No apology for Wikipedia, either. For the vindication of Wikipedia as an academic source, Harvard University Library [a lead partner in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Project] has expanded Wikipedia’s works on books to over 60,000 [Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory, ShelfLife Collaborative, Librarycloud Demo]:
... two-way integration with Wikipedia,... is ... an example of how DPLA can weave itself into the knowledge ecosystem of the Web. If an item has a Wikipedia page, we let you see all the other items categorized with it at Wikipedia.
We're proud of this; it took considerable effort and ingenuity.
…
If the DPLA collection doesn't contain that work, we put the work's Wikipedia page on the shelf.
[see “How did you do the integration with Wikipedia?” on the FAQ page]
The irony is worth underlining: the OpenEd community, whose major criticism of MOOCs is that they enshrine the one-way, rigid lecture format, was asked not to respond via the open web while Ng was lecturing to them over a video link.
Genomic data sets shared publicly get used more... well yes. And, the scientists who share them are also much more often cited. Well, yes. But is that necessarily a good thing? Maybe.
Our increasing inability to view globalised higher education from any perspective other than that of competing nation states in a transnational system, and of universities as competing capitals inside that world-view, is highlighted by Matt Lingard’s report on the Universities UK event, Open and online learning: Making the most of Moocs and other models. Critically, Lingard highlights how MOOCs are being utilised to catalyse further marketisation of education in the global North with the on-line space being used less as a socially transformative experience, and more as a space for public/private partnership, in order to lever global labour arbitrage and strengthen the transnational power of specific corporations:
Universities have failed to recognize the pent-up demand for learning as the economy has diversified and society has become more complex and interconnected. As a consequence, the internet has contributed by creating a shadow education system where learners learn on their own and through social networks. MOOCs reflect society’s transition to a knowledge economy and reveal the inadequacy of existing university models to meet learner’s needs.
In a new interview Klein says that it’s important to question why the big green groups lo have been so unwilling to follow science to its logical conclusions.