OLDaily

Facebook and Google: This is What an Effective Ad Archive API Looks Like
The Mozilla Blog, 2019/03/28

In a recent email, Creative Commons head Cable Green wrote "CC does plan to offer an API to CC Search" I think that's a good idea. I would use that; it would allow a content creation application like gRSShopper to use CC search to find resources to link to or embed. But what should such an API look like? One person suggested IMS's Resource Search, which linked to LTI. But IMS isn't exactly open; membership has its privileges. This article looks at a different sort of database, but the key to an effective API can be fount in item 5: "The API itself and any data collected from the API should be accessible to and shareable with the general public."

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The great support mystery
Martin Weller, The Ed Techie, 2019/03/28

I think this is important, and that it doesn't apply only to university students. I'm talking about "a feeling of being supported – that someone out there knows about you and your studies as an individual, will look out for you, and share your highs and lows." This is the sort of thing that will get a person out of bed in the morning and keep them working on something into the evening. It's what I miss most on those days I feel alienated from my own work. It's probably the difference for many people between success and failure. The key to support? Not ed tech - but rather, the knowledge that there's a person out there, listening, who cares about what you have to say. What some call 'presence'.

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This Is How You Kill a Profession
Herb Childress, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2019/03/28

I thought at first that this would be an article by and for professors bemoaning how badly they've been treated, but in fact it looks at the academic profession from the perspective of an outsider, that is, from the perspective of the many who obtained their PhDs and didn't have the luck or connections to latch onto a proper teaching and research position at a college or university. And yes, ultimately, I think that academia's decision to hand over the bulk of teaching durites to underpaid and poorly treated adjuncts will come back to haunt it.

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Methodological guide for implementation and evaluation of open e-textbook programs
Alek Tarkowski, Michal Sitek, Jan Strycharz, Riina Vuorikari, Jonatan Castaño Muñoz, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, 2019/03/28

This report (32 page PDF) discusses on an assessment of the impact of open e-books, "exploring the costs and savings associated with such initiatives, and on the other hand, estimating their impact on learning outcomes (e.g. exemplified as academic achievements)." The report is structured around a case study of an e-textbook initiative in Poland. The report is focused mostly on the questions and considerations inherent in measuring the impact, recognizing it as a complex subject, and making recommendations about the sorts of data that need to be collected in future assessments.

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