Obsidian/Smart Connections Workflow

I use Obsidian plus the plugin Smart Connections to inform my blog writing activities. I write for educational practitioners and academics so I try to carefully base my content on sources that I have read and in many cases intend to cite in the content I generate. With this goal, Obsidian represents an archive I have developed over several years to store and organize notes from hundreds of books, journal articles, and websites. I explore my collection in different ways sometimes seeking notes on a specific article I want to emphasize and sometimes exploring to locate what I have read that is relevant to a topic that I might want to include but perhaps do not recall at the time. 

In some cases, I want to use an AI tool to support my writing. I seldom use AI to actually generate the final version of content I post, but I may explore the possible organization of material for something I want to write or I might use an AI tool to generate an example of how I might explain something based on the notes I have made available to the AI tool. 

The combination of Obsidian augmented by the Smart Connections plugin allows me to implement a workflow I have found useful and efficient. I have several specific expectations of this system:

  1. I have already read the source material and taken some notes or generated some highlights now stored in Obsidian. I want to write based on this content.
  2. I may not recall relevant sources I have stored in Obsidian because of the passage of time and the accumulation of a large amount of material. I want the AI system to understand my goals and locate relevant content. 
  3. I want the AI system to identify specific sources from the content I have reviewed rather than the large body used to train the LLM. I want the system to identify the specific source(s) from this material associated with specific suggestions so that I am aware of the source and can cite a source if necessary.
  4. When a specific source has been identified I want to be able to go directly to the original document and the location within that document that is the location for the note or highlight that prompted the inclusion in the AI content so that I can reread the context for that note or highlight.

Obsidian with the Smart Connections plugin does these things and is to some extent unique because all of the material (the original content) is stored locally (actually within iCloud which functions as an external harddrive) allowing the maintenance of functioning links between the output from Smart Connections, the notes/highlights stored in Obsidian, and the original documents (pdfs of journal articles, Kindle books, web pages). 

I do not know for certain that the Obsidian-based approach I describe is the only way to take the approach I take. I am guessing my approach works in part because I am not relying on an online service and online storage. I also use Mem.ai because it allows me to focus on my own content, but linking back to source documents does not work with this service. Mem.ai does include the AI capabilities as part of the subscription fee, but I don’t know when this might be an advantage. The Smart Connections plugin does require the use of an OpenAI API (ChatGPT) and there is a fee for this access.

Example:

Here is an example of what working with the Obsidian/Smart Connections setup is like. I am working on a commentary on the advantages and disadvantages of K12 students having access to AI in learning to write and writing to learn. I propose that writing involves multiple subprocesses and it is important to consider how AI might relate to each of these subprocesses. My basis for the list of subprocesses is based on the classic Flower and Hayes Writing Process Model. I had written a description of the Writing Process Model for a book I wrote and this section of content was stored within Obsidian as well as notes from multiple sources on AI advantages and disadvantages in the development of writing skills. I have not read a combination of the writing process model with ideas about the advantages and disadvantages of AI so this is the basis for what I think is an original contribution.

The following is a screenshot of Obsidian. The Smart Connection appears as a panel on the right side of the display. The left-hand panel provides a hierarchical organization of note titles and the middle panel provides access to an active note or a blank space for writing a new note. 

In the bottom textbox of the Smart Connections panel, I have entered the following prompt:

Using my notes, how might AI capabilities be used to improve writer functioning in the different processes identified by the writing process model. When using information from a specific note in your response, include a link to that note. 

Aside from the focus of the output, two other inclusions are important. First, there is the request to “use my notes”. This addition is recommended to ensure a RAG (retrieval augmented generation) approach. In other words, it asks the AI service use my notes rather than the general knowledge of the AI system as the basis for the output. The second supplemental inclusion is the request to include a link to that note which is intended to do just what it says – add links I can use to to see where ideas in the output came from.

The output from Smart Connections is in markdown. I copied this output into a new blank note and the links included are now active.

