OLDaily

Why we must take the pulse of education research in Australia now
Catherine Manathunga, EduResearch Matters, 2022/07/14

This is a pretty densely written post, but the gist is that the Community of Associate Deans of Education Research (cADRE) "would like to argue for a radical agenda for inclusive and compassionate education research that informs educational policy and practice. This would challenge the empty rhetoric of 'excellence' that we hear so much about in universities." Catherine Manathunga also argues that education research in Australia should "shift the focus on the exchange value of education research or education research as a commodity on sale to the knowledge economy to Education research's use value." Tom Worthington offers a commentary, saying " An agenda for inclusive and compassionate education research doesn't have to be this radical." Maybe it doesn't have to be, but maybe it would be better if it were?

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Faculty members support open access, don’t trust research fraud protections, survey finds
Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, 2022/07/14

The first part of this headline has been reported over and over again in surveys. It's the second part, though, that threatens to undermine the commercial publishers' business model. "Only about one in five faculty members are confident enough protections exist in academic publishing to prevent research fraud." If the whole review and quality assurance process can't be trusted, then what unique value is being offered by commercial publishers? Here's the link to the full study from Ithaka S+R (I don't know why Higher Ed Dive wouldn't provide this, but they don't).

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The Potential Impact of Web3 on the Internet and the Digital Economy
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, 2022/07/14

This article begins by reporting a bit of a pivot by Don Tapscott's Blockchain Research Institute toward web3. It makes sense, given the poor reputation blockchain has enjoyed, though that of web3 is hardly any better. Here, Irving Wladawsky-Berger characterizes web3 as "a very promising set of technologies and applications in their early years." That would be my assessment as well. It's important, though, to abstract away from the token economy and financial aspect of all this, which Wladawsky-Berger doesn't really succeed in doing. But there are hints. An "anonymous single-sign-on will allow one username and authentication method across all web sites and accounts" by itself makes web3 worth investigating. Persistent and unique digital identities for resources (such as papers and images and more) should be added to the mix. There's something there, despite the corrupting influence of the financial sector.

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Specifying Spring ‘83
Robin Sloan, 2022/07/14

This is a fun idea, based on a Quote of the Day Protocol, RFC 865, published by Jon Postel in May 1983."A server listens for TCP connections on TCP port 17. Once a connection is established a short message is sent out the connection (and any data received is thrown away). The service closes the connection after sending the quote." It' like super-light RSS, and Robin Sloan expands on the idea, specifying a display format like a notice board or comic book advertisements page. There's commentary from Tracy Durnell, Louis Potok and Kate Maya (three more voices I may need to follow). See also Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? by Jared Sumner. All this via Doug Belshaw.

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