Pontydysgu is planning to launch a German language web site. A beta version of the site is planned for August with the launch in September. Judith Seipold will be editor of the site. If you are interesting in becoming a guest blogger or contributing in any other way please contact Judith Seipold <pontydysgu [dot] de [at] googlemail [dot] com>.
Jisc have published two new online wizards to make publishing Open Educational Resources easier, particularly when there are multiple licences involved.
Amber Thomas, programme manager at JISC, said, “These are really useful tools for aiding the remix of creative commons licensed content. The wizards are very simple to use, and we hope they will be useful to many people.”
The wizards navigate through the licence compatibility issues which arise when blending Creative Commons (CC) licensed resources into open educational resources.
They have been created for use by JISC-funded open educational resources projects, but it is anticipated that they will have to be applicable to other projects throughout the creative industries internationally.
Prodromos Tsiavos, England and Wales Project, Legal Project Project Lead, Creative Commons UK, said, “These tools allow users of the CC licences to make quick, easy and accurate decisions as to when and how to use multiple combinations of the CC licences. They reduce the complexity of copyright law and empower the end user by reducing the need for external advice when licensing copyrighted material. CCUK strongly supports this collaborative work and believes it will substantially contribute to the re-use, utilisation and proliferation of CC licensed content.”
The wizards can be accessed on the web2rights web site.
The Personal Learning Environment Conference 2011 programme has been published. The conference takes place in Southampton from July 11- 13 and features keynote presentations from Cristina Costa, Scott Wilson, Riina Vuorikari and Les Carr.
On Monday 11th there are two pre-conference workshops:
This toolkit from Jisc has been released for measuring the impact of resources. However it could also be very useful for those seeking to measure project impact, an increasing demand from funding bodies.
The Jisc press release says “Measuring the impact of a resource you’ve put online can be difficult – but a newly updated JISC toolkit will help content creators, publishers and other information professionals understand the reach of their digital assets.
They can use the kit to help guide them through different aspects of measuring impact, both qualitative, such as focus groups, and quantitative, such as web metrics.”
The toolkit can be accessed here.
Due to the creation of hundreds of spam accounts threatening to overwhelm our database we have temporarily suspended the creation of new accounts on this site. Normal service will be resumed soon 🙂
Graham Attwell will be will be guest tweeting from TEDxKids in Brussels on June 1st. The event web site says TedxKids is two events in one.
“48 kids, all of them born in 2000, are going to get their hands dirty, soldering, tinkering, hacking and composing. A series of hands-on workshops will introduce the kids to a range of skills and methods. At the same time 400 adults will be treated to an all day program of leading thinkers, experts and makers.’ The twitter address to follow is @TEDxKidsEU and there will be a live stream from the event web site.
Finding data is not always easy. The new data search engine – http://www.zanran.com – promises to make life easier.
Graham Attwell will be presenting a keynote speech at the annual European Distance and E-Learning Network conference in Dublin from june 19th – 22. The theme of his presentation will be ‘Context, Authenticity and Learning in the Real World.’
Reviews of proposals for the PLE2011 Conference in Southampton are now complete and authors will be informed of the results tomorrow. It is expected that enrollment for the conference will commence next Monday, with a draft programme being published by the end of the week.
The PLE2011 conference being held in Southampton from 11-13 July has announced its (un) keynote speakers – Cristina Costa, Scott Wilson, Riina Vuorikari and Les Carr.
According to the conference web site they will provide key insights and understanding of what makes a PLE, from personal experience, through individual analysis and with thoughtful speculations on the future directions of this important field. “Each of our four keynotes will offer a slightly different perspective on Personal Learning Environments and each guarantees to ensure that their sessions attain the high level of interactions and audience engagement which was established with the first conference in Barcelona.”
Cyborg patented?
Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.
Racial bias in algorithms
From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter
This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.
Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years
Via The Canary.
The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).
Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.
The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.
Quality Training
From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.
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We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.