I purposefully selected a note that initially was part of a web page for this final display. I had originally used a tool that allowed the annotation of web pages and then the exporting of the annotated and highlighted content as a markdown file I added to Obsidian. This file included the link from the note file back to the online source. As you can see, the link from Obsidian brought up the web page and with the assistance of the activated service added as an extension to my browser displays what I had highlighted within this web page. Interesting and useful.

Conclusion:

We all have unique workflows and use digital tools in different ways because of differences in what we are trying to accomplish. What I describe in this post is an approach I have found useful and I have included related comments on why. I hope you find pieces of this you might apply yourself.

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Attacks on Higher Education

My own story includes a career working in higher education so I suppose that is mostly responsible for my reactions to what now seem to be the attacks on my occupation. I always want to point out one fact. The state through the legislature and the budget controlled by the legislature fund less than a third of the cost of state institutions. Yet, legislatures can pass laws that dictate how these institutions function. Most revenue necessary to run institutions must be generated by the institutions through tuition, grants, and donations and institutions must compete for these resources.

Two of the issues that some states want to control are the curriculum (what is taught) and tenure. These two issues are interrelated in this way. Tenure protects faculty members against even their own institutions. Since tenure gives a professor job security for decades, undercutting it is one way conservatives can more easily change campus culture, experts say, as well as fight against the liberal values they claim have taken over schools. For example, In Indiana, legislation is being proposed to review tenured professors every five years based on “free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity.” Tenure is intended to be based on productivity and teaching quality, but the practice is being challenged because of what is being taught rather than issues of quality performance. 

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released data showing that in the fall of 2021, only 24 percent of faculty in U.S. colleges held full-time tenured appointments, compared to 39 percent in the fall of 1987. Rather than hire for tenure-track “lines”, more and more institutions are hiring adjunct faculty and more and more instruction is being delivered by adjunct faculty members. I saw this happen in the department for which I once served as chairperson and I thought this approach created a divisive class system. Tenure is already a probationary period with no commitment to the long term and all of us know profs who simply were let go because there was a financial challenge rather than a performance issue. 

Anyway, this post is really about the motivation for eliminating tenure which despite other issues seems most basically about political control of institutions. The core complaint seems to be that college faculty are too liberal (or progressive whichever you prefer) which is proposed to be relevant because these values are being passed on (indoctrination is a common description) to unwary or cowed students. Efforts have been made to determine the accuracy of the first claim and seem to show few students actually claim they feel pressured. The second issue is more difficult and I think really breaks down into two underlying claims; a) liberal values are taught beyond what would be the appropriate information for a course, and b) students are afraid to voice opposition when issues of opinion as opposed to facts are discussed or are penalized in some way when they do challenge opinions or facts. 

Party affiliation versus values:

Complaints when it comes to what is being taught seem to come primarily from one party. Why? Party labels seem far less helpful when reacting to accusations than specific values. I doubt many educators focus on party when teaching their content, but values and facts related to values could sometimes be the focus of instruction. I am not so naive to argue that party affiliation and values are not at least moderately correlated, but even knowing this I think a lot about why this is the case. Shouldn’t values be more important and what are the specific values taught that Conservatives reject?

I think people hide behind general labels. I assume that values determine party affiliation and not the other way around. Declared party affiliation could also be associated with combinations of values. Owning up to specific values and beliefs is what is really important. Owning up to the beliefs professed by your party is also at least important to consider. It seems cowardly to say there are too many Democrats on college faculties rather than to claim you object to the discussion of the causes of prejudice, inequity, and privilege or whatever other values you find objectionable. 

PEW has done a lot of data collection on values and party affiliation in trying to provide data about education and other issues. They have a simple questionnaire about specific values allowing anyone to compare their specific values to political categories from extreme progressive to extreme conservative. I encourage you to take it for two reasons: a) see where you fall on the political continuum and b) consider the issues raised in assigning you to a given category and why they could be interrelated.

Pew Survey

I fell toward the end of political spectrum PEW classified as embellishment liberal (13% fall into this category). 

PEW summarizes folks like me in the following way. 

