I've been thinking about implications nearsourcing of information has for mobile learning, including in and out of schools. The term nearsourcing has origins in economics, in the past several decades in discussing location of manufacturing and trade of goods and services. IT developers have used the term as a reference to proximity of IT services to IT users.

The term seems useful also when considering the transmission of ideas and processes from one generation to another as through school curricula. I refer to this transmission as an information supply chain. Others set a higher standard by calling it a knowledge chain. Teachers and books have been a major part of these chains, with increasing value to users as they increasingly save learner's time in mastering ideas and process of other people.

In that context, I wonder what uses the term nearsourcing may offer teachers and students for developing mobile learning. Here are several ideas, starting with a definition.

Nearsourcing of information acknowledges using insights of an information originator without considering interpretations others assign to those insights. It distinguishes sources closest to originals from farsourcing, or from what academics commonly call secondary, tertiary and other more removed sources.

Nearsourcing occurs when information users give priority to contents in information supply chains with fewer interventions between original sources and information a user selects to make a decision. It offers simplified information transmission from originators to learners and greater efficiency of collaboration of learners with originators of a bit of information.

As mobile learning matures, learners appear likely increasingly to differentiate between original sources and information that has passed through intervening sources, whether interventions appear as people or artifacts. The fewer interventions, the nearer the source the user selects.

Hmm. Ok, I think I'll develop this further, and then post something more. I should identify where nearsourcing fits into decision making as part of learning. Does anyone see uses in education for developing the term nearsourcing?

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