Steve Wheeler says he'll publish open access only

Steve Wheeler takes a stand on publishing in open access journals only in his Learning with 'e's blog. Very admirable! I have not held myself to that standard. I guess my excuse is that I don't publish enough and feel obligated to take opportunities as they come up. Example: I wrote a chapter for a text book which was originally supposed to be published open access - but ended up with McGraw-Hill. The textbook is due out at the beginning of 2012. I guess I could have withdrawn my chapter, but not sure that anyone would have noticed. I would have simply disappointed a colleague. Another colleague and I are slated to write another couple of articles. I don't think that either journal allows authors to keep any rights. I could refuse to participate, but but my colleague still has a stake in the game. I've compromised some principles, haven't I. Added note: I'm going to add the hash tag that Martin Weller suggested we use for posts about digital scholarship for Change MOOC #change11digschol

Print books are bulky

I had lunch with a friend yesterday. We hadn't seen each other in quite a while and C. brought me two books as a present: Two physical print books. I'm always delighted to have something new to read - but I had a visceral reaction: The books looked remarkably bulky to me(!) Don't get me wrong: I still own books; I check print books out of the libraries I use. Print books - love them.. but it was like a warped body image thing: The books seemed occupied a lot of three dimensional space.

Coherence; Online identities

George Siemens discusses coherence as a component of a learning environment. If we offer a "cohesive look at a discipline" in a course, do students get it - or do students have to create their own sense of coherence? Students can create a sense of coherence out of their social networks. Siemens describes information foraging among learners with faculty and core content in the middle of a diagram which also contains co-created content on the part of peripheral learners and external experts and learners themselves with OER hanging off to one side - the arrow pointing to "core content". (http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2011/09/05/information-foraging-and-social-networks/ Slide 39. ) Nice environment though I don't know why OER is off over on the side by itself as it is were supplemental to the core content rather than possibly the core content itself. The lines in the diagram.. Is Siemens suggesting that faculty are responsible for turning up some external experts and some peripheral learners for courses? I have a feeling that learners are themselves responsible for looking beyond the boundaries set by a coherent course. Are faculty totally wierded out by the idea that they don't teach "everything" in school? Are students angered that they didn't learn everything they need to know in school? Siemens will post the talk when it is available. Helen Keegan on The paradox of openness: The high costs of giving online. http://heloukee.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/tyranny-of-authenticity/ on actively developing our online identity. The "me" to the "professional me." Is it authentic to behave professionally in an online environment? http://heloukee.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/tyranny-of-authenticity/ Does this detract from the Web as a place of experimentation and fun? (Uh oh! Is experimentation and fun the opposite of "professional"?) Are we doing students a disservice if we ask them to post under their real names? (Can we have an "authentic self" that uses a pseudonym? Err... wait: what's an authentic self? The self that acts like a two-year old? OMG I hope not even though I do have a hypothesis that there is no such thing as an adult. ). There seems to be a couple of things going on: Should we moderate ourselves and behave professionally online? Should we practice doing this in a safe space? Pat Parslow in Comments says "I moderate what I say online – but then I moderate what I say “in real life...I think most people are engaging in identity performances most of the time. We do not, I would argue, tend to say or do the same things in front of our parents, as in front of our friends, or kids, or bosses (etc, etc). The walled garden is helpful in this regard... ” I'd say that we should ask students to think about their online presentation of self - and just in general... their presentation of self in everyday life. (Everyone run out an get Erving Goffman's book!) I'm thinking about Second Life: My avatar behaves in a professional manner. She identifies herself as a librarian. Like many others I have another avatar with a different name who could act up - but I have to say that she hasn't been activated in ages and never did get around to acting up. I suppose we could say that my inner two-year old has been thoroughly repressed. One thing comes to mind regarding management of self: Trey Pennington, social media guru, committed suicide over the weekend. (http://www.wyff4.com/r/29093497/detail.html) His online follows who felt that they "knew" him and were connected in some way had to acknowledge that they did not know him. Should Pennington have revealed to all of his audiences that he was struggling with thoughts of suicide? Do we consider Pennington "inauthentic" since he didn't reveal to his suicidal thoughts to his Twitter followers? As usual these were items suggested by Stephen Downes OLDaily September 6, 2011 Yesterday (September 6) Bright House - my cable service - had significant periods of outage that included both TV and Internet. My land line from Verizon was not working. My cell phone was working, but I'm on an austerity budget - no backup mobile broadband access. Fairly boring! However I'm reading "23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism" (http://goo.gl/n00Sn) and I wish I knew someone who'd read Chang's chapter on education and could let me know what they think about . Thing 17: More education in itself is not going to make a country richer. He says that getting everyone a college education is not necessarily going to improve the economy, but he does appreciate education for other reasons - improving one's quality of life for one thing. I'd love to know what others make of Thing 17.