“They hold liberal positions on nearly all issues and support an expanded role for government and a larger social safety net. They also hold liberal attitudes on issues of racial and ethnic equality. Establishment Liberals are more likely than any other group to say that compromise is how things get done in politics. About half say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country today, and an overwhelming majority say they approve of the job Joe Biden is doing as president.”

However, what I think is more important is what I think about specific items PEW used to arrive at these generalities. 

The PEW survey presents items as a forced choice. See the following example:

Once, you have completed the survey, the system reviews your responses and compares your answer to the probability of others in your assigned group and to all respondents. So. in the following example, 61% of all those responding and 80% of the others assigned to the Establishment Liberals category agreed with my choice. 

I recommend the PEW survey as it could recommend a level on which discussions could occur. I can explain why there are specific areas in which I think the country could benefit from government oversight and a safety net. You might disagree, but at least that would offer something concrete to talk about. Isn’t the level that a discussion should occur in a political science classroom. 

Party affiliation among higher education educators.

Efforts to get academics to claim their party orientation do indicate that there is a general progressive orientation. Such data sources also show that political orientation varies significantly with discipline.

Perhaps the concern of the Republicans is more driven by the increasingly progressive leanings over time. This time difference is consistent by discipline (see above) and quite abrupt in recent years. Notice the shift beginning in 1997 or so. Initially, this shift seemed to be marked by fewer Conservatives toward more Liberals with a later shift from Moderate toward Liberals. The makeup of higher ed faculties changes gradually so it seems unlikely this rapid shift was the result of hiring alone. 

Analysis

There is an expression sometimes applied when commenting on software applications – Is it a feature or a bug? Does the system contain an error or is the system doing what it is doing by design? Perhaps my rephrasing gets to the real issue here. What is the purpose of higher education and education in general? You have a sense of this issue when you hear some politicians complaining higher education does not focus enough on employment and has too many majors that are not directly tied to specific jobs. Why are there so many liberal arts requirements and so few STEM requirements? Do K12 and college students really need to learn about the history of slavery and continuing inequities related to race, gender, and generational differences in wealth? I happen to think so and these facts are relevant to the content I taught. Maybe those in math, physics, and coding don’t, but an important argument can be made relevant to these areas of study as well. Consider the present questions and reflection raised by the movie Oppenheimer. There is even the question of bias that keeps popping up because AI ends up statistically replicating the existing biases in the mathematics and algorithms generating the responses to AI prompts based on the corpus of content used to construct large language models (LLMs). Instead consider the old CS saying – garbage in, garbage out. Perhaps we need to recognize that it is now skewed values in, skewed values out. Values cannot be isolated by job category and why need to be concerned with the development of values in everyone. 

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Writing to Learn Research – Messy

Writing to learn is one of those topics that keeps drawing my attention. I have an interest in what can be done to encourage learning and approach this interest by focusing on external tasks that have the potential to manipulate the internal cognitive (thinking) behavior of learners. My background in taking this perspective is that of an educational psychologist with a cognitive perspective. I have a specific interest in areas such as study behavior trying to understand what an educator or instructional designer can do to promote experiences that will help learners be more successful. The challenge seems obvious – you cannot learn for someone else, but you may be able to create tasks that when added to exposure to sources of information encourage productive “processing” of those experiences. We can ask questions to encourage thinking. We can engage students in discussions that generate thinking through interaction. We can assign tasks that require the use of information. Writing would be an example of such an assigned task. 

Writing to Learn

Writing to learn fits with this position of an external task that would seem to encourage certain internal behaviors. To be clear, external tasks cannot control internal behavior. Only the individual learner can control what they think about and how they think about something, but for learners willing to engage with an external activity that activity may change the likelihood productive mental behaviors are activated.

I found the summary of the cognitive benefits of writing to learn useful and consistent with many of my own way of thinking about other learning strategies – external tasks that encourage productive internal behaviors. Writing based on content to be learned requires that the writer generate a personalized concrete representation at the “point of utterance”. I like this expression. To me, it is a clever way of saying that when you stare at the screen or the empty sheet of paper and must fill the void you can no longer fool yourself – you either generate something or you don’t. You must use what you know and how you interpret the experiences that supposedly have changed what you know to produce an external representation.

