Does job success depend on data rather than your CV?
Matthew Wall, 2014/10/02

I have written recently about alternative modes of assessments and credentials. This story feeds intot hat trend. "A number of firms are moving beyond automatic keyword matching to find 'suitable' candidates... for example, recruitment technology firm Electronic Insight doesn't even bother to look at your skills and experience when analysing CVs on behalf of clients. 'We just look at what people write and how they structure their sentences,' says Marc Mapes, the firm's chief innovation officer."

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Tech Advances Fuel LMS Identity Crisis
Benjamin Herold, 2014/10/02

Things are getting confusing again. "A slew of vendors—many of which eschew the 'learning management system' moniker altogether in favor of terms such as 'virtual learning platform'—are competing aggressively to establish their software as the best available tool to help schools offer more-personalized instruction."

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College is ripping you off: Students are cash cows, and schools the predators
Thomas Frank, 2014/10/02

Another in the ongoing series of articles ripping into the college and university business model. "One day we wake up to discover there is no Santa Claus. Somehow, we have been had. We are a hundred thousand dollars in debt, and there is no clear way to escape it. We have no prospects to speak of. And if those damned dreams of ours happened to have taken a particularly fantastic turn and urged us to get a PhD, then the learning really begins. Meanwhile, the last of the German tuition fees are being abolished, ending an experiment in social injustice that began a number of years ago. And a study that shows "even relative low levels of tuition fees of around 1,000 euros per year are likely to deter students from lower socio-economic backgrounds from studying."

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The myths about Canada’s skills gap
Chris Sorensen, 2014/10/02

Reasonably coherent article about the skills shortage in Canada. Here's the first major data point: “There are increasing calls by employers for educators to do more job-ready training. But these calls have been increasing at the same time employers’ spending on training has been dropping.” Why would this be? "A sort of workplace prisoner’s dilemma: Why spend thousands improving an employee’s skills only to have him or her poached by a hungry competitor?" That's why our focus is on personal learning, while looking for industry support. By creating a learning network we avoid the prisoner's dilemma, thereby creating a means whereby employers can invest in training, not simply as an on-the-job tool, but also as a recruiting tool.

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The Great British Bake Off copyright grab: We can use your #ExtraSlice Twitter images but not give you credit
Paul Bradshaw, 2014/10/02

It's almost certainly not legal, but who is going to stop them? In case you haven't seen it (and you almost certainly haven't), here are the terms posted on the BBC TV show An Extra Slice website: "By submitting a photograph or other material ("Material") to twitter.com and instagram.com using #ExtraSlice, you grant to Love Productions Ltd ("we/us") the right to edit, modify, adapt, translate, exhibit, transmit, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute and otherwise use the Material, at no charge and in any medium for the purpose of the full period of copyright and therefore insofar as possible, in perpetuity (the "Rights") and for such purpose you agree to waive irrevocably all moral rights of whatever nature in the Material." I'd like to do the same thing to hashtags of my choosing. Like, say, #BBC.

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The ABC of Hand Tools (1945)
Disney, 2014/10/02

Disney produced training video for GM about proper use of hand tools in 1945. Because educational technology wasn't invented in 1995. Via Metafilter.

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