edna.edu.au

Wet, Wet, Wet. It must be the clouds.

Well it seems we are all drowning in it now, rain that is, and will for the next week. So i decided I better start doing a bit more along the lines of getting back into the swing of things, and that means the conferencing merry-go-round.

The one that has my interest at the moment, apart from the fact that their next one is in Monterey, is the guys at the OCWC (open courseware consortia for the unitiated - a grouping of unis from around the world). This is their latest conference and themes.

Just finished these words as a description of my paper.

The aim if this paper is simply to have one irrevocable fact recognized = we live in a Globalizing world whose National public institutions have been left behind,

It asks its readers to consider that, in order to prepare and protect citizen's to live in this world, their institutions require new routines and network architectures. It also attempts to have readers believe that education is not something which is based on the local production and delivery of information, but rather is dependent on the communication of ideas and concepts on a global basis.

In short, it aims to convince readers that the key to progress here is in the development of Communication networks by which Information - stored in institutional silos - may be aggregated, recompiled and explained by groups of global researchers. i.e. The C is put before, and aims to align with, the I in ICT.

To put this in more technical terms, readers are asked to consider that the primary differences between between the description of networks as "Grids" or "Clouds" is one of openess and inclusion, One abides by the old industrial paradigms of institutional production and broadcast, the other abides by the new media model of joint production and interaction.   

This new paradigm calls upon an understanding between four professional mindsets.
1. Content producers, including application builders
2. Web designers
3. NREN operators, including National broadcasters
4. Institutional archivists

Areas for development would include:

1. Development of a directory to the online (web) environments of (virtual organisations') global groups, including their communication's global dialing scheme.
2. Development of a Single Sign On and learning account for citizens of each NREN (with policies for various levels of authorization).
3. Aggregation of standard (virtualized) applications
4. Coordination of handover between broadcast programmes and online environments, in both directions.

Sustainability

As we are talking about the development of interactive media centered around global groups raher than the duplicated) information of (National institutions (in the .edu space) the opportunities fall into the usual categories, albeit on a global basis rather than just National, i.e.

1. Sponsorships, where Telcos and computer companies might support ongoing inquiries by providing money, bandwidth and equipment.
2. Advertising, where institutions provide an advertising network (for their members), like adsense, which promotes their conferences, jobs, courses and publications, etc; for which they pay a nominal fee; and private companies promote their goods and services to a standard rate card.
3. Subscriptions, where each government supports a learning account for their citizens.

I'll leave this chart here as well, so i don't forget it. (Just in case you don't know what "cloud" is, just consider that the tools which Google, and its peers, often aren't sitting on one box (in one server farm). They're sitting on a bunch of boxes scattered around the world.

Tags: personal professional
Posted at 10:26AM Feb 16, 2009 by simon fenton - jones  |  Comments[0]