To produce an external product, you must think about what you already know in a way that brings existing ideas into consciousness (working memory) by following the connections activated by the writing task and newly acquired information. This forces processing that may not have occurred without the external task. Connections between existing knowledge and new information are not necessarily made just because both exist in storage. Using knowledge to write or to perform other acts of application encourages making connections.

Such attempts at integration may or may not be successful. Having something external to consider offers the secondary benefit of forced metacognition. Does what I wrote really make sense? Do the ideas hang together or do I need to rethink what I have said? Does what I have proposed fit with the life experiences (episodic memory) I have had? 

Writing ends up as a generative process that potentially creates understanding and feeds the product of this understanding back into storage.

Graham, Kiuhara & MacKay, M. (2020)

In carefully evaluating and combining the results of many studies of writing to learn, these researchers intended not only to determine if the impact of writing to learn had the intended general benefit but to use the variability of writing tasks and outcomes from studies to deepen our understanding of how writing to learn encouraged learning. Surely, some activities would be more beneficial than others because of the skills and existing knowledge of learners or the specifics of the assigned writing tasks. So, the meta-analysis is asking if there is a general effect (Is writing to learn effective), and secondarily are there significant moderator variables that may help potential practitioners decide when, with whom, and how to structure writing to learn activities?

The Graham and colleagues’ research focused only on K12 learners. Potential moderator variables included grade level, content area (science, social studies, mathematics), type of writing task (argumentation, informational writing, narrative), and some others. I have a specific interest in argumentation () which is relevant here as a variable differentiating the studies because it requires a deeper level of analysis than say a more basic summary of what has been learned. 

Overall, the meta-analysis demonstrated a general benefit for writing to learn (Effect size = .30). This level of impact is considered on the low end of a moderate effect. Graham and colleagues point out that the various individual studies included in the study generated great variability. A number of the studies demonstrated negative outcomes meaning in those studies the control condition performed better than the group spending time on writing to learn. The authors propose that this variability is informative as it cannot be assumed that any approach with this label will be productive. The variability also suggests that the moderator variables may reveal important insights.

Unfortunately, the moderator variables did not achieve the level of impact necessary to argue for useful insights as to how writing to learn works or who is most likely to be a priority group for this type of activity. Grade level was not significant. The topic area was not significant. The type of writing task was not significant. 

Part of the challenge here is having enough studies focused on a given approach with enough consistency of outcomes to allow statistical certainty in arguing for a clear conclusion. Studies that involved taking a position and supporting that position (e.g., argumentation) produced a much larger effect size, but the statistical method of meta-analysis did not reach the level at which a certain outcome could be claimed. 

One interesting observation from the study caught my attention. While writing to learn is used more frequently in social studies classrooms, the number of research studies associated with each content areas was the smallest for social studies. Think about this. Why? I wonder if the preoccupation of researchers and funding organizations with STEM is responsible. 

More research is needed. I know practitioners and the general public get tired of being told this, but what else can you recommend when confronted with the messiness of much educational research? When you take ideas out of carefully controlled laboratories and try to test them in applied settings the results here are fairly typical. Humans left to their own devices as implementers of procedures and reactors to interventions are all over the place. Certainly, the basic carefully controlled research and the general outcome of meta-analysis focused on writing to learn implementation are encouraging, but as the authors suggest the variability in effectiveness means something, and further exploration is warranted.

Reference

Graham, S., Kiuhara, S. A., & MacKay, M. (2020). The effects of writing on learning in science, social studies, and mathematics: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research90(2), 179-226.

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A use for Obsidian Unlinked Mentions

Have you had the experience of coming across an application feature and wondering why did a software designer decide to go to the trouble of creating and then shipping that feature? Somewhere I encountered a comment on an Obsidian feature called an Unlinked Mention. It took me some time to find it and then even more time in an effort to understand why it exists. I am still not certain how it is to be used and why there wouldn’t be similar features that would be more useful. I have come up with one way I find it offers some value so I will explain what seems a hack and then hope others can find my description helpful in encouraging similar or additional uses. 

