Josh Halpern

Thinking about the UNESCO OER Recommendations I was struck by the thought that the 5Rs are about rights of creators and providers . OER needs rights for students, perhaps a couple of A's Availability Accessibility which are what I believe UNESCO is focused on

@LibreTexts @opencontent A frustration of Wikipedia is unending editing wars where people keep writing over each others words. In LibreTexts authors control permissions to edit their books although others may create copies and edit the copies assuming no ND license.

@opencontent Coincidentally, the core technology around our OER libraries is a wiki. This was selected since it was the ideal approach for large scale construction and curatation - two critical aspects of a "community commons" especially when open to all to contribute and edit.

The 3rd UNESCO World OER Congress, titled "Digital Public Goods: Open Solutions and AI for Inclusive Access to Knowledge," is convening in Dubai next week. It may seem like a small thing, but I am deeply encouraged to see the convening title acknowledge that OER are public goods. (This is a soapbox I've been on since 2018.) People often talk about OER being part of a "knowledge commons," but this is unhelpful when it comes to thinking about the sustainability of OER. OER lack the most critical hallmarks of a knowledge commons - the overwhelming majority of OER are not collectively created or maintained, or governed by a community. (Can you name one, other than Wikipedia, that is?). If all that's required to be considered part of a knowledge commons is being openly licensed, and if the definition of OER is literally just "being openly licensed," then it's easy to see how thinking about OER as part of a knowledge commons doesn't provide us with any additional tools for thinking about their sustainability. However, OER fully meet the definition of public goods (i.e., OER are both non-excludable and non-rivalrous). And when you think of OER as public goods you actually get useful tools for thinking about their sustainability. For example, OER are subject to the free rider problem. That is, the reason we don't have all the OER we need is because people don't have financial incentives to create OER (since people generally don't pay for things they can get for free). This is a classic market failure, and OER overcome the free rider problem the same way other public goods do - through interventions by governments, philanthropy, and others who provide the funding necessary to make sure they get created. Thinking about OER as public goods will be an incredibly helpful step toward more productive conversations about their sustainability. I hope more people will follow UNESCO's lead here. #OER #sustainability #oercongress unesco.org/en/articles/3r…

@EdnaK_ @cmclymer This gives Bezos an excuse to step back if he wants it. Trump when president blocked a large Amazon Web Services contract which is probably why Bezos acted as he did but this shows that it would not help him

@cmclymer I don't know. All of a sudden, these billionaires and the papers they own are stepping back from endorsing a candidate (Kamala), meeting with Trump, and acting as if he's already president. I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but... theguardian.com/media/2024/oct…

I've thought for a while now that the "October surprise" in a presidential election is no longer a real thing, a bygone political concept. Tonight may prove me wrong. Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden is shaping up to be the last-minute factor that sinks his campaign.

@cutelikeafox12 @staticbluebat @hannah__acc0unt So what? Nadar was sufficient

@staticbluebat @hannah__acc0unt More Florida Dems voted Bush than Nader

@BaroloBanker @ludden_tom @alexthechick Controversal cases are most often decided en banc

@ludden_tom @alexthechick Leaving in place an Appeals Court decision frequently made by 2 or 3 judges or even more problematically an appellate split.

Set aside the court packing stupid for a second. Let us focus on the sheer lunacy of expanding to an even number.

@SteveCostello @DisbldUrbanFarm @dieworkwear Try ebay, there seem to be people selling Avatar. No guarantees

@DisbldUrbanFarm @dieworkwear Yes. So maddening. mine wasn’t even fancy-schmancy $$$. It was Avatar by Cody. Could buy it at a drug store. There was something about it that was perfect for me. My wife LOVES that smell on me, & whenever I wore it, I ALWAYS got compliments on it. Have a few ml left.

