A friend just sent me a link to the BBC’s language learning resources.  It’s good stuff, and the price is right (i.e. free).  Here are some links:

BBC Language Learning Resources (root page)

• Courses Covering:
  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Italian
  • Mandarin Chinese
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish
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• Other Resources:
  • Additional Languages (not full courses)
  • Essential Travel Phrases (MP3 Downloads in 36 languages)
  • Language Review: French | German | Spanish
  • News (in 33 languages)

In addition, you may be interested in some prior posts I had on language learning resources. All of this content is of high quality and available without charge via the web:

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting Language Courses
• Language Learning via your Public Library
• Translate this Blog!

Back to the promised European content series …

The Institute of Economic Affairs (U.K.) has a webinar and book that focuses on major goverment projects gone bad. Both are available without charge. Project xxamples include the Concorde and Millenium Dome. The author, D. R. Myddelton "shows that failure results from mismanagement, lack of clear lines of responsibility and lack of accountability". As this is often a failure mode in corporations, one need not only be involved with governement projects to find value with this content:

• They Meant Well, Government Project Disasters: Webinar | Book
  (other webinars may also be accessed via this link)

I invite you to take one final trip over to Wikipedia UserTalk: Interator12n. You will find a fascinating case study which demonstrates how involved Wikipedians become with their content. For this reason alone, everyone involved is to be commended and thanked.

However, while I understand and basically agree with their decision … given the focus and content of the engineering learning wiki I might have allowed the link to remain. It was gratifying that the editors involved took the time to learn about my project, and weigh in with intelligent comments.

• Post #1: I Like Wikipedia, but It Doesn’t Like Me!
• Post #2: Wikipedia "May" Like Me!

This is a follow-up to today’s earlier post, I Like Wikipedia, but It Doesn’t Like Me! You may also wish to read the final update to this post.

The moderators over at Wikipedia have responded to my comments, with some thoughtful questions and comments of their own. This is interesting, but I don’t know how it will turn out.  Here are the latest discussions:

Wikipedia Moderator: "It seems that Tangient LLC (apparently the sponsor of ELW, correct this if necessary) is a normal, commercial business (again, correct this if necessary). Nothing wrong with business but it would be wrong for Wikipedia to serve as a conduit for traffic to Tangient’s wikis. Cheers. — Iterator12n Talk 20:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)"
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My Response: "Hi … Rich Hoeg here answering your two questions. Tangient LLC is the not the sponsor of the Engineering Learning Wiki, I am! I actually paid Tangient LLC $50 (per annum) to gain more services via their wiki service, and insure that they could not post advertisements on my individual wiki space. Just like individuals on the web who need various services for blogs, etc, I wanted to create a wiki which supports engineering education. If you Google "engineering wiki" you’ll find there is not any resource like this content. I believe in providing free access to these kinds of service, and am willing to put my money where my mouth is! While I understand why you might not want a link to Tangient, it would have cost me far more money to rent server space and install my own version of Media Wiki. Essentially they are just a web hosting service."

It will be fascinating to see how this turns out. I invite you to watch from the sidelines by using this link. This is an intriguing case study of a blogger (me) who is using a paid wiki service (Tangient) to create content which I believe benefits the web at large. Some folks at Wikipedia may have issues not with my content, but with the fact that I used a competing commercial wiki service (Tangient ‘s Wikispaces).

If you wish to see the original post that talks about the wiki, and how it is a consortium effort, and not just me, please follow this link.

Finally, I’ll get back to the European engineering learning blog posts after the Wikipedia situation plays itself out.

Someone over at Wikipedia did not like my adding links to the engineering learning wiki in a number of engineering articles.  My additions were identified correctly as external links at the end of each engineering article, but were removed.

Hmm … Given the engineering learning wiki does not promote any company, does not have any advertisements, but does promote the "knowledge should be free" concept, I’m confused. Perhaps since I added a number of links quickly, it was perceived as SPAM. (see the first update to this post) (final update)
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