OLDaily

Knowledgebase
UKCORR, 2019/07/25

This is a useful resource from the United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories (UKCORR). As the website says, "The Knowledgebase is where the UKCORR community can share key resources to assist both in their every day work and also to learn about new developments in the sector." For example, the Repository / CRIS software list, "a very useful sheet showing which institutions are running which type of repository and / or CRIS." Related: "euroCRIS is a European organization responsible for publicising work on current research information systems (CRIS). It maintains the Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) standard for CRIS systems." See this CERIF presentation.

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How Many of the Most Influential People in Ed Tech Are Working Educators?
Alyson Klein, Education Week, 2019/07/25

I'm not on this list of 'influencers', and neither are most of the people I write about here, and this has generally been true since the early days of the blogosphere. The list is very US-focused and is mostly ed tech entrepreneurs or directors of this or that. Not really education technologists at all. I wouldn't expect educators to be on the list either, for the most part, simply because if you're a working educator, you don't have the time to put into becoming a ed technologist. And (I might add) if you're a working education technologist, you probably don't have the time to do whatever it is you do to get put on lists like this. P.S. the link to Ed Tech Digest's list will force you to go through the chrade of 'buying' the report for $0.00, a silly but of user-hostile design.

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QUIPU
2019/07/25

It's still in development so I can't say it's great to use, but the concept is intriguing: "QUIPU automates content classification, linking & display. QUIPU lets Sam move fast from initial data to making a decision. Hours of tedious & expensive work can be given back to Sam, boosting productivity & value. QUIPU builds a research library in real time, indexing as you explore, letting you generate knowledge." Of course, as with all libraries, the trick is that you still have to read it. Via Reddit.

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Africa’s pressing need for targeted skills training
ICEF Monitor, 2019/07/25

To me the most telling sentence in this African Development Bank Group (AfDB) report (362 page PDF) is this one: "Many taxi drivers in Algiers (Algeria) hold graduate and even post-graduate degrees in the humanities and in the social sciences. In Douala (Cameroon), many Bensikineurs (motorcycle taxis) also hold degrees from advanced tertiary education, including in math and sciences." Now, it may be true that the skills they learned aren't in demand. But is the problem here that the students studied the wrong things? I don't think so. In a properly functioning economy their skills would be in demand, but there are so many gaps in the social structure, the economy cannot function at that level, and they don't have a good recourse or fall-back position. It's easy to blame the student - but we're only one good recession away from facing the same situation here in North America. Simply preparing for a different sort of job won't protect people from an inherently fragile economy.

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Annotation & EDU Trends
Nate Angell, 2019/07/25

Annotation systems - most recently hypothes.is - have tried to catch on in the education technolopgy space, but despite considerable pushing they haven't, really. Why not? I'll go with Nate Angell's three reasons listed here (paraphrased): annotation is attempting to displace existing practices; annotation is only now starting to reduce friction of use; and annotation would need to be an essential part of people’s required activities. The thing is, the interface on a computer is very different - annotation by keyboard is very different from annotation by pen. So I don't see these three things ever being eliminated.

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