Fortnightly Mailing

Google Sites - what JotSpot's "application wiki" has become

Updated 4/3/2008

We've used JotSpot internally in ALT to good effect for our "Operations Manual" for several years; and during 2005-2006 I was involved in using it for producing the TUC's online course development and management manual. Last year Google bought JotSpot, and JotSpot went into a sort of benign limbo - we ceased having to pay for the service, no new features were added to it, and no new JotSpot sites could be created. After six months of rumour that the Google version of JotSpot was imminent, Google finally relaunched JotSpot today as Google Sites. I've not had a chance to look at it properly; but at first glance it appears simpler than JotSpot - not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily a good thing either. Our existing JotSpot site remains unchanged, and the question within ALT will be whether we can start to create new user accounts on the site, which we've not been able to do since last year's take-over. I have a nasty feeling that we'll not be able to, though I hope I'll be proved wrong. with its functionality apparently intact. So far so good, but I had (naively) been hoping that  existing JotSpot sites would miraculously transform themselves into the new "sites" system without any action by subscribers. According to this 29 February report in InfoWorld by Juan Carlos Perez, Google intends to provide a "one click" conversion process. If readers have insights or practical experience on this issue please comment below.

Semantic web: Tim Berners-Lee interviewed by Paul Miller

 

Source: http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/

I'm pointing to this piece in ZDNet more out of instinct than deep understanding. (Paul Miller is someone who has made the transition from the JISC-world to the private sector - he now works for the software company Talis.) The interview with Berners-Lee is also available as a 1 hour podcast, and if you've time is more informative than the ZDNet piece itself.

Passwords for encrypted hard drives can be easily extracted from a laptop's RAM chip

With recent cases of mass personal data going astray, many organisations, particularly in the public sector, have banned the removal of laptops from their normal locations until the data directories on laptop hard drives have been encrypted.

Here - the abstract is below - is a clear and convincing 5 minute video and paper from Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy by J. Alex Halderman, Seth D. Schoen, Nadia Heninger, William Clarkson, William Paul, Joseph A. Calandrino, Ariel J. Feldman, Jacob Appelbaum, and Edward W. Felten, describing a common set of circumstances under which the password for the encrypted data can be extracted from the laptop, rendering the data easily available.

Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for seconds to minutes after power is lost, even at operating temperatures and even if removed from a motherboard. Although DRAMs become less reliable when they are not refreshed, they are not immediately erased, and their contents persist sufficiently for malicious (or forensic) acquisition of usable full-system memory images. We show that this phenomenon limits the ability of an operating system to protect cryptographic key material from an attacker with physical access. We use cold reboots to mount attacks on popular disk encryption systems — BitLocker, FileVault, dm-crypt, and TrueCrypt — using no special devices or materials. We experimentally characterize the extent and predictability of memory remanence and report that remanence times can be increased dramatically with simple techniques.

Riina Vuorikari - Patents and e-learning do not make a good match - what’s “Blackboard Inc. vs. Desire2Learn” gotta do with the EU?

Here, via Stephen Downes, is a post by Riina Vuorikari with a European angle on software patents in general and e-learning-related software patents in particular. Riina's “Money spent on software patent and defending against litigation would be better spent on development, education and training” is brought into sharp relief by Blackboard Inc. and Desire2Learn having spent between them well over USD 10m on bringing and defending the infringement claim. So far. I do not know what the "gearing" is between vendor and user spending on lawyers, risk avoidance etc, but I am certain that the fact of the patent dispute has led to a large number of user organisations incurring unwanted management and legal costs; and not just in the US. For example on answering questions like "if we choose this VLE, what risks to do we run that the vendor will go out of business?"; "if we use an open source product, are we at risk of legal action?". At the heart of this is a specific kind of market failure, in which  "maximizing value for shareholders" conflicts with the general good;  and whilst the US patent system might encourage and enable technological progress generally, it fails in relation to software.

