OLDaily

Feature Article
Call for Proposals #StephensNext60
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, 2019/04/01

What should Stephen focus on in the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years". Or months. Or whatever time I've got. I'll keep this call for proposals wide open - should explore some topic, create a certain work, whatever

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Learning analytics: going live
JISC, 2019/04/01

This is a review of JISC's learning analytics service which went live last summer. What have they learned? For one thing, "worries about staff and student reactions to learning analytics often melt away when consultation and communication are done openly and well." Also, "far from being overly cautious, students may well prove to be an ally in this new space as they see the benefits that analytics can help us to provide."

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The global gig economy: Towards a planetary labour market?
Mark Graham, Mohammad Amir Anwar, First Monday, 2019/04/01

So long as there isn't the same freedom of movement for people as there is for data, for goods and for capital, we will not have an actual planetary labour market (nor either will we solve the persistent problems of poverty and inequity, but that's a separate issue). So while I appreciate the intent of the authors in promoting the idea of "the emergence of a ‘planetary labour market’ in digital work" we will not in fact see equity of working conditions if people are trapped within labour-unfriendly borders. This paper is part of a special issue on data globalization.

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No Portfolio? What’s your excuse?
Various authors, Hacker Noon, 2019/04/01

I've written in the past that employees of the future will be selected based on their portfolio of actual work rather than based on proxies like degrees and certificates. Artificial intelligence will make this a lot easier, as employers will rely on software to pick the most likely candidates. The many different ways of creating portfolios will also help. This set of articles looks at the practice of creating software design and development portfolios. Obviously not everyone will build their own portfolios from scratch the way a full-stack developer would. But this set of articles covers a lot of ground and with a little imagination you can see the sort of portfolio everyone might be using in the not-too-distant future. Image: Clint Hamada.

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Are we close to solving the puzzle of consciousness
David Robson, BBC News, 2019/04/01

Giulio Tononi's proposal here is that "any conscious experience needs to be structured, for instance – if you look at the space around you, you can distinguish the position of objects relative to each other. It’s also specific and 'differentiated' – each experience will be different depending on the particular circumstances, meaning there are a huge number of possible experiences. And it is integrated... shape and colour and location... are all held together at once in a single conscious experience." But why is consciousness one set of experiences and not another? If we stare at a screen of static, are we still not conscious?

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Who dunnit? Identifying the major online providers in Canadian post-secondary education March 29, 2019 103 0
Tony Bates, Online learning and distance education resources, 2019/04/01

This article does exactly what the title says it does: identify the major providers of online learning in Canada. Athabasca University and Laval are the clear leaders in the university sector, with three Ontario colleges leading in that sector. Also worth noting are the regions that have not embraced online learning: New Brunswick, Manitoba, PEI - ironically where some of the greatest innovation took place.

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