This week, Russia's cybersecurity test lab, conversation theory powering educational innovation through MOOCs, P3s for transportation investment, and revised economic benefits of the WOTUS rule:
- How a Country Became Russia's Test Lab for Cyber War in Wired Magazine. This article presents a very interesting account of how Russia has been perfecting their techniques and tactics by wreaking cyber-havoc on Ukraine's infrastructure systems. Are we ready to protect ourselves? Many are not so sure. This same week, a Black Hat survey was referenced in ASCE's infrastructure SmartBrief that shows that experts are somewhat concerned about our vulnerability to these attacks. Consider this excerpt from the article describing a Ukranian cyber-security researcher's first-hand view of one of these attacks: "Noting the precise time and the date, almost exactly a year since the December 2015 grid attack, Yasinsky felt sure that this was no normal blackout... For the past 14 months, Yasinsky had found himself at the center of an enveloping crisis. A growing roster of Ukrainian companies and government agencies had come to him to analyze a plague of cyberattacks that were hitting them in rapid, remorseless succession. A single group of hackers seemed to be behind all of it. Now he couldn’t suppress the sense that those same phantoms, whose fingerprints he had traced for more than a year, had reached back, out through the internet’s ether, into his home."
- Conversation Powers Learning at Massive Scale in IEEE Spectrum. Massively open online courses (MOOCs) have been challenging traditional education infrastructures in uniquely challenging ways. However, are the pedagogically sound? Do they work with the ways that people learn? Are they effective in light of what we know about human development and human learning? MOOCs and other online delivery modes form the backbone of emerging "personalized learning" platforms, and promise the potential of tailoring every aspect of student experience to their individual paces and abilities. The authors of this argue acknowledge that while personalized learning promises great potential (as indicated by substantial investments into R&D), "It can be done, with difficulty, for well-structured and well-established topics, such as algebra and computer programming. But it really can’t be done for subjects that don’t form neat chunks, such as economics or psychology, nor for still-evolving areas, such as cybersecurity." IEEE Spectrum describes how FutureLearn has based their work on Pask's Theory of Conversation, which views human learning as discursive. There are hints of similar ways of thinking in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Etienne Wenger's Communities of Practice. FutureLearn's experiences may provide some insight into developing MOOCs that are not just, as the authors say, "lectures at a distance."
- Gas Tax Hikes vs. Public Private Partnerships (P3s) in Forbes. One of my pet peeves is listening to Americans complain about our infrastructure systems, but ultimately rejecting any scheme required to pay for it. This is true with respect to health care, education, science/R&D, and of course, lifelines like electric power/water/sanitation/communications. One of the ways we have considered getting around this political ambivalence as a nation has been considering private involvement in lifeline public infrastructures. One of the classic venues of this debate has been how to pay for transportation infrastructure upgrades: tax increases, tolls, or privatization. While taxes have been the traditional approach, this article provides some food for thought: "There is--public private partnerships for roads, which often take the form of toll roads administered by private companies. Private sector investment in infrastructure is desirable because it takes taxpayers off the hook for construction, operation and maintenance of transportation assets and ensures that those who don’t use them aren’t paying for them."
- Trump Slashes WOTUS Economic Benefits in E&E News. Ariel Wittenberg reports that "U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are disputing their own economic analysis of the 2015 Clean Water Rule, now saying most benefits they previously ascribed to the Obama-era regulation can no longer be quantified." The Waters of the United States rule was intended to provide clarity concerning which waters were covered by federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. The Obama administration promulgated the rule in 2015, but it has been the subject of controversy and confusion, to say the very least. As the EPA currently acknowledges, "This is important because all Clean Water Act programs—including tribal and state certification programs, pollution permits, and oil spill prevention and planning programs—apply only to 'Waters of the United States.'" The 2015 rule is almost certainly going to be changed, as it has not yet been implemented due to court stays, and the Trump administration has directed the EPA and the Army Corps "to review the existing Clean Water Rule for consistency with [the priorities of economic growth, minimizing regulatory uncertainty, and showing due regard for the Constitutional roles of the States and Congress] and publish for notice and comment a proposed rule rescinding or revising the rule, as appropriate and consistent with the law. Further, the Order directs the agencies to consider interpreting the term "navigable waters," as defined in 33 U.S.C. 1362(7), in a manner consistent with the opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006)."