users with nuisance lawsuits." The judgment - part of the nuisance lawsuit avalanche started by copyright troll Righthaven - found that Democratic Underground did not infringe the copyright in a Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper article when a user of the online political forum posted a five-sentence excerpt, with a link back to the newspaper's website. 

An article on appropriation and copyright that has a long list of comments that are worth reading just to see the ocean of different understandings that exist around the copyright space.

"Here are ten ways literature instructors can use YouTube in class."

Article on the proposed copyright provisions in the TransPacific Partnership which directly affects NZ.

Crotchety article challenging advocates of open publishing, about the cost of storing, managing and distributing digital goods, Annoying tone, but some useful points to consider. "Even beyond just their power requirements, digital goods have particular traits that make them difficult to store effectively, challenging to distribute well, and much more effective when handled by paid professionals."

Article from John Egenes at Otago Uni on remix culture. "The internet and our digital convergence are rapidly transforming long-held views regarding the traditional relationship between performer and audience ("creator" / "consumer"). This change is giving a new voice to the audience, literally bringing them into the mix. With unprecedented access to the creative process, and with an audience for their creations, consumers of music are also its producers, and are reshaping concepts of creativity, individuality, and intellectual property. This paper examines fundamental shifts in the way the "Folk Process" works within this context. Remix culture, once a bastion of beat-driven dance mashups, is expanding to include all styles of music, film, theatre and art. I will argue that its long-term significance lies in the notion that it blurs lines between the traditionally separate roles of creator and consumer, and challenges long-held concepts of intellectual property and copyright. Over the protests of many traditional folk musicians and devotees, folk music is entering this new digital arena, where the Folk Process is changing from gradual to immediate, from slow to rapid, adapting to fit the new digital paradigm."

NY Times article about the University of the People, which offers degress for free. Volunteer lecturers - which makes me wonder how sustainable this is... Also only offers degrees in computing and business administration

Article on how the Finnish Equity not Excellence approach to education actually produces both and makes them a leading education nation.

Article proposing that a revolution is coming to academia because of social media and web technologies. Possibly a rather optimistic view given the attitudes of some academics and institutions...

Blog from libertarian perspective on how to manage the internet - some interesting articles - summaries of recent books etc. Check out Adam Thierer posts.