OLDaily

Perspectives on a 'Unified Approach' to the Future of Open Access
Melissa H. Cantrell, Michael R. Donaldson, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2022/01/11

I found this post interesting because it underscores the idea that open access is not an end in itself, but rather, it is a means to an end. But to what end? As the authors write, this discussion constitutes "a dense and active cloud of values, motivations, and incentives knit so closely to the nucleus as to be indistinguishable from open access itself." The danger here is in thinking that if you're not working for open access for the right reasons, you're not doing open access the right way. So the 'unified approach' in this article came doing to something like the following: " (1) the concept of community in building an open future and (2) ensuring that equity is foundational to the open access shift." David Wiley talks about the role of open in terms of quality education, and for me it's about personal learning, expression and networking. If you're not working toward community and equity specifically, can you still be working toward open access? That's a pretty core question.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

What is Web3 and Why It Matters
Dion Hinchcliffe, On Digital Strategy, 2022/01/11

The discourse on Web3 is beginning to reach a dull roar in the last few months, and I don't see any signs that it's going to go away. Dion Hinchcliffe writes, "Web3 has very much arrived as a major trend with a towering stack of tech behind it and quite impressive economic results to match. It’s a trend that is now is increasingly informing technology evolution as a whole." This article defines Web3, outlines the motivation for it, its roots in crypto, the idea of decentralized trust (with a discussion of the tendency to centralize decentralized tech), lists the major technologies involved, and describes what organizations should do to prepare for it.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Universities should no longer ask students for anonymous feedback on their teachers
Richard Lakeman, Deb Massey, Dima Nasrawi, Jann Fielden, Marie Hutchinson, Megan Lee, Rosanne Coutts, Academic Matters, 2022/01/11

This article comes with a warning about offensive content, and this is kind of the point. The argument here is that anonymous feedback on teachers should be discontinued because the students offer offensive (and frequently irrelevant) comments in their responses. I've had several thoughts. First, the same sort of thing persists (albeit to a lesser degree) in anonymous peer review. Second, I wonder what it is about our society that leads students to believe such reviews are appropriate. And third, I wonder whether AI is yet to the point where the offensive content could be removed from the reviews, as if it never existed.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

3 major trends affecting ed tech companies
Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive, 2022/01/11

The three trends are as follows: first, network effects (here called 'flywheel effects') are accelerating the growth of 2U and Coursera, at the expense of other online program management (OPM) companies; second, corporations and online education companies are providing competition to traditional higher education, especially as price becomes a factor; and third, ed tech companies are focusing more on employer-provided education. These are all continuations of trends from previous years, in my view. Doesn't mean they aren't real, though. Via Daniel Christian.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How to be FAIR with your data. A teaching and training handbook for higher education institutions
Claudia Engelhardt, et.al., Zenodo, 2022/01/11

This is the penultimate version of the FAIRsFAIR handbook I an numerous other people worked on last summer and fall. "It aims to support higher education institutions with the practical implementation of content relating to the FAIR principles in their curricula and teaching by providing practical material, such as competence profiles, learning outcomes and lesson plans, and supporting information." As an acronym, FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Journals
Stephen Downes, Google Docs, 2022/01/11

What journals am I missing from my list of journals related to online learning and/or ed tech? Not interested in closed access journals or predatory publishers. Here's my list as it stands.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]