OLDaily

The RISE Package for R: Reducing Time Through the OER Continuous Improvement Cycle
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, 2018/07/24

David Wiley's vision of open educational resources (OER) and mine continue to diverge. That's not a bad thing; it makes sense to explore different approaches. Just so, Wiley takes a production-oriented approach to OER: "When OER and learning analytics are used together, it becomes possible to engage in continuous improvement – empirically identifying weaknesses in OER, making improvements to those OER that need to be improved, and starting the cycle again." In support of this idea, he recently announced something called the RISE framework to find "which OER (out of thousands) are most in need of improvement." And in this post he announces a new open source R package that implements this framework.

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An IndieWeb Magazine on Flipboard
Chris Aldrich, 2018/07/24

I don't think much of FlipBoard because, as Chris Aldrich  says, it's just another silo. I nonetheless think it's a good idea to make indieweb more accessible to people, which this initiative does. I was also interested in the discussion of how to contribute to the IndieWeb Magazine on Flipboard, which you can do with its Social Networks Auto Poster (SNAP) system. It's not trivial, as it involves setting up a FlipBoard app in your WorkPress or Twitter or LinkedIn (or whatever) account. What would be really useful would be a SNAP application that allowed you to send from your social media account to any content service you want, not just FlipBoard. I haven't seen one yet.

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Google launches a DRM-free audiobook store
Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, 2018/07/24

There's no reason why audiobooks should be loaded with digital rights management (DRM) technology long after we've seen the success of both music and video distribution in open MP3 and MP4 formats. But as Cory Doctorow notes, Audible, which was acquired by Amazon a couple of years ago, controls more than 90% of the audiobook market. So despite promises to the contrary, neither it nor Amazon have made any move to open up the eBook market. This makes Google's announcement of a DRM-free audiobook store great news. Now you'll be able to play them on any device, and on any player, rather than be captive inside a proprietary Audible-Amazon setup.

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YouTube's latest initiative aims to foster educational content
Mark Satter, EdScoop, 2018/07/24

This is maximum praise for what I think is really minimal effort. Referencing last Friday's blog post by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the article states "YouTube Learning will provide grants and promotion for education-focused content, expert organizations and learners." But this effort pales in comparison to the ways YouTube is helping people make money, for example, through channel memberships, merch, and famebit. I also have my doubts that the funding will ever reach actual practitioners; most of it will go to the usual suspects already getting money from Hewlett, Gates, and the rest of them.

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A wake for half the Daily News
Amanda Darrach, Columbia Journalism Review, 2018/07/24

This is the future for education as well, especially higher education. I know nobody thinks that teachers and professors will never be laid off en masse, but that's what they thought about journalists a decade ago. Yes, education is important. Yes, the news is important. Information in general is important. But people (individuals, societies, governments) don't want to pay for it the way they have been paying for it (nor as much). Partially this reflects (and results in) the erosion of democracy. But mostly it reflects the indifference of both industries over the years to cost, convenience and effectiveness.

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Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Facebook Launch Open Source Initiative: “Data Transfer Project”
Adarsh Verma, Fossbytes, 2018/07/24

This could be really important or it could be nothing. According to this article, "Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Twitter have partnered and launched Data Transfer Project (DTP). The companies call it an 'open-source, service-to-service data portability platform' that aims to let you move your data from one platform to the other with ease." The most important thing is that "as it’s an open source initiative (here’s the GitHub Code), the tech giants expect other participants to join the platform and enhance data portability." See also "a research paper which describes that DTP will support existing standards like REST and OAuth." Here's the Google blog post about it. Microsoft's blog post. More coverage: Dark Reading, MarTech Today, Jaxenter, Computer Weekly, ZDNet, The Verge, ITWorld Canada.

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Mandatory keys cut successful phishing attacks on Google to zero
Mariella Moon, Engadget, 2018/07/24

The future of authentication probably involved physical computer keys for everyone (which is not a stretch considering we use car keys and house keys and office keys). These keys may be plugin USB (which is what my employer provides) or they may be RFID (which is how my car keys work). You might be able to use your phone as a backup, but there are issues with using the phone as authentication. The main thing about keys: they work. "We have had no reported or confirmed account takeovers since implementing security keys at Google," a company spokesperson said.

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