OLDaily

Run your own social
Darius Kazemi, 2019/07/10

This article shows you "how to run a small social network site for your friends." It's practical advice. "This document exists to lay out some general principles of running a small social network site that have worked for me. These principles are related to community building more than they are related to specific technologies. This is because the big problems with social network sites are not technical: the problems are social problems related to things like policy, values, and power." Good stuff.

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The push for “free” universal education in Africa often falls short—here’s a better way
Efosa Ojomo, Christensen Institute, 2019/07/10

The argument is that "many of these school systems are failing, from insufficient infrastructure to a significant disconnect between schools and the local economy." The proposed solution is to charge money for school, and redirect government resources to subsidize this education for the relatively well-off. User fees, in other words. The way this works is by magic: "These schools compete for hard earned dollars from parents and are therefore highly incentivized to create education solutions that meet parents expectations." So I guess 'innovation' in this case means 'serve the rich, ignore the poor'. As it so often does.

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Law Reviews, Citation Counts and Twitter (Oh My): Behind the Curtains of the Law Professor’s Search for Meaning
Lawprofblawg, Darren Bush, SSRN, 2019/07/10

Despite what the abstract says, be sure to download this article and read it cover-to-cover, including (especially!) the footnotes. Here's the gist: "We argue that this game is rigged, inherently biased against authors from lower ranked schools, women, minorities, and faculty who teach legal writing, clinical, and library courses. As such, playing “the game” in a Sisyphean effort to achieve external validation is a losing one for all but a few." I would argue this applies to scholarship generally, not just law. Case in point: my citations as viewed by Google Scholar, versus my citations as viewed by Scopus. Which one is the real measure of my work?

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