Elite Online Courses for Cash and Credit
"A consortium of 10 top-tier universities will soon offer fully online, credit-bearing undergraduate courses through a partnership with 2U, a company that facilitates online learning.
Any students enrolled at an 'undergraduate experience anywhere in the world' will be eligible to take the courses, according to Chip Paucek, the CEO of 2U, which until recently was called 2tor. The first courses are slated to make their debut in the fall.
After a year in which the top universities in the world have clambered to offer massive open online courses (MOOCs) for no credit, this new project marks yet another turning point in online education. It is the first known example of top universities offering fully online, credit-bearing courses to undergraduates who are not actually enrolled at the institutions that are offering them."
(Steve Kolowich, 15 November 2012, Inside Higher Ed)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Wisdom of the Masses' perception of the web, can in some cases promote content perceived to be useless over content perceived as useful
"According to the 'long tail' principle, ICT innovations in content creation and distribution such as virtual inventories, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and other types of video on demand, music self-publishing in social networking sites and digital printing challenge old rationales that justified the adoption of mass-market models for the production and publication of cultural goods. These technologies dissolve the spatial and physical constraints which limited the range of creative content goods available in the market and open the gates for a flood of new (and old) media. In doing so they have created a new problem, of a navigational nature: in principle, diversity enables access to content goods better suited to a customer's preferences, but it also makes finding them more difficult (194).
The main reason for the success of Google's search services has been its ability to address Internet users' need for relevant resources, by adopting a scalable algorithm that establishes a webpage's rank according to its reputation. However, its user interface is still too rigid and makes it difficult, for example, to fully specify the type of content a user is looking for. Additionally, this technique, based on a 'Wisdom of the Masses' perception of the web, can in some cases promote content perceived to be useless over content perceived as useful, and be tampered with through search optimisation techniques such as link farming (195)."
(Juan Mateos-Garcia, Aldo Geuna and W. Edward Steinmueller, 2008, p.85)
194: In a context where information is abundant, attention becomes the scarce resource (Simon, H. A. 1971, 'Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World', in Martin Greenberger, Computers, Communication, and the Public Interest, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Pres).
195: i.e. exchanging reciprocal links with web sites in order to increase search engine optimization, as search engines often rank sites according to, among other things, the quantity of sites that link to them.
Fig.1 Perry Ogden (2003). 'Bono with Louis Le Brocquy'.
2). Fabienne Abadie, Ioannis Maghiros, and Corina Pascu (editors) 2008 'The Future Evolution of the Creative Content Industries: Three Discussion Papers', Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, EUR 23633 EN - 2008
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Kea New Zealand: Nation Branding Through Networking
"Kea is New Zealand's global network. Our mission is to connect New Zealand with the rest of the world by building a network of global citizens who take an active interest in the future of our country.
Kea's ultimate goal is for the home of the world's greatest travellers to become the world's leading nation without borders - for New Zealand to think, act, and engage more globally by utilising our offshore population of expatriates and honorary citizens.
While founded as the Kiwi Expat Association in 2001, Kea's activities are relevant to more than just 'Kiwi expats'. We are building a truly global network for New Zealand, which is equally important to New Zealand based organisations and individuals who are pursuing global opportunities, as well as citizens of other countries who have an affinity and interest in connecting with New Zealand.
Kea is especially committed to supporting organisations and individuals who help grow the New Zealand economy through international trade and investment, or help build New Zealand's brand and reputation on the world stage."
(Stephen Tindall)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
myExperiment: a collaborative science research environment
"myExperiment is a collaborative environment where scientists can safely publish their workflows and experiment plans, share them with groups and find those of others. Workflows, other digital objects and collections (called Packs) can now be swapped, sorted and searched like photos and videos on the Web. Unlike Facebook or MySpace, myExperiment fully understands the needs of the researcher. myExperiment makes it really easy for the next generation of scientists to contribute to a pool of scientific workflows, build communities and form relationships. It enables scientists to share, reuse and repurpose workflows and reduce time-to-experiment, share expertise and avoid reinvention.
...
myExperiment is brought to you by a joint team from the universities of Southampton and Manchester in the UK, led by David De Roure and Carole Goble, and is funded by JISC under the Virtual Research Environments programme and by Microsoft's Technical Computing Initiative"
(The myExperiment Project)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
