Open Data

For my own purposes, I wanted to summarize the list of pros and cons regarding open data that were most compelling for me.

The Wikipedia link provided

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data#Arguments_for_and_against_open_data served as the motivator and resource for this personal reference list:

Pros

• Publicly funded research should be available to ... the public (include government research)
• No copyright/property rights on ideas
• Mutually beneficial discovery fueled by information; information sharing accelerates that

Cons

• Cost of compilation for publication/distribution
• Privacy necessary in certain contexts (security systems, safety)
• Profitability disincentives (sharing decreases my profits)
• Fair remuneration necessary for managers of the database

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Open Science: Why did the Poly-Math project succeed? Why did the quantum wiki fail?

Why did the Poly-Math project succeed? Why did the quantum wiki fail?

Why did the Poly-Math project succeed?

A Nobel prize winner posed a problem and asked for assistance. Nobel prize winners are likely to have an extensive network of contacts. Many of those contacts are likely to have extensive networks of their own. Consequently, when a Nobel prize winner sends a message, a large audience is likely to receive it.

A Nobel prize winner generally carries a sense of unique importance. Those reviewing the problem may feel they can gain a unique sense of importance and attention themselves by mere association. When the [insert person with unique sense of importance and power—President, monarch, etc.] asks for help in a discrete problem, those asked may feel as if they are epic heros by contributing to the timeless solution.

Why did the Quantum Wiki fail?

The unique sense of storybook importance dissipates as the person asking for help is not the sovereign of a country or field (albeit a smart person in his or her own right). A noble purist like the organizer of Q-Wiki may step forward with a vision and succeed among purists; however, he encounters frustration and ultimate failure when marketing to the masses? Why?

Consider what happened in Elementary School. The children entered Elementary School, eager to succeed . . . even though they may not yet know what “success” entails. They look for social cues to answer this question. They quickly gain this information from social learning. Children watch to see why a certain child receives attention, admiration, and rewards from the authority figure and peers. The children then model their behavior to receive similar rewards (Guess jeans, etc. ensues). After some time, identified children are identified as those who choose what the behavior to model should be. They are termed trend setters.

If purists can tap into this primal Elementary School psychology, they too can have the success they dream of. If they themselves are not trend setters, they need to identify current those who are and enlist their aid. They need to get “Q-Wiki contributor” on trend setters’ resume, so it becomes something carrying prestige with it, something that others will also want on their resume to become like the trend setter.

Why do purists neglect this basic psychology and fail? I know I failed to remember this because I counted on others to feel the purity/rightness/virtue I felt and simply act. Understandable, but fatal if you wish to involve non-purists.

Open Business Models

The following is my “cheat sheet” that I could reference to share the advantages of Flat World Knowledge.

Benefits Include:

For Teachers:

(1) Avoid dealing with new editions

(2) Can customize texts and deliver your version to students

For Students:

(1) Free texts online

(2) Different versions available (audio, print)

(3) Can purchase only parts of the book

(4) Supplemental materials available

For Authors:

(1) 20% royalty (5% above average)

(2) The right thing to do

(3) Exposure to a new audience

Upon hearing about the concept of badges, I thought of a basic marketing plan to launch them…

While I acknowledge that this is, apparently, already in play, I had so much fun creating the following simplified plan, I wanted to share it here.

The initial strategy in marketing badges is to identify a niche exemplar market. Identifying a niche exemplar market in which to launch badges would produce several advantages. First, it would allow identifiable success for proponents to share. Advocates of badges could, for example, find a willing business with a large share in the exemplar market that would agree to review applicants with profiles on a given site. The site would feature a searchable database of applicants with individual applicant profiles and prominent lists of badges earned (with the meaning of each when selected with the mouse). Advocates of badges could recruit applicants for the database by advertising that the business would review the database in making identify candidates for positions.

Second, identifying a specific market would allow advocates to focus their efforts and resources on a discrete segment of the market. For example, proponents could focus their efforts on creating badges for computer programmers. Proponents of badges could recruit help, if needed, from the niche market to determine what range of skills exist and which would be most valued by target employers. This would likely increase the quality of the process discussed in the paragraph above.

Third, starting with a niche market would allow advocates to specifically identify a single market more likely to adapt to the badge. For example, computer programmers would be more likely than many other fields to adopt. Programmers are used to adapting to novel ideas, and a tested skill set is vital to employability. Mozilla’s Webmaking 101 http://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-webcraft/sets/webmaking-101/ appears to feature an excellent and user-friendly prototype of such a programmer badge. Rather than forcing a less likely adopter to change, proponents could focus on a group with whom the concept of badges is more likely to succeed.

Assuming businesses in the niche market expressed satisfaction, with the applicants selected from the database, advocates could share the success with media outlets and gain publicity for badges. They could then use the publicity to systematically expand the concept of badges to other markets. While initial efforts would begin with fields more susceptible to adoption, it could move to other markets as successes became evident in initial markets.

In sum, the strategy is to (1) identify a niche exemplar market; (2) launch badges in the niche market; (3) advertise success in the niche market among both potential company adopters and potential applicants; and (4) systematically expand badges to the next niche market(s).

I just wish I could have attended class Friday and more fully discover how this plan compared with what actually occurred.

Open Teaching:

"Wait, this isn't Open Teaching!" may be your initial reaction to the idea presented in the post below. Consider, however, that the underlying principles of openess (e.g. accessibility, innovative expansion beyond the four walls of the classroom) are portrayed in a nascent state. In other words, this is an initial step into the world of open teaching.

Frantic teachers confront me with legal questions, wondering whether they will face a lawsuit in the near future. I feel especially attentive because I come from a family of teachers. They teach at every level of public and private education, and they and those confronting me with questions face certain common legal concerns. The most common issues seem to relate to the following: injuries on school property, sexual harassment allegations, discrimination, the legal bounds of discipline, searches and seizures, use of copyrighted materials, and the phenomenon of texting pictures that legally qualify as child pornography.

I would enjoy teaching a course for secondary education teachers in the McKay School of Education and administrators in the EDLF program that would supply them with practical information that they will, unfortunately, be using in the near future. The question I have, based on today’s lecture, is how can I make this information available to the maximum number of people who would benefit from it? Further, how can I involve non-students in the course?

Here are a few ideas:

· While recording and posting lectures is one possibility, brief, on-point videos would likely be more effective. What if students (1) created scripts for on-point videos on each major legal topic; (2) recorded amateur video and posted on Digital Dialog http://digitaldialog.byu.edu/main.php?updates=0; (3) presented their videos in class; and (3) selected the best script for each topic and had the winning teams professionally produce their script in coordination with the production crew at CTL. The final day of class could be a “movie preview” and the official launch of the videos on a website and/or YouTube.

· I could further share the videos during Continuing Legal Education lectures and other events on hot topics in Education Law.

· While the primary target would be secondary education teachers, the administrators in our EDLF program would find ample opportunity to apply lessons learned from these video vignettes. We could certainly invite them to enroll in the course, to attend any lectures they found especially interesting, to comment on student videos shared on Digital Dialog, or to otherwise interact with me and the students on a formal or informal basis. What would likely be even more effective would be to have a lecture specifically on administrators at which current administrators presented the legal difficulties they faced and the solutions they had found. Responding to informed student questions may be the best teaching vehicle we could provide for them. In addition, it would provide my students an opportunity to network with future employers and look sympathetic and well-informed on issues the administrators face.