OERu, open courses, credentials

Designing OERu Credentials: Aug 29-Sept 13, 2011 - A SCoPE seminar on "defining the variety of academic models by which an institution, or consortia of institutions, can use OER to create credentials." Interesting discussions! I'm wondering since PLAR (prior learning and assessment recognition) already exists and some academic institutions already accept all manner of prior learning that can include assessment of courses, life experiences, etc. what would be different about accepting learning pursued using open education resources? Why does the vehicle of learning - OER - matter? However I do understand that setting up the means to evaluate work done via OER is one way to encourage the growth and acceptance of open courses, etc. One issue that has surfaced is the price that institutions charge for assessing prior learning. A learner could be self-taught using open education resources - (even books from their local public library) - , only to find a cost barrier at the point of asking an institution to provide credentials. There was some discussion of freeing granting of credentials from traditional academic institutions. Some mentioned that associations provide credentials in some countries. There are also companies that offer evaluation services. Would these groups would be any less bound by standards of some sort? Once we've got standards, some learners are not granted credentials. Would these new credentialing groups be less "traditional"? About standards: Shouldn't we have some? Aren't there in fact some students who haven't learned?

Stanford courses - open to all

When is a course a course? Stanford is offering access to a course on artificial intelligence that has attracted thousands - over 135,000 have signed up as of August 29, 2011. Students will not get grades, but will get a "statement of accomplishment." It's not clear from the web site if Stanford's on-campus students will be meeting face-to-face in addition to the online version open to outsiders. (Additional courses are being offered online and open access as well.) Some question this kind of learning. How does this online experience stack up against actually being on-campus and working with others face-to-face? Is there some thing - something we can't even quite describe - about being on-campus, showing up for a face-to-face class, that just cannot be replicated in an online experience? Yes, probably to some extent working face-to-face with professors and other students (i.e. those interested in learning the same things you want to learn) has some benefits. Even though I'm convinced that learning takes place outside/beyond/without traditional classroom experiences, there are those art degrees I have... I really needed the face-to-face contact with other art students. Paying tuition to avail myself of an organized situation with a concentration of art students and art professors.. I think that was necessary for me. BUT.. really - the only way people learn is sitting across from each other in a classroom? We ought to be passed that discussion. Shouldn't the question be what do faculty need to do to give online students the best possible experience?

Look-alike tablets

James Kendrick posted "Apple injunctions against similar-looking tablets just beginning" (August 10, 2011).  He says, "I am supportive of companies protecting inventions, but this is just ludicrous. You can’t ban products that look something like another, as that just stifles competition."  I think it's complete abuse of the system of patents.  For me this puts Apple firmly in the Evil Empire camp.  How are the Apple fan boys going to explain away this one? (This makes me want to run out an buy a Samsung Galaxy Tab.)    In the meantime Maria Korolov reports "Controversy erupts over SpotON3D's patent claims."  (August3, 2011 on Hypergrid Business).   SpotON3D is filing patents on "virtual world in a browser" tools that are not unlike other implementations.  So... open licensing is not working in this case to protect work already done on similar software?  Apparently from Korolov's report, there is still some question on how SpotON3D's patent might impact work by OpenSim, Kitely, etc.  Overly-broad patents are another problem. TechDirt's Mike Masnick wrote a good piece with a link to a spoton (but not 3D) Dilbert cartoon (August 9, 2011).  It all seems like the worst of capitalism with taking advantage of laws to stifle competition rather than moving forward with new creative ideas for creating new products. 

Just checking in - and Joe Arroyo

I've got 19 more days before all three courses I'm currently teaching online will completed with grades in and all of that.   I'd vowed not to get overly committed to doing much of anything else until my responsibilities for those students is done. That leaves some uncomfortable down times waiting for students to turn in work. Today I've been able to play with Spotify a bit.  Joe Arroyo died this past week, so I've been playing tracks. Spotify doesn't seem to have tracks for 30 albums, but there's enough to keep me busy.   Footage from his funeral ceremony with thousands of mourners at http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/culture/17919-colombian-salsa-legend-joe-arroyo-put-to-rest-in-barranquilla.html Of course there's something in it I could post to one of my courses where we've spent the first half of the course discussing copyright, etc.:  "Joe Arroyo's daughters fight for music royalties."  http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18070-joe-arroyos-daughters-fight-for-music-royalties.html (August 3, 2011).  Multiple marriages seem to have created a messy situation.  I don't blame anyone for trying to get a share if they're entitled to it, but wouldn't it be nice to just enjoy performers without considering money, money, money as if that were the main legacy?