OLDaily

Calgary malls use facial recognition to track shoppers' age, gender without consent
Sarah Rieger, CBC News, 2018/07/27

This is just a quick update to note that facial recognition technology is becoming mainstream. In this case, it is being used by a shopping mall in Calgary. As it becomes more widely used, expect it to become prevalent in schools. "The use of facial recognition software in retail spaces is becoming commonplace to analyze shopper behaviour, sell targeted space to advertisers, or for security reasons like identifying shoplifters." The owners say they're not storing the images, but who knows whether we should believe them? CBC News doesn't link to the original thread and photo on Reddit (of course, because who needs original sources?) but here they are.

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What On Earth Is A MOOC-Based Degree Path?
Derek Newton, Forbes, 2018/07/27

I didn't appreciate the tone of this article as it uses phrases like "no more academic weight than the McDonald’s dollar menu" and "has the academic and employment standing of a dryer sheet" to describe MOOC credentials. Derek Newton is very sure. "There simply is no 'viable alternative' to a degree that does not include a degree. Much of the time, degree alternatives such as certificates and credentials are essentially worthless," he says, citing himself. The article as a whole is a hatchet job intended to take down Carolyn McIntyre, the founder and CEO of MOOCLab, which in turn offers MOOC resources and refers people to courses offered by Udacity, Coursera, and the rest. There's no reason for it, and no reason to believe the story being told in this article. (Readers' Note: Forbes blocks its articles with an adblock detector. I use uBlock Origin as a browser plugin to remove these and other malware on websites.)

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Research Reasons for Avoiding All Caps
Courtney Felton, Canvas LMS Community, 2018/07/27

This is one of the funniest threads I've read in a while and it nonetheless addresses a serious question: Courtney Felton writes, "I have a faculty member who puts all Assignment, Discussion, and Content Page titles in all caps. In terms of netiquette, this is discouraged. I find it personally distracting and more difficult to read (maybe trying to focus on too much at one time??), but I cannot find any adequately cited resources that provide convincing arguments regarding best practice. Can anyone help me out?" The answer, mostly, was "no" but there are some references, mostly to blogs, and one about 20 responses in points to this post which cites some real research.

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Journalism programs struggle to adapt to changing times
Soraya Roberts, University Affairs, 2018/07/27

Journalism runs in my blood. At the age of 10 I started my first newspaper - The Eagle Report - and in university I was editor of the student newspaper. And as journalism has changed over the years, so have I. Hence my latest effort, this newsletter. I never went to j-school and this might have been a good thing, as journalism programs were slow to change and the people they trained are today among the third of journalism jobs in Canada that were lost between 2010 and 2017. This article chronicles that decline and how the schools are responding to the new digital era. I will say this: the best place to learn journalism is in a newsroom, doing journalism, and this remains as true today as in the days of cub reporters, and that's why we see the many collaborations between journalism schools and new media outlets reported in this article.

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