Note: My description and proposed actions are based on Obsidian on a computer. Some of the actions I describe I could not get to work on my iPad. 

So, I think an unlinked mention is supposed to be understood as something like a backlink. In Obsidian when you create a link among two notes (A – B), Obsidian recognizes but does not automatically display the backlink (B-A). For a given note (A), you can get Obsidian to display any backlinks to that note using the backlinks option for the right-hand panel of the Obsidian display. For the note that is active in the middle panel, the right-hand panel should indicate linked mentions and unlinked mentions. You may have to select which you want displayed and it is possible nothing will be displayed for either option. The linked mentions are the backlinks and you can select and display the backlinked notes from this display. 

The unlinked mentions are other notes that contain the same exact phrase as you have used to title Note A. Who knew? Why? Maybe I never quite understood the power of a title or how my notes were supposed to be titled. I have tried to think about this and I still don’t get it.

Here is my hack and I think a way to take advantage of unlinked mentions. Start with a blank note and add a title likely to be used within other content you have stored within other notes. To make the effort, your word or phrase would have to be something you want to investigate. I used the word “metacognition” because this is an important concept in the applied cognitive psychology research I read and attempted to apply to educational uses of technology. I have notes about this concept, but the greatest value I found in this hack was taking advantage of all of the Kindle notes and highlights I had stored in Obsidian via Readwise. In my account, there are more than 200 books worth of notes and highlights and the content for each book is often several pages long.  I create notes myself as I read, but there is all of this additional content that may contain things I might find useful. Certainly, several of these books would contain content, especially highlights, focused on metacognition. 

Once I have my new note with the simple title “metacognition” and for this note look under unlinked mentions in the right-hand column, I now have lots of entries. At this point, my note is still blank, but I now can access many other mentions of metacognition from this list of unlinked mentions. If I select one of these mentions, a “link” button appears and if I select this button Obsidian generates a forward link in the A document and adds the A document to my blank B document as a backlink. The B note is still blank.

Here comes the hack. One of the core plugins for Obsidians is called backlink (use the gear icon from the panel on the left) and it contains a slider that will display backlinks at the bottom of a note (see following image). Now you can display backlinks on your blank note that allow access to the unlinked content you have linked. See the second image below.

The process I have described is a way to generate a collection of links on a topic that would not be available without this hack. It is the process that finds specific mentions of a concept within much larger bodies of content (the highlights from Kindle books) that I find useful. Give it a try.

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AI tutoring based on retrieval generated augmentation

Here is a new phrase to add to your repertoire – retrieval generated augmentation (RAG). I think it is the term I should have been using to explain my emphasis in past posts to my emphasis on focusing AI on notes I had written or content I had selected. Aside from my own applications, the role for retrieval generated augmentation I envisioned is as an educational tutor or study buddy.

RAG works in two stages. The system first retrieves information from a designated source and then uses generative AI to take some requested action using this retrieved information. So, as I understand an important difference, you can interact with a large language model based on the massive corpus of content on which that model was trained or you can designate specific content to which the generative capabilities of that model will be applied. I don’t pretend to understand the specifics, but this description seems at least to be descriptive. Among the benefits is a reduction in the frequency of hallucinations. When I propose using AI tools in a tutoring relationship with a student, suggesting to the tool that you want to focus on specific information sources seems a reasonable approximation to some of the benefits a tutor brings. 

I have tried to describe what this might look like in previous posts, but it occurred to me that I should just record a video of the experience so those with little experience might see for themselves how this works. I found trying to generate this video an interesting personal experience. It is not like other tutorials you might create in that it is not possible to carefully orchestrate what you present. What the AI tool does cannot be perfectly predicted. However, trying to capture the experience as it actually happens seems more honest.

