OLDaily

Crypto Canon
Sonal Chokshi, Chris Dixon, Denis Nazarov, Jesse Walden, Ali Yahya, Andressen Horowitz, 2019/03/18

I've read a lot of these papers in my own research on blockchain but this list is well-presented and is more neatly formatted. On the other hand, my list contains a lot of excepts that indicate what the resource actually says. But this list is probably more canonical. I'll be running through it to make sure I haven't missed anything. For more, see their blog.

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MOOCs as Tool for Development of 21st Century Skills
Miro Puhek, Zvezdana Strmšek, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2019/03/18

The goal of this paper was "to analyse MOOCs in the field of business and management in comparison of their overlap with lifelong learning skills for 21st century." The skills defined are the usual set: "problem solving, creativity, analytic thinking, team work and communication." The authors looked at 829 MOOCs on 39 different platforms, though the top 6 contained 84% of all MOOCs studied. The authors state that the study "clearly presents the capability of MOOCs to step aside the formal education by providing users with the skills for 21st century."

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Higher Education – the Last Bastion?
Gilly Salmon, Tya Asgari, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2019/03/18

This article explores the "problem of defence and stasis in the university sector despite the huge drivers for change" and "ways in which learning with and from the future can be encouraged." The authors find the cause of the resistance in the histories of the disciplines. "The history of a discipline is overwhelmingly powerful, and dominates academics’ thoughts, arguments and practice since the norms and traditions of disciplines or professions creates their identities."

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UK online pornography age block triggers privacy fears
Jim Waterson, The Guardian, 2019/03/18

There are two parts to this story: first, that people would need to register as authorized users by proving their identity (and specifically, their age), and second, that certain types of content for non-authorized users would be blocked. I put it in general terms like this because once such a system is established it would be very hard to resist using it for purposes other than the stated purpose. So the question is also has two parts: if we have to register as internet users, what do we want that to look like, and if we are to block certain content, how are we to decide what to block? It's hard to imagine satisfactory answers to either sort or question.

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DIB Guide: Detecting Agile BS
U.S. Department of Defense, 2019/03/18

This is an excellent 5-page document the purpose of which is to advise "how to detect software projects that are really using agile development versus those that are simply waterfall or spiral development in agile clothing ('agile-scrum-fall')." It's part of a much longer work on software development authored released this week by the U.S. Military. The short document was released back in October and recently became vial on Reddit.

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