Week 7: Distance learning: The LOI (The Netherlands)

The LOI (Leidse Onderwijs Instellingen > Leiden-based Educational Institutions) is a privately owned educational institute providing distant-learning only. I feel it needs pointing out that the city of Leiden is home of the prestigious Univerity of Leiden (www.leiden.edu) and that therefore the name of the city is usually associated with higher education. The LOI always put great emphasis on the fact that they're from Leiden in their promotional campaigns, however, the LOI have nothing to do with the university, which is one of the oldest universities in the country.

The origins of the LOI lie within the city's "Institute of Trade Sciences". In 1923 this institute started doing their first (postal) distance-learning programme: a course in book-keeping. Ove the years the the institute has started running several other courses and in 1941 (So, surprisingly, in war time) the institute teamed up with a number of Leiden-based colleges to run distant-learning courses on their behalf, all under the LOI-banner.

In 1953 the LOI started providing audio-based language courses (on good old fashioned casettes) and in 1988 the LOI started experimenting with something called "digimail", a computer-based form of distance-learning, the technology of which seemed to be quite similar to what we would later become familiar with under the name E-mail. In 1996 the LOI introduced what they called the "LOI campus", an online, web-based learning environment. Originally the campus provided only written lectures, later video-lectures (some also streamed live) and downloadable audio-lectures became available. Since 2001 most of the courses are almost completely web-based with lectures ebing given through audio, video and text, seminars taking place in forums and online audio/video conferences and most assessments being submitted online. The LOI provides students with their own personal tutor (or I-coahc, as they like to call them) with whom they keep in contact through both email as well as instant messenging.


In 2002 the LOI started doing a small number of full university degrees, completely through distance learning, which up until then these were only provided by the Open Universiteit (Obviously the Dutch equivalent of the Open Univerity). The two however are not really in competition though, as these two distant-learning giants provide different degree courses. The reason for this is probably because the LOI would find it hard to compete with the lower tuition fees of the government funded Open Universiteit. Nonetheless, the LOI-brand has pretty much become synonym with distance-learning in the Netherlands and some of the open university's online services are clearly inspired by the LOI's online campus.

Week 4 | Topic 1: Lister

What do you think of the notion that online community can be empowering/disempowering?

I think you could argue in favour of both of these standpoints really. Yes, it does enable people with a specific interest, or specific lifestyle for that matter, with a community where they can freely express themselves, something they wouldn't be able to otherwise. Empowering. However, on the other hand I would argue that at the same time it takes away the need for them to learn how to fit these ideologies and interests into society in general and could even affect their sense of what is and what isn't socially acceptable in general everyday life. Disempowering.

So basically it enables them to not always have to conform to "the norm" while at the same time it might cause them to lose touch of what this norm actually is.



Does the Net provide a ‘public sphere’ where citizens can engage with each other? If so, how, and are there any limitations?

Urm, yes. Everything that occurs and then gets discussed enters "the public sphere" I would think. Specific topics in specific online communities, unless it's things that affect almost every one of us which then end up being discussed everywhere, BUT from the community's own perspective. (E.G. Music forum PopJsutice's users are discussing the demise of physical music stores and if the credit crunch is affecting how likely they are to download illegally while on TVforum the effects of the credit crunch on the budgets of original television programming is discussed.)

Yes, it is still a very closed network of communities, but then again, the original concept of the "public sphere" took place in elitist "coffee houses". So yes, it is still a closed group discussing matters in the publ;ic sphere, but at least now it's all of us who have access to our own "public spheres" of our choice.

To what extent are ‘dangerous materials’ prominent on the Internet (or ‘junk and jerks’ as Kollock put it)? What do their existence mean in terms of the ‘freedoms’ the Net allows? Is freedom always positive?

Well, the question whether or not freedom is always positive may be a bit much to just ask onhere, but I guess it CAN be said that the negative aspects of freedom (the junks and jerks) are an unevitible side-effect of total freedom in any context. Yes, the internet allows freedom of speach more than any other place but thse niche points that re made on the net may indeed well be hateful, racist or frowned upon for any iother reason. The Junks and Jerks that like to "set the cat amongst the pigeons" by making exptreme statements in other, normally peaceful, communities is something that doesn't just happen online, but the internet and the way you can adapt your own cutom-made identity do make it much easier.


To what extent can ‘ordinary’ Net users become producers of culture, rather than people who ‘respond’ to culture supplied for them?

I think we all knows the stories about bands being pciked up by record labels after A&R bigwigs heard their music on Myspace. And yes, Myspace Music is a good example of a website where the suers become the producers of culture. The same goes for Youtube, where lots of people upload their own short films and other artistic projects.



