A brief overview of the InLOC Model
Simon Grant, CEN Workshop on Learning Technologies, October 4, 2013

InLOC - the Information Model for Learning Outcomes and Competences - "provides a model for the information defining both intended Learning outcomes and Work competences (LOCs). That information is important to personal, professional and vocational development, human resources and employee performance management, training and education, whether in the workplace or in school, vocational or higher education." It began as an XML specification but is now also looking at JSON implementation. The idea is that competencies can be described and stacked to form broad-based competencies. It was "funded by the ICT Standardisation Work Programme of the European Commission's DG Enterprise and Industry, and managed by the CEN Workshop on Learning Technologies."

[Link] [Comment]

Global Patent Map Reveals the Structure of Technological Progress
Unattributed, MIT Technology Review, October 4, 2013

Leaving aside the dubious claim that patent applications equal "tennological progress", the map revealed in this analysis of patent citations is nonetheless interesting, revealing a now-familiar network structure across disciplines. "These databases are organised rather like the Yahoo directory from the 1990s– in a predefined hierarchy of topics. That certainly helps when it comes to filing patents under specific categories but it also obscures the deeper relationship between various new technologies as they emerge." The article goes on to suggest that a page-link type algorithm could determine the relative importance of individual patents. Here's the full paper (26 page PDF).

[Link] [Comment]

MOOCs take off in Rwanda: Accreditation, sustainability and quality issues
Bernard Nkuyubwatsi, Institute of Learning Innovation Blog, October 4, 2013

Bernard Nkuyubwatsi reports that he has been "following closely the MOOC initiative by Generation Rwanda and its Kepler initiative (Leber 2013, Bartholet 2013 and O’Neil 2013)." The post reviews some of the questions about MOOCs raised in the articles: will the credentials be accepted by employers, will non-native English speakers be able to follow the discourse, will education offered in Rwanda be of a lower quality? "Maybe," he writes, "people can innovate new models to include the 2,646 who were not admitted in the Kepler and Generation Rwanda MOOC initiative." That would be good to see.

[Link] [Comment]

On the Three or Four Problems of Connectivism
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, October 4, 2013

George Siemens sent me a copy of a paper by Marc Clarà and Elena Barberà called Three problems with the connectivist conception of learning (it's behind a paywall, sorry). The same authors made the same argument against connectivism in an earlier paper, Learning online (which you can view online). And while Matthias Melcher was good enough to point out some of the problems with the former paper, I felt the argument as a whole merited a response. So yesterday afternoon I posted this article addressing their criticisms. Enjoy.

[Link] [Comment]

Fall Semester OER Projects with Lumen Learning Yield $700,000 in Textbook Cost Savings for Students
Press Release, Lumen Learning, October 4, 2013

David Wiley's second attempt at open online publishing is beginning to help students. According to a press release issued today, "Twenty institutions have partnered with Lumen to offer open content options for high demand, high enrollment courses that serve more than 6,000 students in total.  Because these students are no longer required to purchase commercial textbooks or course materials, cost savings are estimated at approximately $700,000." The business plan is to offer additional support for OERs through Candela Learning: "Candela OER Services from Lumen Learning provide technical, pedagogical and other support for Lumen's Open Courses." See also: David Wiley's blog post on the announcement.

[Link] [Comment]