A little background. The tool I am using in the video is Mem.ai. I have used Mem.ai for some time to collect notes on what I read so I have a large collection of content I can ask the RAG capabilities of this tool to draw on. To provide a reasonable comparison to how a student would study course content, I draw some parallels based on the use of note tags and note titles. Instead of using titles and tags in the way I do, I propose a student would likely take course notes and among the tags label notes for the next exam with something like “Psych1” to indicate a note taken during the portion of a specific course before the first exam to which that note might apply. I hope the parallels I explain make sense.

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Ranked imperfect actions to fix big tech

I recently listened to part of the Senate hearing focused on Big Tech and online child abuse. While recognizing multiple complaints, many legitimate, focused on Big Tech, I am beginning to have a small level of annoyance with the political committees. My reaction to the committee attitude is often – OK, you have identified a problem. You don’t seem to have a solution you want to put forward in legislation beyond complaining about Big Tech and expecting them to come up with a solution. I am not a fan of large technology companies but the situation always seems complicated to me with conflicting values generating complaints and accusations. Since I assume Congress can impose regulations, I want to see the specific solutions they threaten to impose and give everyone a chance to react.

The following is a challenge I sometimes give myself. Here is the problem. I understand some of the issues and ask myself what would I have Congress require. Then, I try to consider what the consequences would be and what complaints would be advanced. I have come up with an ordered list of my recommendations, but first I want to identify some of the common counter-arguments I have considered.

Challenges that are barriers to many potential solutions:

  1. Big is necessary for many services. The most obvious example I can think of would be AI. I know that even major universities cannot independently develop and evaluate the powerful models of big tech companies because of the cost. University researchers do have a more independent view I would like to see in important conversations but doing research and development is difficult. Mandated regulations are easier for big companies to satisfy limiting important competition. Added responsibilities are easier for existing companies with a large user base and solid revenue to address added requirements. Fear of legal action is also more threatening to a company without the cash flow to hire legal counsel and the funds to pay penalties. 
  2. I see anonymity as a problem because it allows big tech to be blamed for the behavior of bad actors. Rather than going directly after bad actors demands are made of the platforms the bad actors use. This is the issue addressed by Section 230, but 230 is under attack. Anonymity is defended because it is argued some users need to have their identities protected – children with personal concerns that their parents reject, women hiding from abusive partners, citizens living under oppressive rulers, etc.
  3. Free speech and who gets to interpret what free speech allows is a concern. Given how some politicians use the free speech argument to defend their own behavior trying to regulate harassment and bullying among citizens seems to be problematic. If teens call a peer fat is that free speech?
  4. What would actually change? dana boyd (Microsoft researcher and expert on online adolescent behavior) makes the following argument concerning how politicians see many problems. She contends that most problems have multiple causes with online behavior being one. She argues that the nature of our culture creates an environment such that whatever would be done about Big Tech would result in very little change in the challenges of adolescence.
  5. We as a society become locked into a model we mistakenly understand to be free. We are wrong because we pay for many online services by our assumed attention to ads, but it is the perception of free that is the problem. 
  6. Equity – those able to pay for services are less vulnerable in that we can exercise greater control over known threats.

I do not claim that my ordered list of possible actions resolves what I think of as conflicting challenges, but I wanted to recognize these challenges that must be recognized. You may have others you would add to the list.

What I mean by an ordered list is that unless items at the top of the list are addressed, items lower on the list will either be difficult to implement or implementation will be less effective.

I am going to try to present items on my ordered list using a specific structure. In some cases, this is more challenging than in others. I first intend to present a problem, then identify a mechanism that enables the problem (flaw), and finally propose a concrete action that could be taken.

Problem Onelack of competition limiting options that could be based on what users believe to address a personal need. Flaw – the network effect locks individuals into an inferior service because that is where colleagues are. Solution – depending on the service politicians could require that interoperability and easy movement of personal data be provided. 

Note: Cory Doctorow makes the argument that many of the nation’s problems will not likely be addressed without better knowledge and communication. I am simply extending his argument to suggest that until online participants have options that address their personal needs and concerns meaningful change will be far less likely. Interoperability and easy movement of data are practical ways to challenge the perception of being locked in.

