When I raved to a friend about what I like about (some) online courses, I didn't realize it but I was giving her more or less this list. Huh. 

I would be curious to look at syllabuses or moodle-etc spaces for English courses, or whole curriculums or programs, with these elements purposefully built in -- mostly just curious, but it also sounds like the assignments related to these learning goals would be more interesting than writing zillions of papers. 

While I consider C-30 a costly and unacceptable intrusion into Canadians privacy I disagree with Geist's third point. Social networking sites as used today are effectively semi-public or public spaces, really little different than the bar with a cover charge. After choosing to share something with the first 500,000 people can it really be private information? If law enforcement or businesses wish to analyze the data consumers provide the social media company I am all for it. Just keep out of regular internet traffic and email unless there is a warrant.

I think it would be risky to generalize too far how people use social media publicly. When Facebook emerged, privacy was one of its key selling points - even if they've opened it with every successive policy and tech update since. Privacy remains a key resource and principle for much of what happens here in the Landing. Cognizant that the user of for-profit social media services (e.g. Facebook) is the commodity, I think it's still important to conscientiously practice - and exercise the right to - privacy in the use of services that purport to protect it. On which grounds I would oppose the police or corporate surveillance and analysis of ostensibly private social media user content - so much of which is shared in good faith on pretexts of privacy even if it ends up public - as vigorously as I would that of email.

To translate the point in terms of the face-to-face scene you offer as analogy: I don't want to pay the cover charge to a party only to find the place full of police. I've been there. It's a vibe killer.

I do not believe you can compare the reach of 3K-5K (eg. Landing) versus hundreds of millions (eg. Linkedin or Facebook) of users when talking about privacy. In the F2F scene the expectations of privacy in a private house party versus bar with cover versus big valley jamboree are different. From my perspective the boundaries and scope should be set by reach (eg. target audience) rather than technology (eg. social networking systems) because changing applications of the technology change the requirements for privacy.

As for specific examples I believe a warrant should be required for the Landing, but not for Facebook or Linkedin not because any are less social networking systems but because of the reach based on the user base.

I've been mulling over the whole notion of originality as it relates to student essays myself. The idea that undergraduates have something original to say about a topic that's been thoroughly digested by scholars is really silly. The most reasonable response to this demand is probably plagiarism. We should be completely up front about what we are asking them to do: read a specific body of material and present what they find in a coherent fashion, being as scrupulous as possible to list and cite all sources used. The next level would be using the synthesis skills they have developed to put together a basic argument on a given topic. Ideally all of this has already happened in high school although I understand that engaging students in long writing projects is becoming increasingly difficult.

I like any approach such as Goldsmith's that allows students to reflect on the notion of authorship/authority. The approach I want to try is to have them think and write about the concept of author originality and intellectual property--to help them deconstruct the academic writing process and situate it in their own minds among other kinds of texts that they and others produce.

- Mary Pringle

I didn't find myself really doing any kind of novel research until I was into graduate school. I do see a clear distinction between ripping off other people's work, and trying to write an intresting analysis of secondary scholarship on a subject. During my own experiences, and in marking fist and second year papers, I was struck that the most important aspects of the undergrad were basic technical skills: learn to cite properly, learn to quote, learn to apply your own analysis without stealing someone else's, learn to ask questions and to find the questions that other people haven't been asking. You don't get to answer questions yet at the undergrad, not really. 

I love remixing, reimagining, borrowing, and collaborating, but there's nothing terribly new about any of them. What's new is the idea that they're unacceptable, I swear it's got to be a product of draconian copyright laws more than anything else.

Some good ideas there, but the admittedly brief write up sounds like it's trying to shock to garner attention. The ideas are good, but not revolutionary, and in saying "I have them purchase a term paper from an online paper mill and sign their name to it, surely the most forbidden action in all of academia." the author all but admits that they're in it for the scandal.