It has now reached the point where internet services are even completely undermining the role of the big record and film publishing companies:

In early 2006 large online music-download retailer 7digital launched something called "indiestore". this service allowed independent and unsigned artists to upload and sell their music though both the seperate indiestore.com site aswel as the main 7digital store for free (and receiving a commission for every track sold). (Normally only record companies can provide online music download stores with copies of music, so, actually getting your song ON iTunes isn't quite as simple as many unsigned artists would've hoped!) As 7digital/indiestore report their sales to chart compiling orginisations in several countries (about 20 I think) this once even led to a single from an un-signed artist appearing in the official UK singles charts. So, maybe it's not just the music retailers (Zavvi, anyone?) but one day even the record labels themselves who may have to compete with internet-based services and companies.

Week 3 | Topic 2 | Question A

Is withholding one’s identity ethically wrong?

I think this depends entirely on the website or other internet-service used. A really basic example can be given by comparing the two most popular social networking websites. Rivals they may be, but the social discourse and expectations of how people represent themselves is totally different. Facebook on the one hand expects users to use their real name, upload ONLY pictures of themselves, and communicate with people in their actual lives/environment, for example by using networks based on employers or educational institution which you can only join if you can proof that you are part of this "group". So Facebook is more a tool to contact people you actually know rather than a place to meet people. Myspace, on the other hand, is more about customising a page very much and creating an online persona that is perhaps only remotely related to you real-life identity. Myspace actually is more about meeting people based on similar interests like music and things like that. For example, my own Myspace page only passingly mentions that my name is Frank (http://www.myspace.com/fbcnl)

Not normally a problem at all, users of the respective websites know what to expect from other users onthere, but it WOULD be (ethically?) wrong to use Facebook like Myspace and think of a vaux identity onthere as people will expect you to be yourself.

More examples would be Role Playing Games and chatboxes. Role playing games (MUD's, MOO's, World of Warcraft and so on) are all about constructing a custom-made identity, and other users knwo this. In chatboxes (still depending on the theme though, but i'm generalising here to make my point) people may expect you to be yourself and if they are, it could be considered wrong if you pretend to be somebody you're not. Especially if you are doing this in order to gain people's trust/information or God knows what else.

Task for week 1: MUD's and MOO's (characteristics and use)

A MUD is a Multi-user Dungeon. Since that might not quite clear things up , let's explain:
An imaginary world described by text only, where users can not only chat but use special, universally agreed upon commands to play games with each other.

A MOO is pretty much the same thing but in a MOO, as opposed to a Mud, users can perform programming-codes to alter things.

Both these things allow people worldwide to casually communicate and play together by setting up their own online imaginary persona.

It is basically a very basic form of things like World of Warcraft and similar games where users do pretty much the same thing but can make use of a virtual world in which they can visually customise their character. ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com )

A nice way to pass the time for some but not useful for actual communiations when there are other, much more to-the-point ways of communication available for formal and contructive communications.

My personal experiences with any of these things? None, so far. But it could be an interesting thing to try in the next few weeks to see what it's like and perhaps post something on the blog about.

Task for week 1: Chatrooms, (instant) messenger services and IRLs (characteristics and use)

Good example of messengers are MSN Messenger, well, everyone still calls it MSN Messenger, but officially Microsoft deemed it a good idea to ditch one of the internet's best-known brands in favour for Windows Live Messenger, for text-messenging and Skype for video-calls. MSN actually can do video-calls just aswel as Skype can, however, Skype has become the norm, probably due to it's ability to actually audio-call traditional phones aswel.

The basic concept of instant messenging is quite simple. A (fairly small) piece of software tells you which of the people you have added to the application's "friend-list" are online and whent heya re you can open a chat-window in which you can instantly send eachother and an unlimited amount of short terxt messages thus enabling an actual conversation, be it in text-form. Users can also send each other files and pictures. Users who have a webcam and/or microphone installed on their computer can use these to have actual audio and/or video conversations with each other.

Chatrooms are similar in the sense that messages are sent instantly, however they are mostly divided by region or a specific interest or subject and a meeting place to talk to a larger group of people you may not even know.

IRL's are basically a different term for web-forums, where subjects can be discussed in a post-after-post manner rather than in real-time.

I personally mostly use MSN Messenger as it has more or less become the standard form of instant messenging. It's a good way to keep up with other people's going on's or simply to pass the time. However, occasionally it's a good way to communicate actual constructive information when doing university group work and an actual physical meeting isn't possible for whatever reason.