Blurts

You may be unfamiliar with the Internet Archives and the recent controversy of whether the Archives legally lends digital books in a way that honors copyright (for an example see this story). The Archives just lost a case in which they claimed they were functioning like other libraries. Lots of people don’t use libraries anymore and don’t understand that libraries loan audiobooks and “Kindle” books (digital books). You don’t even have to go to a library. Just have a membership in that library (have a library card) and you can download books.

Libraries can do this because they purchase a number of licenses for any digital book in their holdings. They can lend the number of books for which they have a license. The loans are for a file with DRM (digital rights management) that cannot be duplicated and kept or passed on. When the time for the loan is up, the file will no longer open.

The Internet Archives claimed this is what they were doing and the court that heard the case disagreed. Many feel that the Archives has been discriminated against in some way and that libraries and public access rules have been attacked. The concern is often expressed as an issue of greed and equity.

I was initially on the side of the Internet Archives mostly because I frequently borrow both Kindle and audiobooks from several libraries. I have tried in various ways to understand exactly what the issue was that made the Archives lending approach different. I thought maybe the Archives was loaning files without DRM that then allowed users to copy and share copies.

When I investigate issues that involve digital content I try to use material I am very familiar with. This is a way to rule out issues because I have a sense of what should be there. With this topic, I had the advantage of being able to access a book I wrote through the Internet Archives. Two editions of a textbook were available. The value of a textbook on classroom use of technology that is a dozen or so years old has modest value at best because things change so quickly, but there it was and copyright issues still apply even when you can no longer actually purchase that edition.

I found that I could easily access a book and “borrow” it online for an hour at a time. No waiting because a book has been committed to someone else, but with an old book this was not surprising. If you see the little box at the top of the page you see where I click to start the timer and reveal the full-text version.

Several things to observe from my example. First, it appears that access is limited (you have the resource for an hour, but can end your access early). However, I was able to just request access again. Second, and maybe not obviously, the books are used. This was the case with both editions I looked at. One had a library seal and both had underlining and annotations. Here is the thing about books that are not “first sale”. Whether these books were purchased used or donated there is nothing from the acquisition of a used book that compensates either the company or the author. Finally, I was curious about the one access for one license requirement libraries must honor. I found I could open a copy of the same resource on both my laptop and my iPad. I seriously doubt the archive has retained multiple copies of the used books it had photographed (the camera used in recording the page images is listed in the metadata).

So, the Digital Archives approach to lending books is nothing like the approach of actual libraries. I have been unable to find the details of the court reasoning process at the level I have provided here, but it does surprise me that the court reached the decision that it did.

One of the strategies I have been recommending for educators concerned about the way students are using ChatGPT is to ask students to include references in their reports. My daughter who is working on her dissertation and grant applications told me that ChatGPT will fabricate references.

I encountered an example of this problem. I write frequently about digital note-taking and try to couch what I discuss in the research I have read. Recently in evaluating ChatGPT I asked a question about this topic and I asked for references. One of the citations GPT added to the content it generated I did not recognize and I then attempted to download it from my university library. It does not exist and the page numbers included do not match the range covered by the issue designated in the citation.

It is not that uncommon to find a citation that is in error. We all can make mistakes when we enter citation information in a document we create. Usually, I can identify the problem by entering the title in Google Scholar. This is not the case with this example. Kiewra is well known for his research on this topic. Benton and Kiewra often publish together. So, the citation might seem real to those familiar with this topic. It is not.

https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000315 does exist, but if you use this link you will see it leads to a completely unrelated resource.

I have been using several social bookmarking services. A social bookmarking service is the first step in my “read a web page” to “write a blog post” workflow. Social implies the potential for sharing web pages and annotations with others.

I have written about Memex Garden in at least one previous post. I invested in developing this service when it was first developed and the company responsible has now transitioned to a subscription model declaring the service is now ready for prime time. One of the final features added was AI.

Memex uses AI to summarize web pages or parts of web pages. When activated as a browser extension, a side bar can be opened and one of the options is Summary (first image). Content generated as an AI summary, note, or highlight can be exported in several ways (second image).

The following is an example of a web page summary written by the Memex AI tool. The page summarized is about the new Kahn Academy AI tool.

Khan Academy has launched a limited pilot of a new learning guide called Khanmigo for educators, powered by GPT-4, the next generation of OpenAI’s large language model technology. GPT-4 is the successor to OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, which ChatGPT is built upon. It can accept images as input, handle up to 25,000 words of text at once, and is designed with more safety and alignment features, among other changes. Khanmigo is designed to help teachers create personalized learning plans for their students. It uses GPT-4 to analyze student data and provide recommendations for activities and resources that will help them learn more effectively. The tool also includes features like progress tracking and assessment tools to help teachers monitor student progress. The pilot program is currently limited to a small group of educators, but Khan Academy plans to expand it in the future. The company believes that Khanmigo has the potential to revolutionize education by providing teachers with powerful tools to help them personalize learning for each student.

As I explained at the beginning of this post, Memex Garden has now moved to a subscription pricing system. Details are provided in the following image.

The exodus of Twitter users seeking a friendlier and more productive alternative seems to have reversed. While Mastodon has far more active users than it had just a few months ago, it appears many of those who explored Mastodon instances have not stuck around or have become inactive. The reasons are many. The most obvious issue, the network effect, sets in when new users begin to miss the familiar group they left and who did not follow. Even though Mastodon is far more active and interactive than it was before the influx of new users, established connections are no longer there and new users have yet to make the type of connections they abandoned. 

The other significant issue is that Mastodon does not work like Twitter. It is a federated service made up of many instances operated mostly by volunteers who set up a server just because it seemed like a thing to do. Perhaps they had a general focus in mind and perhaps they did not. So, in addition to new people, new users encounter a much more fractionated environment when they originally could satisfy a variety of interests using one service.

There are strategies that users can apply to deal with a federated environment. If you join several different instances which is probably what you will want to do, you can use a client that allows simultaneous access to your different instances. A client called Mastodeck displays multiple columns of content. If you used TweetDeck, this client works the same because it was developed by the same folks. A column can display content associated with a given tag or to the purpose I am addressing here with the content from different instances.

Maybe it is specific people rather than instances want to follow and these individuals are distributed across multiple instances. Any given Mastodon instance should provide options for home, local, and federated. The local option shows posts (toots) from all users on the instance (server) that you are presently using (BTW – it is not that difficult to switch between instances). Home shows you posts from all users you follow (the present instance and others). So if you want, you can follow me at @grabe@twit.social no matter what instance you use. Follow others from other servers and you have pretty much duplicated the chronological version of Twitter (not the “For you” option which is based on the Twitter algorithm). Federated follows those you follow and their followers which should generate the most content, but not necessarily the content you want to consume. 

I am not necessarily arguing that you abandon Twitter. I do suggest you ignore “For you” and rely on “Following” which gives you a feed in chronological order of those you follow. Whatever you think of what Twitter has become under Musk’s “guidance” and ownership, I believe diversity in social media options is important and I first joined the original Mastodon instance “mastodon.social” in 2016. Social media services are likely to be responsive to users and to improve their services partly in response to competition from other services making the same commitments.