Have you noticed the rise of UTM tracking tokens in URLs? There’s an increasing amount of extra text being added after the URL, usually meant to tell marketeers how the link was found. At its simplest it might look something like…

http://www.url.org/page.html?#they_found_this__page_via_Facebook

Anyone not web-savvy who then shares the URL also unwittingly reveals to the world how they found that URL, unless the tracking is cloaked as gibberish numbers.

Anyway, urlHosted has spotted the potential of this URL misusage to initiate a new server-less communication method…

urlHosted is an experimental web app that misuses the part after the “#” of a URL to store and read data. … This means this app neither stores nor sends any of your data to any server. … [then] Whenever you visit the site [that has] payload data in the URL, the [URLhosted browser] app renders that data as an [text] article.”

One would still have to pass a clickable link somehow, so I’m not sure how useful this would actually be to anyone in its current form. I guess at its most clandestine urlHosted might work something like: Bill places a time-limited message-URL in an old post on his blog, then casually refers to the title of this post (without linking to it, or even mentioning his blog) in an email to Susan. Bill and Susan both know that this mention means she should check his blog and find the post in the next 12 hours — and then click on an URL there that has been temporarily altered to contain a message. urlHosted elegantly renders the message on a page for Susan. 12 hours later Bill switches the URL link back to normal. Since old blog posts are only rarely re-indexed by search services, and receive little traffic, there’s only a slim chance the message will be exposed to public view. The addition of simple ROT-13 to the message would make it even more unlikely to be discovered. But it’s probably much easier for Bill and Susan just to use SnapChat.

Update: There’s a handy Greasemonkey script for Firefox users that simply auto-strips such gunk from the URL when the Web page loads in the browser. Those in need of a standalone add-on for Firefox might look at Au Revoir ATM or PureURL.

A 2015 study of the “Indexing of Mapping Science Journals”, including cartographic history journals.

* Found that 47 such titles were published as free / open access, but that only eight of those were in the DOAJ.

* Of the 47 free / open access titles, 12 were represented in Google Scholar by 10 or less articles.

* Scopus indexed 18 of the 47 free / open access titles.

So it’s “back to school” time. What fab free MOOCs are available and starting this September / October?

* Teaching Library Research Strategies | Canvas Network

“… an experienced academic librarian will share his strategies for getting students engaged in the art of library research.”

* Book Sleuthing: What 19th-Century Books Can Tell Us About the Rise of the Reading Public | edX

“Go behind the scenes at Harvard’s libraries to discover how readers in the first information age interacted with their books.”

* 30 Days of TED | Canvas Network

“… the wide variety of resources available on the TED website [TED Talks etc] and how to use them in the classroom.”

An unusual new OA journal is the Journal of Brief Ideas, containing “citable ideas in fewer than 200 words” which are published under a CC-BY license. Interesting idea, but the title is not going into JURN just yet. The journal is in beta, for one thing. I also suspect that a clear focus on rational evidence-based discourse may be difficult to maintain, once wider audiences find it and realise it’s a free-for-all platform. The curation, such as it is, seems too light-touch to allow the journal’s reputation to survive a surge of articulate loons.

However, I’ve often thought that a normal journal might usefully have such short pieces — perhaps tight summary surveys of each of the field’s knowledge gaps (“what we know that we don’t know”). Perhaps such an article series might run alongside a series of imaginative ‘brief ideas’ articles on how those knowledge gaps might be filled. A third series might briefly outline the field’s as-yet unexplored interdisciplinary potentials.

The world will soon have a new open access journal on bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, ledgernomics and blockchain applications. Ledger will be Open Access, but is not yet in JURN since the first issue won’t be published until 2016.

The Biological Journal of the Linnean Society‘s July 2015 issue (Vol 115 Part 3) is devoted to biological recording, celebrating and documenting 50 years of the UK’s Biological Records Centre as a pioneer of citizen science. The issue is currently free.

Government decrees closure of all humanities degrees. No, it’s not another crazed Putin pronouncement from Russia. It’s sober Japan…

Many social sciences and humanities faculties in Japan are to close after universities were ordered to “serve areas that better meet society’s needs”. Of the 60 national universities which offer courses in these disciplines, 26 have confirmed they will either close or scale back their relevant faculties at the behest of Japan’s government. … 17 national universities will stop recruiting students to humanities…”

…[the move in Japan is] linked to a low birth rate and falling numbers of students, which has led to many institutions running at less than 50 per cent of capacity.”

And the situation is only likely to get worse. In population terms Japan is headed back to where it was in 1955…

Source: IPSS (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research) via IEEE.

So it seems that the same blanket closure of humanities departments may soon be forced on other nations in steep demographic decline, such as Russia and most of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Possibly even southern Italy.

Which is one reason why I’ve been so pleased to see the amazing baby boom we’ve been having here in the UK over the past five years, which shows no sign of stopping any time soon. We seem to have babies and toddlers everywhere you look, and the supermarkets usually now dedicate two double-sided aisles to romper-suits, nappies, toddler clothes, baby food etc. Midwives are worked off their feet, and infant school reception classes are so full that the kids are almost falling out the windows. And I’d take a bet that these kids are going to be remaking and reinventing British youth culture circa 2023-28, and then surging into the universities circa 2026-35.