OLDaily
By Stephen Downes
July 19, 2004

Napster Expands University Program with the Addition of Six Schools
One wonders exactly what sort of deal was reached. "In establishing these agreements, the schools have been working closely with the Campus Action Network (CAN), an initiative dedicated to facilitating the introduction of safe, legitimate digital music services to the campus environment.... In partnering with Napster, Cornell, GW, Middlebury, Miami, USC and Wright State hope to give students a simple and fun way to obtain and listen to music in compliance with copyright laws and to promote respect for intellectual property." Via University Business. By PRNewswire-FirstCall, Yahoo News, July 19, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Welcome to the Rubric Machine
This site was mentioned in one of the discussion lists over the weekend, ITForum, I think, part of the discussion recently surrounding assessment in general. What this site provides is a step by step series of forms helping you build an assessment rubric. Nice elegant design and I like the help links at each step. By Various Authors, Inter-Action Design, July, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

PHP in Contrast to Perl
Continuing the mini-theme of comparing computer languages started last week, this look at PHP and Perl is an eye opener. In two sentences: "Number of PHP core functions: 3079. Number of Perl core functions: 206." The author also looks at inconsistent function naming in PHP. An advantage PHP derives from this, it seems to me, is speed. The last line of the article, though, is the best: "Comparing PHP to Perl is like comparing pears to newspapers." By Unknown, Undated [Refer][Research][Reflect]

On-line MBA Course Goes Live
Universitas 21 hasn't gone away. According to this item it is still plugging its flagship MBA program. Note the marketing pitch: "Those behind the course are hoping that flexibility and its low cost of EUR14,900 -- which includes all required texts -- should attract a number of potential students to 340 students already enrolled worldwide." Not exactly the spin we would have expected from the big name universities (who are not even mentioned in this article) that helped launch the initiative and were supposed to give it strong branding. Via Online Learning Update. By Deirdre McArdle, ENN, July 16, 2004 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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Copyright © 2003 Stephen Downes
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