Jeff Jarvis on Australia, background OhmyNews and Guardian Unlimited Talk

 I have taken three clips from a radio show on BBc world Service. Real Story included Jeff Jarvis on scene in Australia where social media firms are obliged to pay for news. My interest is in how this story develops and how it links back to earlier discussions.

Guardian reporting in UK print seems very supportive of Murdoch position. I think Guardian benefits in Australia. Long ago Guradian Unlimited talk was trashed one Friday lunchtime. No warning to contributors or chance to back up content. They really do not support "citizen journalism" in any way.

I contributed for a while to OhmyNews International, an English language version of Korean citizen journalism. I still think the approach is sound. Web is read / write. News needs input from readers. Other models are very hard to finance.

More later. I am trying to find some dates and references. I know the BBC appeared to be part of a discussion on blogs etc but cannot find the name of the meetings at this time.

Notes on shows

My jab is on 13th so next show already planned out. I will avoid weekend deadlines.

So I am thinking about future shows. The drama show is still mostly Widsith and Deor / Storyteller but I am thinking of a wider scope. They have always been open to a Creative Commons approach, reuse and remix. Apparently this is part of voice storytelling. With music the content marketing approach makes remix possible. Universal has recent deal with TikTok. So I want to explore if the same sort of social media / radio approach as for pop/R&B can relate to more formal music and other forms of art. Previously I found drama / gallery art both reluctant to allow sampling. The Stories of JG Ballard are on Internet Archive and I have got clips from two of them. I will probably go back to the other ones. Repeats are ok , there is a lot happening.

During lockdown I have kept in touch with JD, Chis and Jon from Wild Show and @wenotno from Phonic FM. We now discover Zoom is better for recording. Some sound included in next Drama Show. I am trying to include some of my plays in the conversation but we could try for a complete Wild Show or We Don't Know. Would Phonic accept 60 minute slots? Can we rework previous shows? Could shorter bits fit into other shows?

There are playlists on YouTube for Jon and Chris that I have used during shows when they are not there. I can do more with these and other playlists. YouTube now prefers robot suggestions so playlists are not promoted as a few years ago. But they can be explored as sequences. 

We have looked at how to use phones and mobile devices. There are now more studios in Exeter, ways of recording sound. There may be more empty shops so we continue to think about mobile / temp studios . Closed during lockdown but we can just imagine or comment as sound.

Management Theory at Work in Radio is in background. This continues Management Theory at Work, conferences at Lancaster University. Connection point now is my plays, fiction, around scifi future for campus. Business Schools research digital disruption but carry on investing in buildings, not platforms. Discuss.

I am trying out #hashtags and how to follow them. Analytics / quality ideas. I have asked some people who study quality to look into this. So far I have found they also use social media but exactly what works is still not clear.

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Continuing topics for shows

In lockdown I am stuck in memory somewhere in HMV Exeter between the Soul and R&B / Hiphop . Seems to be an age criteria. Joss Stone Soul Sessions not filed as Soul. So I keep repeating the CDs , maybe the last ones from HMV not sure : Shes Back Dionne Warwick, Raphael Saadiq Jimmy Lee, Spell My Name Toni Braxton. Plus previous tracks. Chris gave me an Amazon token so I have some legit mp3 - Berita Songs in the Key of Love and a couple of tracks from Kem. Neither likley to be stocked by HMV.

Journey to BETT is online.  Stephen Heppell is checking out how school age children have used technology during the lockdown. Russell Prue is following this. So there may be something in a radio format that could be related to Exeter. My own prediction is that those aged 12 will be aged 17 in five years time.

Various draft dramas. 

Coventry University as seen by Discourse One and Two

 More notes from last week. There may be something more coherent next week.

See previous posts for the two discourses , that tech enthusiasts continue or campus returns to normal. During the week I noticed two reports that included Coventry University.

Simon Baker in THE reported on UCAS numbers. Big growth for the Russell Group and falls for the post 92 group. Coventry has the biggest fall for 2019 and 2020.

But MOOClab reports Coventry University as top of the pile, best performing for MOOC performance. This has a high rating for degrees, Class Central may have other tables.

So this is worth coming back to. Adam Mathews may develop description on the two discourses. Others may contribute on Twitter. Coventry is not doing well in the criteria that would matter if things went back to normal. Coventry is doing well on criteria assumed by tech enthusiasts. How to describe the whole situation?