Problem TwoCollection of personal information. Flaw – the revenue model of big tech is largely based on the collection of personal information to allow targeted ads and communication. Companies pay far more for personalized rather than random access and this higher revenue is what allows for the infrastructure, research and development, high salaries and return to investors necessary to maintain big tech. Solution – the best solution would be to deny or limit the collection of personal information. Making third-party cookies illegal would be helpful, but denying the use of ads and forcing a subscription-based revenue approach would be a better solution. Ad blocking at present is a gray ethical area as it provides no alternative to support work. Moving the financial model to subscriptions would be ideal. Requiring companies to provide ad-supported and ad-free options makes some sense, but presents an equity issue in that more vulnerable people would likely accept what would be an objectionable situation. BTW – my selection of my first priority was related to the equity issue and the importance of meaningful alternatives.

3. Problem – big is necessary for R&D. Flaw – the R&D function of higher education does not allow the budget to contribute to many of the issues now addressed by big tech. Solution – Fund a competitive consortium of higher ed institutions to focus on R&D issues ignored by big tech and evaluate strategies used by big tech for consequences that may be damaging.

4. Problem – holding tech companies accountable for the actions of anonymous bad actors that use tech platforms. Flaw – individuals responsible for actions cannot be identified because of anonymity. Solution – require verification of identity for use. Companies could maintain this information and release it when required by authorities. Issues – increased cost and time, distrust of those who control and access identify data.

5. Problem – online services are addictive increasing dependency even when experiences are negative. Flaw – companies are motivated to increase the amount of use to show more ads. Solution – eliminate easy sources of reward (likes, shares) in favor of more effortful reactions (comments). Note – moving to a subscription model would remove the incentive for showing more ads – see problem 2.

So this is my list. I think what I propose is concrete and that is important in comparison to blaming and failure to define actual options. I invite others to react and to generate concrete actions they think could be implemented. 

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Like many focused on educational uses of technology, I spend some time exploring AI applications. When sharing AI-generated content, I intend to differentiate what I have written from what I have used AI to create.

I asked ChatGPT to comment on the advantages and disadvantages using moving from ad-supported content and services to a subscription model. I thought the response was worth sharing.

The shift towards subscription models over targeted advertising is a transformative approach that promises a host of benefits, albeit with some trade-offs. Here’s a balanced view on how requiring a subscription instead of relying on targeted ads could shape the future of content consumption, user privacy, and business models.

Pros:

  1. Enhanced Privacy and Security: The most significant advantage of a subscription-based model is the protection of user privacy. Targeted advertising relies on collecting vast amounts of personal data to tailor ads, raising concerns about data misuse and privacy breaches. A subscription model eliminates the need for data harvesting for advertising purposes, thereby enhancing user privacy and reducing the risk of data breaches.
  2. Improved User Experience: Subscriptions can lead to a cleaner, more enjoyable user experience, free from the clutter and intrusion of targeted ads. This can increase user satisfaction and engagement, as content is no longer interrupted by irrelevant or annoying advertisements.
  3. Predictable Revenue Streams: For content creators and platforms, subscriptions provide a stable, predictable source of revenue. This can be especially beneficial for smaller creators or niche platforms, which might struggle to attract advertising dollars but have a dedicated user base willing to pay for quality content.
  4. Encourages Quality Content: A subscription model incentivizes the creation of high-quality, valuable content. Since revenue is directly tied to user satisfaction and willingness to pay, there is a stronger focus on producing content that meets or exceeds user expectations.

