In case you missed it, here are some articles that caught my eye this week:
- Privacy And Why It Really Matters, Marko Polojarvi
As much as privacy is about one’s ability to control what others know about one, it’s also about protecting the freedom of the modern democratic society.
The processes that make our democratic and free society possible are built on transparent and fair decision-making. If you strip out transparency you end up with totalitarianism. The current practice of harvesting and analysing individual’s private and public data jeopardises the whole system of fair decision-making.
- The Ideal Law School Graduate? A ‘People Person’ Who Can Do Research, Best Practices for Legal Education
You can be a sharp writer and a nimble researcher who is skilled at analyzing cases. But for law school graduates entering the workforce, it’s the softer skills, like work ethic, collegiality and a sense of individual responsibility, that really impress legal employers, according to a new study.
- Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2013: MOOCs and Anti-MOOCs, Hack Education
Barely a week has gone by this year without some MOOC-related news. Much like last year, massive open online courses have dominated ed-tech conversations.
But if 2012 was, as The New York Times decreed, the year of the MOOC, 2013 might be described as the year of the anti-MOOC as we slid down that Gartner Hype Cycle from the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” and into the “Trough of Disillusionment.” For what it’s worth, Gartner pegged MOOCs at the peak back in July, while the Horizon Report says they’re still on the horizon. Nevertheless the head of edX appeared on the Colbert Report this year, and the word “MOOC” entered the Oxford Online Dictionary – so whether you think those are indications of peak or trough or both or neither, it seems the idea of free online university education has hit the mainstream.
…MOOCs expanded greatly in 2013 – expanded their partner institutions, expanded their course offerings, expanded their investment dollars, grew the number of students enrolled, and so on. But there were lots of questions along the way: who’s succeeding in MOOCs; how will MOOCs make money; how will MOOCs affect higher education; and how will MOOCs affect open education?
Richard Susskind’s popular book “The End of Lawyers” highlights a future where disruptive technological change and increased commoditization of legal services fundamentally changes the practice of law. Susskind and others have written on the power of automation, of computers not just changing the way we practice law, but possibly bypassing lawyers completely.
As algorithms take over an increasing amount of the investment market, and surgeons rely more on the precision of robots, what is to stop computers from taking over the practice of law?
- From Things to Conversations, Inside Higher Ed | Blog U
Librarians and faculty in the disciplines tend to think differently about knowledge.
One of the major differences is that librarians have a tendency to think of knowledge as made up of things and faculty in other disciplines think of people.
jkbeitz 