OLDaily

Envisioning a regional Open Badges ecosystem in Ontario
Don Presant, Open Badge Factory, 2017/09/29

There isn't a lot of detail in this article, but it's interesting to me because it represents the coming together of two strands in the Canadian online learning ecosphere (and specifically, Don Presant and David Porter, via CanCred.ca (Canada’s Open Badges Solution) and eCampusOntario respectively). "The overall goal of these action-based pilot explorations is to generate a diverse collection of case studies based on hands-on experience in designing and using Open Badge systems. These case studies will be used to inform future decision-making around potential shared services for open badges that will benefit Ontario’s post-secondary environment."

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Construction of Modern Educational Technology MOOC Platform Based on Courseware Resource Storage System
Jing Li, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 2017/09/29

This paper (12 page PDF) is pretty loosely written but it within its evaluation of an open online course using a resourcwe storage system it offers a novel interpretation of connectivism to frame an evaluation of this system (and/or to evaluate the students using the system). "Connectivism can be understood in this way: the rapid change of knowledge foundation leads to decision change; the new information is gained continuously; the ability to distinguish important information and non-important information is crucial." The course was actually offered as blended learning, and was evaluated according to five criteria: participation, interaction, fitness, satisfaction and effect. The descriptions of each are unfortunately not very clear. Also worth noting is the conclusion that the blended learning environment did not support interaction very well. This accords with my own experience, specifically, that there is often better (and more) interaction online than in person.

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Facebook will allow news subscriptions on Instant Articles
Saqib Shah, Engadget, 2017/09/29

The success of future Facebook paid content initiatives will depend to a degree on the success of this plan. It's a part of the general trend where social network services are trying to use their platform to sell subscription-based content. Perhaps the most significant to date is LinkedIn, which sells online courses through Lynda. But we can imagine Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon and the rest to sell learning content, news content, and other content, through their platforms. But not all news outlets are participating - they want to market content directly to readers. 

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G7 Science Ministers' Communiqué
2017/09/29

Some good stuff in this statement from the G7 science ministers: "We affirm the principle that efforts should be directed to promote a widespread participation of researchers in the network of global research infrastructures, taking account of the opportunities offered by open science paradigms." Also: "We believe that researchers should be encouraged and supported to carry out this dialogue with society on a permanent basis, taking care to involve them from the start of the technology development pipeline." Just consider this newsletter my early contribution to this effort. :) See also Richard Ackerman in Science Library Pad.

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