There are two sensible ways to choose a fragrance and one bad way. 🧵

@teresa_lutz @DisbldUrbanFarm @dieworkwear No guarantees but worth a look ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fr…

@DisbldUrbanFarm @dieworkwear Tonke Imperiale by Guerlain - the “nez du Guerlain” selected it for me over 15 years ago and now it’s GONE 😭😭😭

The Independent Report of the G20 TF-CLIMA group of experts - the 1.5C Agenda - is out today! we unpack common myths, including the relentless promotion of derisking, and propose alternatives that emphasize state capacity to discipline capital g20.org/en/tracks/sher…

@Dodson_Group @TCrassversion Exciting

Congratulations to Team CBGB on publishing their low-temperature #spectroscopy study of hydrogen cyanide! Now out in J Mol Spec. authors.elsevier.com/a/1jyac54Ikt3qe

@PoliticsAndEd Possible. Here are the salary scales for UC ucop.edu/academic-perso…

I wrote a deeper dive on this story and the responses to it in College Towns. Visit and subscribe. collegetowns.substack.com/p/ucla-profess…

UCLA professor going viral for essentially being homeless. Pay $70k, can’t afford LA. My guess is adjunct prof. Trap a lot of PhDs get in thinking adjunct will lead to full-time (often doesn’t). Sad. x.com/babs_zone/stat…

@ShriramKMurthi The MOOC revolution failed because of isolation. Studying alone does not work. If the MOOCs and SLACs and CCs had built recitation/discussion classes all would have benefitted IMHO of course

During the MOOC "revolution", I thought all these campuses would be turned into dorms and study halls for people taking remote classes (but finishing at their own speed). There's still so much potential—and nobody would build these campuses now.

@KanthalaRaghu @verygoodplugins @automattic @wordpressdotcom @wpfusion @wpengine @WordPress At some point they diverge and are no longer interoperable.

@wpengine is one of the few companies in the position to make a successful fork of @WordPress because they in theory have some of the required capital and internal development talent to achieve it. I would love it if WPE commits the ACF dev team to forking WordPress and integrating ACF into the core, maybe rename it to "OpenPress" or "ContentPress". Integrate wpgraphql into the core and use their capital to create the open source CMS that developers actually love using. Preferably with actual database optimisation. With a more mature file structure which shouldn't allow any users to write fucking php code into a browser window, we could leave behind versioning in CSS comments... Get rid of plugins that don't clean up the db entries after deletion. Bake in inertia.js and let devs use whatever frontend framework they want. Ensure compatibility with something like Medusa.js so it has a viable alternative to WooCommerce. Then in the licensing agreement, add a clause that you are required to tell @photomatt to go fuck himself at least once a year. #WordPress

@Rich_Hershman A major issue here is that OER advocates push on large introductory courses while not paying attention to smaller more advanced ones (for which resources exist, just harder to find)

“Like OER awareness, use of OER has declined in the past year among all faculty surveyed. The rate of use of OER as required materials for 2023-24 is three percentage points lower than results from 2022-23.” Faculty chime in on digital resource, OER use - ccdaily.com/2024/09/facult…

@Judianna After they were surplused, brought some of these into my lab as parts cabinets. Really great for that

😎

@MilitaryCooI Detach the two black wires that are holding the board to the C4. Pull the two blasting caps away with the board

Which cable should be cut off?

@andredjone Brings back memories

@Rich_Hershman Been looking at that but when you figure in the cost of online homework systems it's not so encouraging

New CPI out today. College textbook prices remain in deflation over the last 12 months finishing negative -3.5% for the last 6 months. Tuition & fees up 1.3% over the last six months while school housing climbed 4.1% during same time. Overall CPI was +3.1% for last six months.

@SizemoreSuzette @samanthaefran C'mon now, give us a hint. You the 78 year old acting like a 5 year old or the 5 year old pretending to be 78?

@JoshHalpern5 @samanthaefran Watching you liberals get to this point is the highlight of my day.

@SizemoreSuzette @samanthaefran That you on the left or right?

@JoshHalpern5 @samanthaefran Well 5 year old I am then. Whatever floats your boat 🤣🤣🤣

@wareslab One of the secrets is that your time dealing with their foolishness is counted in the overhead calculation. Fortunately it's capped at 26% MDC.