Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Doc. Eng and Web Services for E-Berkeley #
Interesting talk given by Robert Glushko to some IST people.  Interesting to hear someone else talk about the intersection of document engineering, web services, and e-Berkeley.   Posted by Raymond Yee on 8/20/02; 5:20:21 PM from the Web Technology dept. Discuss

One can see what David Wiley's been up to in his class #

An invitation on the ITFORUM listserv: I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to participate in an online course I'm offering at Utah State University this fall. The topic of the course is "Foundations of Sustainable Education," in other words, how technology can be utilized to put access to educational opportunity in front of anyone who wants it (including people with no financial means who want it). Some of the topics we'll be reading about and discussing include: Learning objects Learning technology standards Learning management systems Intellectual property and licensing practices Decentralization and peer-to-peer networks Maintaining information quality in decentralized online groups Economics and participation incentives Peer Assessment The site is at:  http://decentralized.ed.usu.edu/sustainable   Lots of useful stuff there -- including a high-level overview of learning objects. [Thanks to David Carter-Tod for pointing out this posting to me.]   Posted by Raymond Yee on 8/20/02; 4:58:10 PM from the Web Technology dept. Discuss

The Berkeley Public Library provides persistent URLs #

In an earlier entry, I complained that the Library of Congress and http://pathfinder.berkeley.edu (the UC Berkeley Web-based catalog) do not give users a way to link to catalog entries.  It turns out that the Berkeley Public Library catalog provides persistent URLs for entries.  For example, go to an entriy for Ronald Gross' Independent Scholar's Handbook. This is good find -- but the BPL iss a small collection and cannot be counted on to be a rich enough collection to hold all the books I might want to point to.   Posted by Raymond Yee on 8/20/02; 4:23:46 PM from the Web Technology dept. Discuss

Great links from Lynn #

Thanks, Lynn, for pointing me to "How Academic Librarians Can Influence Students' Web-based Information Choices" and "Course Management Software: The Case for Integrating Libraries".  Both articles were very helpful. In my serendipity mode, while reading those articles, I came across a piece by Daniel Greenstein, the new University Library and Director of CDL, and Jerry George:  "Building a Library Service Network"  The theme of the piece seems to echo the talk that Daniel Greenstein gave at UCCSC 2002.      Posted by Raymond Yee on 8/20/02; 3:44:05 PM from the Web Technology dept. Discuss

A new yahoo group: Aggregators #
I'm intrigued by this new discussion group about aggregators.  Apparently, it's not limited to discussion about aggregating RSS.  Our Teachers' Box is about aggregating the full range of digital objects, especially digital cultural content....so we'll see.   Posted by Raymond Yee on 8/20/02; 2:19:28 PM from the Web Technology dept. Discuss

philosophy of vacation #

Next week, I am scheduled to take vacation.  I'm toying with the idea of postponing it.  Before I had decided to do vacation next week, I had already scheduled many events.  They're all wonderful and, in ways, restorative -- but all tie me down to being in Berkeley at fixed times.  Will I be able to have a good vacation in spite of all this scheduled activity? More fundamentally, what is a good vacation?  As I was biking in this morning, I pondered this question.  I want to have a good vacation next week (providing I do take it at this time).  Should I try to "do nothing" and lay fallow?  Or can I just do some different things -- like a lot of volunteer work or learn some new skills or read those books that have long been on my to-read list?  Or get in my car, put some long-expected miles, get lost somewhere?  Should I try to stop thinking, stop philosophizing, stop feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders and in my heart, laugh a bit more, cease feeling sad (or start feeling the sadness that is there but hasn't been expressed because I've been too busy) -- at least while I'm on vacation?   Posted by Raymond Yee on 8/20/02; 10:44:09 AM from the Personal Notes dept. Discuss