OLDaily

Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care: The MOOC
2021/09/06

This is a link to the signup page and introductory video for my new MOOC, Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care: The MOOC. Now I should emphasize that signup is completely optional and is only for email notifications (and only because I need to know where to send the email). This will be a connectivist MOOC, completely open, and will run for 8 weeks from the beginning of October to the end of November. It blends the work I've done in technology with my degrees in philosophy and the college classes I've taught in ethics in the poast. Those of you who follow my work know that I have been working on the content of this for almost two years now; I've participated in a number of ethics-related projects, published some papers on it, and even become a member of NRC's Research Ethics Board. I hope you enjoy it.

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A Unified Theory of Decentralization
𝔡𝔴𝔥, Medium, 2021/09/06

"Decentralization," writes the author, "is the direction in which user sovereignty increases." I would tend to use the word 'autonomy' to avoid some of the connotations of 'sovereignty'. "All decentralized systems are distributed systems," they continue, "networks where the primary functions of the network are performed by the nodes in the network and not a set of central servers." But here's the gist: "In a decentralized system, users are free to join and leave at will and take their data with them in a portable format. They have absolute control over what data is shared with others and the system as a whole as well as the ability to completely delete their data at any time." The problem with decentralization is that it reduces to atomism, with no connection between individuals at all. That's what creates the 'nine problems of distributed systems' described by the author, in my view. To preserve autonomy in a decentralized system, again in my view, standards and protocols should focus on the connections (ie., the syntax) of the network, not the content of the nodes (ie., the semantics).

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Building an OERu Course Site with WordPress on Ubuntu 20.04 using Docker Compose
OERu Technology, 2021/09/06

I don't know who wrote this - it would be really nice if the authors of such useful content were acknowledged. By the title of the post you would surmise that it's pretty technical - and you'd be right. But a post like this is a vital link for people who want to take advantage of cloud hostibg and containers to cheaply and easily make online courses available to people. This post has everything, from securing your domain to sorting out your details to setting up the environment to enabling SSL to creating the containers and launching the site. I can't wait to do a 'Stephen Follows Instructions' for this one.

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Theory of change: Driving a digital school in rural Pakistan
Ashir Ahmed, Jason Sargent, First Monday, 2021/09/06

This paper has two foci: it implements a specific theory of change to plan a social impact project using a Digital Access Vehicle (DAVe); and seeks to understand barriers "hindering digital literacy of young children in rural areas of a developing country such as Pakistan." It reminded me of my days in Manitoba in the late 90s packing a computer network in a van and driving to rural communities to introduce them to the internet. Once people see what is possible, they want it. “In the past, we never thought to introduce computer education in our school. After seeing the digital school in a van, computer education is something for us to think about in coming days and weeks.”

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The gritty reality for Substack’s middle class
Simon Owens, Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, 2021/09/06

It's the same old story that has played out countless times as new platforms emerge that promise to help creators make money. So long as they depend on centralized services (and therefore, centralized marketing) a long tail will develop, creating a few winners (usually, those with prior connections or some other advantage) and a much larger struggling underclass. Why would we think subscription-based newsletter services would be any different?

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Reusing Educational Assets
Tony Hirst, OUseful Info, 2021/09/06

Tony Hirst revisits this concept in the context of a potential internal Open University project and finds that the same old questions resurface once again. "A question I keep coming back to, time after time after time after time after time, is the question of what assets are actually reusable?" And the answer is, it's not things that are easy to create (like, say, 500 words of text), but things that are hard to create, like good glossary items, images and diagrams, equations, and the like. But sometimes the effort to create reusability is greater than the effort it replaces. Creating (or fixing) resource metadata to make it discoverable, for example, is time-consuming. Finally, he notes, the resources need to be editable (easy for text, harder for images).

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