Towards a theory or model of productivity for online learning: outcomes, scale and design
Tony Bates, online learning, distance education resources, September 6, 2013

Tony Bates offers a deeper look into the task of evaluating outcomes on online learning, based on commentary from Max Blouw and an HEQCO report and blog posts from Tom Carey. There's a lot here, a lot that's right and with which I'm in agreement, but also room for questions. While I can't offer a full criticism, but let's look at the starting point offered by Blouw and accepted by Bates:

"Universities are primarily in the business of positive human development. They focus on enhancing the abilities of our graduates to communicate clearly and effectively, to analyze, to confront ambiguity with clear methods and confidence, to break down problems into manageable parts, to think critically and to question deeply."

Now my concern isn't that this is false so much as incomplete. Because if this is what universities do, one might ask, then why do they have different departments and facilities and programs of study? What seems to characterize a university is diversity and yet here we have the mission of a university wrapped up in one neat box. Why is this important? Because the rest of Bates's post looks at the 'best way' to implement this objective. There's a universality throughout - one objective, one best way, one theory - which is why we see Bates saying (for example) that we can draw from Rumbles' writings on print, television and video-cassettes to talk about scaling learning online.

Because - you see - it's not about what university's objectives are - it's about what the student's objectives are (and those of the wider community, which would like to access education, but can't). You can't wrap those all up into a simple statement, and so you can't simply draw from theory developed and applied in the 1980s. Just as (as Bates very correctly says) you can't create an effective MOOC by recreating classrooms and lectures online.

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The business of textbooks or why do students prefer print?
Clint Lalonde, ClintLalonde.net, September 6, 2013

Students prefer print. We hear that a lot, especially from the Chronicle of Higher Education, and we hear all sorts of explanations, for example, they light the feel of a book, etc. But as Clint Lalonde says, "we are missing out on an equal, if not more, important factor biasing student format preference. Economics." Generally, it's cheaper for a student to buy a book and sell it back. Considering that students have to pay for their own readers and internet access off-campus eBooks have done nearly enough to become competitive. Of course, they're offered by publishers - why would they? But, "offer a free and open text and then it is a vastly different story – students will choose the free and open electronic version of a textbook over low cost printed version." That's the end-game, of course, and while publishers (and the Chronicle) may drag their feet, we know where this is going.

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FC4: Persona Questions
Tim Bray, Ongoing, September 6, 2013

YesterdayI talked about the end of MyOpenID and the migration toward Facebook Connect and similar federated identification systems. In this post Tim Bray looks at Mozilla's approach to the problem, which is essentially a type of browser-based authentication. The Mozilla system is called Persona, and Bray compares it with currently extant OAuth-2-based OpenID Connect protocol, or “OIDC” for short. It's a pretty technical post and if you're not implementing these specifications you might not get a lot out of it. But the main point here is that authentication is a moving target - sure, we're all signing on with Facebook Connect now, but that's likely to change.

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ALT-C 2013 Learning in the Open
Jenny Mackness, Jenny, September 6, 2013

I set out shortly for Britain, where I will be the closing keynote at ALT-C in Nottingham. Generally I am not invited a second time to conferences, but I spoke there previously in 2005, so either ALT has made a horrible mistake, or is ahead of the crowd in inviting me to a second round. But my point here is to note the comparison between the Alt-C site of 2005 and the masterwork that has been prepared for 2013. The new platform incorporates and links social media quite impressively and apparently seamlessly such that if you register your blog (as I have this) and use the #altc2013 tag in your post you should be picked up by the conference feed - some nice work powered by WordPress and BuddyPress and some very qualified technicians (stand up, take a bow). Many of my colleagues and friends will also be there, including Jenny Mackness who will be talking about (as the title suggests) 'learning in the open'. And I definitely want to see Martin Hawksey on making the backend of a MOOC with Wordpress.

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