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Today's Topics:
1. New Digital Credentials API (Stephen Loosley)
2. ?rich digital learning activities? (Stephen Loosley)
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2024 15:52:20 +0930
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] New Digital Credentials API
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Google to use digital driver?s licenses to verify the age of website users
By Sarah Clark ? 12 September 2024
[Diagram of communication between chrome browser, wallet and relying party.]
VERIFICATION: The Digital Credentials API will use digital IDs to verify
website users
A new Digital Credentials API that will allow visitors to a website to verify
their identity using a driver?s license or a national identification card
stored in their digital wallet has now entered testing.
?The API will also soon be used by Google Accounts to verify certain users?
date of birth,? Google developer advocate Eiji Kitamura explains in a blog post.
?Users residing within a supported US state will be able to use their state ID
or driver?s license provisioned in available wallet apps (including Google
Wallet) to seamlessly share just their date of birth with Google without
sharing other details of their identity. This empowers users to demonstrate to
Google, in a privacy-preserving way, that they meet account-related age
requirements.?
?An origin trial for the Digital Credentials API is starting from Chrome 128,?
Kitamura adds.
?Digital Credentials API is a new web platform API that allows websites to
selectively request verifiable information about the user through digital
credentials such as a driver?s license or a national identification card stored
in a digital wallet.
?The API is protocol agnostic, allowing the RP to specify a protocol based on
their requirements. When an RP makes a request, the browser sends the request
to the mobile operating system which searches for a matching credential in
installed wallet applications. If any are found, the mobile operating system
prompts the user to select one and sends the request to the user-selected
wallet. After a local authentication, the wallet returns a response containing
the requested credential data.?
?Chrome will first support the API in Chrome on Android for requesting
credentials from wallet apps on the same device. In the future, we plan on
supporting Chrome desktop to request credentials cross-device from another
mobile device.
?At launch, Google Wallet will integrate with the Digital Credentials API,
enabling select businesses and organizations to initiate a request for users to
present their ID online, via Chrome on Android, and verify the authenticity of
the transmitted data by examining the cryptographic signature.?
--
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2024 19:31:54 +0930
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] ?rich digital learning activities?
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
?The death of campus life?: first major Australian university dumps
face-to-face lectures, leaving staff ?furious?
Adelaide University touts ?rich digital learning activities? that will be
?self-paced and self-directed? after student numbers on campus decline
By Caitlin Cassidy 13 Sep 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/sep/13/adelaide-university-dumps-face-to-face-lectures
The newly amalgamated Adelaide University has become the first Group of Eight
institution in Australia to ditch face-to-face lectures, in a move condemned as
accelerating the ?death of campus life? by the union representing tertiary
education staff.
Ahead of the merged university opening at the beginning of 2026, staff at the
University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia were informed last
week that traditional lectures would no longer form a part of courses.
In a document to staff, seen by Guardian Australia, the new university wrote
?most students? would no longer attend face-to-face lectures, which from 2026
would gradually be replaced by ?rich digital learning activities?.
?These activities will deliver an equivalent learning volume to traditional
lectures and will form a common baseline for digital learning across courses,
providing a consistent experience for students,? the university wrote.
?These asynchronous activities will be self-paced and self-directed, utilising
high-quality digital resources that students can engage with anytime and
anywhere.?
Dr Andrew Miller, division secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union?s
(Nteu?s) South Australia branch, said members had ?enormous concerns? about the
move, describing staff as ?furious?.
?We were promised the new university would be co-created with staff, students
and community stakeholders,? he said. ?This decision sidestepped that
commitment. Co-creation means giving agency and empowerment to collectively
build the university.
?This happened on the basis of consultation with limited cohorts of people.?
Adelaide University?s publicly available FAQ page does not list lectures as a
class type students will experience during their studies, while noting there
will be ?online and in-person options? for workshops, tutorials and other
classroom settings.
Miller said it should be up to academics to decide the best learning outcomes
for their students.
?This flies in the face of co-creation and professional autonomy and
expertise,? he said.
?Flexibility [between online and face-to-face] ordinarily works both ways ?
some learners benefit tremendously from face-to-face learning with a specialist
academic present while there are other independent learners that benefit from
more remote digital engagement.
?We are demanding they reverse the decision and go back to co-creating.?
Prof Joanne Cys, domain lead for curriculum at the new Adelaide University,
said staff had been ?comprehensively engaged? in creating the new curriculum.
More than 4,000 had been engaged in the process, she said, while 900 had been
in direct consultation.
?This collaboration is ongoing ? with more than 1,500 staff set to develop the
content for Adelaide University?s courses and programs between now and 2026,?
she said.
Cys said digital learning activities would not be the ?dominant learning mode?
but noted the university had seen a ?steady decline? in attendance on campus.
?These digital activities will support flexibility and accessibility, and
provide more engaging teaching methods that are better suited to contemporary
students.?
Australian universities have increasingly shifted learning activities and
assessments online since students were forced away from campuses during the
pandemic, with research pointing to time and workload pressures, cost cutting
and continued post-Covid challenges.
But it hasn?t been without its critics. In 2021, Curtin University faced a
major backlash from students after proposing to phase out all face-to-face
lectures and replace them with three 15-minute videos a week.
In response to feedback, a compromise was reached for the Western Australian
university to provide ?face-to-face learning opportunities? with ?online
learning when desired?.
The national president of the Nteu, Dr Alison Barnes, said it struck her as
?outrageous? to remove the face-to-face lecture component from courses.
?Having lectured most of my adult life ... I think about how many students have
approached me before or after lectures to raise academic issues, things they
haven?t understood about material or want extra help with.
?You?re the face there,? she said. ?You can give them assessment or get them
what support they might need. This is an undermining of both academic integrity
and pedagogy and pastoral care.?
Barnes said the shift to online learning also exacerbated the ?death of campus
life?, which was having knock-on effects to the student experience.
?What is a ?rich digital learning activity??? she asked. ?Removing [the] human
in teaching? It completely flies in face of the nature of academic work, the
very fabric of the institution.?
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