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OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
May 2, 2008

OLPC's New President and Negroponte: Its a Laptop Project Now
Charles Kane, OLPC's CFO, has been selected to become OLPC's CEO. He echoes the Negroponte refrain that the priority is to get laptops into kids' hands. This, though, is the subject of some bitter recriminations. Vota writes, "The time, effort, energy, and passion of an entire global network of FOSS experts and supporters who have coded and promoted thousands of hours for OLPC, are actually a hindrance to success." Related: Who actually needs Windows on the OLPC - the children? Or government administrators? Wayan Vota, OLPC News, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Networks, Portable Computers] [Comment]

21cLearn: Al Upton Podcast
Al Upton - whose 'Minilegends' website was the subject of controversy recently - presents at this conference in South Australia. Mike Seyfang kindly provides us with a recording, as well as talks by himself, Graham Wegner, Alison Kershaw, and others. Mike Seyfang, Learning with the Fang, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Podcasting, Australia] [Comment]

SWAP and ORE
I've been following this discussion on the mailing list and resisting the temptation to jump into the fray. But I will say, of the Open Archives Initiative, that (a) it's a pain to write code for it, compared to writing harvesters for RSS and Atom, and (b) it seems to be institutionally focused, when most open content initiatives are focused on the author. Do these together account for Google dropping support for OAI? Hard to say - it's Google, there's an all-encompassing plan governing this somewhere. Finally, if you're wondering, here's the link to the Scholarly Works Application Profile (SWAP) and here you'll find OAI's Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE) project. Andy Powell, eFoundations, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Google, Open Content, Content Syndication, RSS, Learning Object Repositories, Project Based Learning] [Comment]

Open Doors and Open Minds: What Faculty Authors Can Do to Ensure Open Access to Their Work Through Their Institution
Stevan Harnad writes, "It is such a pleasure (and relief!) to be able to endorse this paper unreservedly." The paper begins by examining why Harvard adopted an open access policy, then looks at how the same argument can be made, and a campaign launched, to promote open access at other institutions. The author then looks at some license models. The paper is brief, practical, and includes samples of the relevant documentation. See also: Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates: What? Where? When? Why? How? Thinh Nguyen, SPARC, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Open Access] [Comment]

What We Don't Know About Open Access: Research Questions in Need of Researchers
In his always excellent Open Access Newsletter Peter Suber offers researchers dozens of questions that ought to be addressed to fill out our knowledge of the field. Who has access, who doesn't? What are the rates of open access in different countries? How can we document the impact of open access? What percentage of university libraries have negotiated full access privileges for walk-in patrons? And more, maybe a hundred or so. Peter Suber, Open Access Newsletter, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Membership, Research, Open Access] [Comment]

Learning 2.0 Formal Methodologies - More Thoughts
I think the discussion regarding the dimensions of analysis of learning is useful, because (unlike the author) I think these are precisely where old-style (1.0) learning and new-style (2.0) are different. Take, for example, the whole idea of goals and measurements. To measure the 'effectiveness' of learning, we need to be able to measure how far we moved toward our goal. But what about this item, from a few days ago. I worked through the examples without knowing where they would lead me. The author created the examples without knowing how much I already knew. The learning, in this case, was the result of an intersection between the author and myself, more like a conversation than a journey, more like a dance than a destination. Viplav Baxi, Viplav Baxi's Meanderings, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism
Readers unfamiliar with the legacy of logical positivism probably won't get much out of this review, but I find it work linking to here because the topic is, if you will, the 'home field' of my own philosophical thinking. My education in philosophy - especially at Calgary - was very much in the positivist and post-positivist tradition, and so I am very much at home with the works referenced here. Reviewed by Greg Frost-Arnold, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Linking and Deep Linking] [Comment]

SPARC Europe and the Directory of Open Access Journals Announce the Launch of the SPARC Europe Seal for Open Access Journals
"To qualify for the SPARC Europe Seal a journal must use the Creative Commons By (CC-BY) license which is the most user-friendly license and corresponds to the ethos of the Budapest Open Access Initiative." Personally I think that the use of the Creative Commons NC (non-commercial) clause ought also be allowed. Others on the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) list have expressed similar views. Writes Tom Wilson, publisher of Information Research, for example, "The Seal is a useful idea but the present formulation of the requirements leaves a lot to be desired and the notion that only the CC-BY licence fulfils the aims of the Budapest Open Access Initiative does not hold up to analysis." Press Release, Directory of Open Access Journals, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: European Union] [Comment]

Cronies First, Reading Second
Commentary - the nature of which is clear from the headline - regarding the recent report on a study to the effect that the much-touted 'Reading First' program is essentially ineffective. I think that it is an unfortunate sign of the times when researchers come to regard the phrase "evidence based" as code for politically-mandated programs of dubious effectiveness. Yet, that is where we are right now. Assorted Stuff, Tim Stahmer, May 2, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Research] [Comment]

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