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From conceptualisation to measurement of higher education as a common good: challenges and possibilities
Pepka BoyadjievaPetya Ilieva-Trichkova, Higher Education, 2018/11/02

The authors write (17 page PDF), "Evident signs of dismantling the welfare state model and privatisation’s accelerated processes in the sphere of education bring to the fore the need to rethink the nature of all forms of education." The survey conducted to examine this trend identifies a variety of understandings of "common good" and various ways of talking about how education contributes to it. But in general "the extent to which higher education as a common good is accomplished in a given society/country reflects the accessibility, availability, and affordability of as well as social commitment to higher education."

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Announcement: CUNY Team Launches Open Digital Platform for Learning and Collaboration
Digital Humanities Now, 2018/11/02

Something worth exploring: The Commons In A Box team has launched Commons In A Box OpenLab (CBOX OpenLab), a free software platform for teaching, learning, and collaboration. From the website: " Members of a CBOX community can create groups and media-rich websites, participate in discussion forums, edit documents together, share files, send messages, and make friendship connections." The platform is build using WordPress with the BuddyPress plugin. "It is designed to simplify the process of creating commons spaces where members can discuss issues, collaborate, and share their work." RSS strikes again.

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5 Levels
Wired, YouTube, 2018/11/02

I'm enjoying the '5 Levels' series of videos from Wired. The idea is that a specialist explains the same concept at five distinct levels of complexity, beginning with an explanation to a young child, and progressive to discussing it with another specialist. It's funny to see how I perceive the difference in subjects I know and subjects I don't - I just node along during the discussion on the connectome, but find the high-level of discussion of harmony with Herbie Hancock to be almost meaningless. I once saw an article that explained encryption like this; it was really good, but I can't find it.

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Canadian Government Banning Settlement Demands in Copyright Notice-and-Notice System
Michael Geist, 2018/11/02

This corrects an annoying trend. "The (notice and notice) system was viewed as a win-win approach since it promised to deter infringement through education rather than legal threats. Yet within hours of taking effect, anti-piracy companies began sending notices that included settlement demands backed by threats of litigation." This action ends that practice. In a pair of related announcements, the government has also rejected statutory damages in copyright cases, and is regulating patent demand letters. I'm supportive of this recent trend.

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