Cons:

  1. Barrier to Entry: A subscription fee can act as a barrier to entry, potentially alienating users who are unwilling or unable to pay. This could limit the audience size, particularly in markets where consumers are accustomed to free content supported by ads.
  2. Subscription Fatigue: As more platforms adopt subscription models, users may experience subscription fatigue, feeling overwhelmed by the number of subscriptions they need to manage and pay for. This could lead to a churn rate increase as users prioritize their subscriptions based on value and budget constraints.
  3. Reduced Reach for Advertisers: For advertisers, subscription models mean reduced access to potential customers. Targeted advertising allows brands to reach specific demographics with precision, but a subscription model limits this reach, potentially impacting sales and marketing strategies.
  4. Financial Risk for Creators: Switching to a subscription model presents financial risks, especially if the existing audience is not willing to convert from free to paid content. This could lead to a temporary or permanent dip in revenue during the transition period.

In conclusion, while the shift towards subscription models offers promising solutions to many concerns associated with targeted advertising, it is not without its challenges. Balancing user privacy, content quality, and financial sustainability will be key to successfully implementing this model.


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New Project

I am trying something different with one of my longer writing projects.. My wife and I had a 15 year run with a commercial textbook for the “technology for teachers” undergraduate teacher preparation course. Fifteen years translates as 5 editions of the book. This course does not generate the review of a large lecture course (e.g., Introduction to Psychology), but there is less competition in the area of our book and we did well financially. 

As we gained a lot of experience allowing us to analyze the textbook industry and the niche in which we published, we became very aware of the backlash against textbook costs (ours sold for $140 to students) and began to identify issues a traditional textbook for this niche could not address.

We came up with a plan to publish a much shorter version we called a Primer and wanted to match this with online resources. We proposed a $29 Primer and intended to serve the online content ourselves. I still think some of our arguments for this approach make sense. For example, those intending to teach high school and early elementary have very different interests in what to do with technology. Why not provide the basics in a Primer and then a larger variety of content for specific content areas and grade levels online? Technology is a field that moves quickly and keeping content current is a tremendous challenge. Not only did we publish once every three years, but 9-12 months were set aside to generate the next edition. You see the time lag that is created. Why not write online continually to keep a given textbook current? 

Textbook companies think differently about their relationship with the authors they hire. A proposal such as paying someone to write continuously does not make sense to them even though they might appreciate the issue of keeping content current. They typically have a couple of books in a niche and their field reps encourage the adoption of the most recent book in a niche. This is more because of the used book market than the issue of currency and the issue of a general approach rather than what would be best for a given book is the perspective they take. At the time (this has changed since), combining online content with a physical product was also a foreign idea that did not translate as easily into income. 

Anyway, we agreed to go our separate ways and were given our copyright back so we could pursue our interests with another company or with an outlet such as Kindle. 

We continue to offer a version of this textbook through Amazon. I developed a second resource (Layering for learning) which was not really a full-length textbook, but concentrated on specific online services I proposed educators could use to make more effective use of web pages and online videos. It is this second “book” that I have decided to take in a different direction.

My professional writing activities have long been mostly a hobby. We made our money on our original textbook, but now my work is mostly about exploring topics in online publishing. Instead of $140, the online textbook sells for $9. Same basic book. I think it appropriate content that takes considerable time to create be treated as having value and I have always require some payment for my professional work even if mostly symbolic. So, what other outlet and approach can I explore as an alternative to Amazon?

Here is my new project. I am updating my layering book and serializing it on Medium. If you have not used Medium directly, you may have encountered work offered on Medium through a search engine. Sometimes you could read what the search engine found and sometimes you may have found that the content was behind a paywall. There are two competitors in this space – Substack and Medium. With Substack, if an author wants to be compensated for her work, she requires readers to subscribe to her work for a price. A reader makes a specific commitment (usually $5 a month or so) to specific authors. With Medium, you pay a subscription fee ($50 a year) and then read whatever you want from as many authors as you want. Medium takes a cut and then allocates the rest to the authors based on several variables they use to define value. Like other social outlets for the vast majority of writers, you receive little money (I hope to make enough to cover my own Medium subscription fee). I think of it as a way to keep score. Do people find what I write interesting and of value? What are the options for those who generate the kind of content I create and how do different options compare? 

If you are not a Medium users, I think you are allowed three free reads a month and the Introduction to my serialized book is explained in greater detail. 

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