Harvard and MIT's Online Education Startup Has a New Way to Make Money
Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, October 27, 2013

This is just a part of EdX's business model, but it's a good part: "From a business standpoint, does it make sense to give [the platform] away [like this]? The answer is yes.” Especially since organizations will then pay you to advise how they should use the platform." What they don't mention in the comparison's with Red Hat is that Red Hat's Enterprise Edition can cost some serious money.

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“I Quit Academia,” an Important, Growing Subgenre of American Essays
Rebecca Schuman, Slate, October 27, 2013

Discussion of Zachary Ernst’s “Why I Jumped Off the Ivory Tower.” It belongs, says this Slate writer, to a "subgenre" of "why I quit" essays. "Academe is a profession full of erudite free-thinkers who feel disillusioned by a toxic labor system in which criticism is not tolerated—so those who leave often relish the newfound ability to say anything they want." What mayes Ernst's essay unique is that he was a tenured professor - and "by the time a professor makes tenure, she has usually been so heavily socialized by the “Total Institution” of the Academy that to leave it would be almost akin to death." There's so much that's good about academic life, but yeah, it has its problems.

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The Decline of Wikipedia
Tom Simonite, MIT Technology Review, October 27, 2013

I have complained about the evolving management structure of Wikipedia in the past, and now it appears these fears are being borne out. "The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage." Obviously this can't continue. “This is very much our attempt to get caught up.” [Sue Gardner] and Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, say the project needs to attract a new crowd to make progress. “The biggest issue is editor diversity,” says Wales. He hopes to “grow the number of editors in topics that need work.”

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The Open Mirror: a feasibility study
Neil Jacobs, Open Mirror, October 27, 2013

Of interest to everyone, I think. "Jisc is conducting a feasibility study into the 'Open Mirror', which would provide access for the world to the open access research outputs from UK researchers. It would be an aggregation of all UK Open Access content, based upon the network of institutional repositories in the UK. It might support better discovery and access, text-mining, business continuity, management information and preservation services."

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Free Textbooks? Not Impossible
Craig Lederhouse, CBC | The Afternoon Edition, October 26, 2013

Saskatchewan CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) coverage of BC Campus. "Some students at the U of S are calling on the school...to provide textbooks for free. Turns out, universities in British Columbia have already been been working on that." Streaming audio radio show.

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Gates Foundation funds new research on MOOCs
Brianna Goldberg, University of Toronto, October 26, 2013

Nice to see the Canadian involvement in the next wave of MOOCs. "Three University of Toronto research teams are among the successful applicants in a competitive grant competition run by Athabasca University and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." One study "will compare the use of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as active, instructor-led, open-facilitated courses with their use as archived, self-directed learning resources." Another will "use survey, clickstream, and assessment outcome data from the MOOCs that have been offered to understand how those dimensions interact." Another recipient is Glasgow Caledonian University's Allison Littlejohn.

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