Bradford Robotic Telescope: the only freely available robot on the Internet

The Bradford Robotic Telescope is the only freely available robotic telescope on the Internet, and operates with 30,000 registered users and about 300,000 regular visitors. The English Schools National Curriculum site and the Scottish site are rapidly growing subscription sites with about 14,000 learners and 500 teachers in January 2008.

John Baruch, the person behind the telescope, will be running a seminar: "Extending the Conversational Framework into new dimensions in STEM education" at London Knowledge Lab on 3 April 2008 between 3.00 and 4.30. For more information contact g . nicola AT ioe . ac . uk.

Omeka - Open Source platform for collections and exhibitions

According to its web site, Omeka, currently at version 0.9.0 (a "public beta") is an Open Source web platform for publishing collections and exhibitions online:

"Designed for cultural institutions, enthusiasts, and educators, Omeka is easy to install and modify and facilitates community-building around collections and exhibits. It is designed with non-IT specialists in mind, allowing users to focus on content rather than programming."

With thanks to Tristram Wyatt for pointing to this Inside Higher Education article about Omeka.

Selecting content for OpenLearn - an insider account

Guest Contribution from Andy Lane, Director of OpenLearn

Note. This post arrived as a comment on Is the Open University making the right content open in OpenLearn?, but is published with Andy's agreement as a Guest Contribution.

Seb recently added to the debate as to whether the OU was publishing the right content on OpenLearn. In particular Seb said:

"I think that if the OU does not use OpenLearn to showcase its best stuff, the OpenLearn initiative risks being judged as some rather pedestrian content sitting in a (possibly) innovative environment. That would be a major missed opportunity."

On my part I an unclear as to what he thinks the 'best stuff' is or should be and what is the 'missed opportunity'. As Director of OpenLearn I can take full responsibility for what we have published and explain why we have done so, and make some comments on what I think he might be getting at.

It was always part of the plan that we would publish material from our existing courses and not write new stuff nor significantly rework the existing stuff. It was about opening up some of the wares from across the breadth and depth of what we have that our students study and generally find very satifactory giving the OU's results in the National Student Satisfaction surveys. And it is about exposing such material to both learners and teachers to make what they want of it.

eLearning Reviews - classy abstracts service from the Swiss Centre for Innovations in Learning

eLearning Reviews, from scil, describes itself thus:

"elearning-reviews provides those interested in research on elearning with concise and thoughtful reviews of relevant publications. The most important goal is a well-balanced selection of seminal publications as well as interesting up-to-date publications from the various disciplinary perspectives. Our goal is to further the development of elearning as a scientific, research-oriented discipline, and as a tool for innovating higher education as well as corporate education."

Managers learning at work is a good example of the kind of abstract produced. The number of journals monitored is long and comprehensive. You can keep an eye on it via its Monthly Newsletter, or by subscribing to its RSS feed.

Vacancy for Director of Development with the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Some readers of Fortnightly Mailing may be interested in being Director of Development with the Association for Learning Technology. The closing date for applications is 6 March 2008; and if you know of people who might be interested, and suited, please tell them.

(Disclosure: I work half time for ALT.)

The New Curiosity Shop Online College - Guest Contribution from Noel Chidwick

I needed a change. After twenty years in a Further Education college I thought it was about time to try something new, come out from under the stifling blanket of institutional life.  I am fascinated by the potential of online distance learning, but I watched with despair how colleges and universities were shedding their general interest courses in favour of  training for the job market, and how adult learners were becoming sidelined. In Scotland, the number of distance learners in FE dropped from over 27,000 in 2001 to under 13,000 in 2007. In a recent response to a consultation paper to the DFeS NIACE claim: “1.4 million places in publicly-supported adult learning in England have been lost over the last two years.” I thought it was time to stop talking and start doing.

Luckily, my friend and colleague Arthur Chapman, who also spent twenty years in the same college, agreed. After careful planning we built the model that is now the New Curiosity Shop Online College.