Dave Parry, an assistant professor of Emergent Media and Communications at the University of Texas has decided to experiment with offering his Graduate Seminar on Networked Knowledge to interested students outside of the university who are willing to commit to completing the readings and participating in on-line discussion sessions. Essentially he is offering the knowledge for free with few conditions. Read more about this experiment at Parry’s blog academHacK and at The Wired Campus.

I love this idea! As a part-time uni student working full time I already take advantage of the recordings of lectures that I am unable to attend during the day. It’s true that listening to a podcast of a lecture is not the same as attending (and I cannot wait until they progress to vodcast so I can actually see what the lecturer is pointing at!!), however, the “iLectures” are incredibly useful and popular, even with students who can attend lectures, as a revision tool for exams. I’m sure online tutorials (which is my interpretation of the additions on offer) would be massively popular, particularly when recent studies show that students are finding it increasingly difficult to balance work and study but cannot afford to give up their day jobs.

Before I decided to commit to a degree as a mature age student I attended a few psych lectures with my younger sister (who went to uni before I did ) to test my interest. I thought that if I held interest in lectures even though I was not receiving any credit and the only “prize” at the end was information / knowledge then I must have a genuine interest in the information on offer. This was an invaluable exercise that some found extremely weird and nerdy but made my decision super easy. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Parry’s idea has so many potential benefits not just for students at another institution where the subject is not offered but also for people trying to decide whether to pursue further education who are unsure of their abilities, or for intelligent and passionate people who perhaps cannot afford formal secondary education but would benefit from the knowledge without the qualification.

Fantastic! More of this please.

The Virtual Economy Research Network reports on a new Swedish tax ruling that signals the beginning of virtual world incomes being taxed.

On April 7 2008, the Swedish Tax Agency posted a ruling on their website, titled “Virtual worlds — value-added tax” In it, the agency states that in-game transactions may incur liability for both value-added tax (simillar to Australian GST) as well as income tax under Swedish law.

Vili Lehdonvirta translates; Transactions between participants in a virtual world, where the deal is about the sale of a “product” or a “service” against reimbursement in an internal currency, should be considered, according to the Swedish Tax Agency’s ruling, [actual] sales of electronic services, if the internal currency can be exchanged to a valid legal means of payment. If the internal currency cannot be exchanged to money, the transactions should not be considered [actual] sales.

Next time you buy and sell virtual furniture with a Swede in Second Life, consider the implications of off shore tax transactions, adding GST to virtual goods, and the golden question for virtual/real world tax crossovers-who to invoice.

Read more here.

Cast back to the recent Eye in the Sky post about Cubans being allowed personal mobile phones for the first time history.  

Ten days after the March release date, the state’s official mobile phone company ETECSA registered 7,400 new phones on the network. Staggering, considering a typical mobile phone contract costs about $120 to activate, which is half a year’s wages on the average state salary.