Couple of other things. quote first

Other research-intensive universities to see a large uptick in acceptances in the 2020 admissions cycle include Durham University, which accepted 1,000 more UK applicants, a rise of 28 per cent, and the University of Exeter, up by more than 1,100 or 21 per cent.

Durham and Exeter were also among those where the 2020 increase added to several years of expansion in terms of UK undergraduates; both accepted at least 40 per cent more last year than in 2015. In Exeter’s case, it accepted double the number of UK applicants last year compared with 2011.

Durham and Exeter are places I would like to know more about. Durham hosted Peter Horrocks for a lecture on the Fortress University. This explained reasons to invest in Futurelearn. It was part of a series of IAS lectures. What was the conclusion and is there any policy implication? In Exeter where I live it could be described as student intensive as well as research intensive. The city centre is crowded out with student accommodation. Has there been any change in plans to invest even more in this?

Discourses One and Two around online learning

 Notes just to remember what strikes me this week. May change next week.

Adam Mathews writes about two discourses on 2020 remote learning. ( I prefer online learning but anyway ) there are two - One from technology enthusiasts who see advance in pandemic situation , and Two , assumed to be many academics, who think things will be back to normal once the crisis is over. this reminds me of Knowledge as Modes One and Two. One abstract and in disciplines, Two mixed disciplines and practice, often found outside formal education. My guess is that Mode Two has grown at least in scale whatever academics think about it. Similarly there is support for online learning outside formal education so it can survive even if HE makes no longterm changes.

In later tweets Adam Mathews linked back to earlier blog about his own experience as a student and the reasons why there has been decline in the numbers of part time students. Partly this seems to be caused by the way the campus is promoted. Part-time is not seen as the main aim. There is reference to the early aims of the OU and lifelong learning. My own take is that Futurelearn is a continuation of the OU direction. I also think the MOOC momentum has continued further than suggested here, even if it is more concerned with skills than academics would like. ( Has adult education always had a similar tilt? ) See The Second Year of the MOOC from Class Central for recent numbers.

15th - 26th March there is an online version of Learning Technologies. Based in corporate learning there is often some HE at the real events in ExCEL but not much can be seen from the agenda so far. I just find this odd. It may be that there are two discourses getting further apart at this time.

Scott Galloway / Siege of Fortress University / Leave Twitter alone please #SiegeK

 The next phase will be mostly about virtual drupa. The siege of the Fortress University is more or less stuck through a lack of information. Probaly something is happening but in UK at this time not much reporting.

The seats outside the walls represent AI and marketing. So far there is some new info via tweets from Donal Clark, not directly about AI but enough to keep a sort of flow. There is no direct response from Scott Galloway on the marketing side so this post is to open up some discussion.

Although "dispersion" is seen as a continuation of globalisation then digitisation, Galloway seems only to look at HE in the USA. His model could fit UK but no detail at this time. 

Looking at a couple of courses from Section 4 , the project to offer business school level course online at reasonable cost. I can find two, both two weeks. Platforms starts March 30th, Strategy starts March 2nd. $750 is cheap but I do not propose to join at this time. I will just think about what might be going on. "How to create, compete with and disrupt platform markets" . This could be about Futurelearn growth potential or else alternatives in UK. I find many academics critique all edtech platforms as if they come from way outside the campus. It would be possible to invest in a new one. I recently tweeted about the Manchester spend on hotels. just trying to get a sense of proportion. I think UK business schoold can spend £10 -20m on a building. So they might get together and fund something like the Seek Group £50m investment in Futurelearn.

Anyway the other one on strategy includes "rundles" , repeat subscription income from product bundles. See blog for more on this. This makes sense. O'Reilly have expanded a book subscription service to include video and forums. But I have been diverted checking out links by recent claim on YouTube that the existing Twitter management should be sacked so that a subscription model is introduced. This seems to me a very bad idea. It might make money in the short term but I think something else would turn up. Mostly I find the comments on my tweets are positive or at least generate something new eventually. The whole point is that the scene is open. 

Same for an HE library or online archive. This Scott Galloway approach could go too far. His critique of existing business model is interesting. But there is some danger here.