Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
April 3, 2007

Expressing Dublin Core Metadata Using the Resource Description Framework (RDF)
The RDF version of Dublin Core is open for comments. I still have a fondness for RDF, despite what I've said about the Semantic Web because, after all, RDF is about relations. Connections. But I sometimes wish I could keep the standards people away from it. Take, for example, the integer '43'. Here's how I express it: 43. RDF-DC? It takes seven lines. We have to stop trying to specify the exact interpretation in the document and let users apply their own interpretation in the context. In programming, this is called Duck Typing. "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck." We need to allow that, if it looks like an integer, it probably is an integer. At most, if we've specified the schemas in the header, we should need to do no more than "age = 43" in the body. Using the appropriate brackets for RDF or JSON or whatever we're working with (and we will leave aside the question of why it is we have still not figured out a simple and common way of saying "age=43" after all these years). Mikael Nilsson, Andy Powell, Pete Johnston and Ambjorn Naeve, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative April 3, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Wikipedia, Schemas, Semantic Web] [Comment]

Play Misty for Me
Nicely done, a nearly seamless integration of WordPress and Media Wiki. "It is done with a theme/skin called MistyLook. The look is easily customizable by changing the header image, and tweaking the CSS is always an option as well." Andy Rush, And He Blogs April 3, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Customization] [Comment]

Cory Doctorow Profiled in The Chronicle of Higher Ed
I think it is with typical Chronicle irony that this article on Cory Doctorow's anti-copyright course, 'Pwned', is hidden behind a subscription wall, and entirely appropriate that it has been copied and posed in full on Siva Vaidhyanathan's NYU website. Via A2K v DMCA in Australia. Siva Vaidhyanathan, Sivacracy.net April 3, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Copyrights, Subscription Services, Patents, Australia, Patents] [Comment]

Mobile Technology in Medical Education Bibliography
This week's most popular file on ITForum: a bibliography (MS-Word Document) of papers describing the use of instructional technologies, and especially PDAs, in medical education. Very comprehensive, though readers of these pages will find nothing really new there (the typical paper: we tried PDAs in such-and-such a class or application, it looks like they have a lot of potential, can increase data input, etc.). The big weakness is that there are no URLs- either these papers are not online or the bibliographer didn't think their location was important. Unattributed, Website April 3, 2007 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

 

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