Corey Stephan, Ph.D.

Author: Corey Stephan

How to make Brightspace Desire2Learn (D2L) a bit less undesirable

The Learning Management System (LMS) Brightspace Desire2Learn (D2L) was one of a number of popular software tools that I condemned in my free software manifesto for Catholic institutions. Ideally, nobody would use non-free, closed source institutional spyware, including D2L. In addition to the litany of ideological and security-related problems that come with D2L, it also […]

Electromagnetic radiation, social distancing, & good cheer

As weeks of social distancing have dragged into months, good cheer has become scarce. Spending quality time with someone outside of one’s household has not been a (responsible) possibility for too long. Even face-to-face interactions with extended family have been replaced by video calls. With people trying to manage a host of potential daily problems—unemployment […]

On Obi-Wan, Vader, & the cultural isolation of rejecting democracy for true religion

Immediately before what could have been the greatest battle of the Star Wars franchise (if not for poor dialogue and the bizarre setting of Mustafar)—the long-awaited first duel between Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his former apprentice who had just turned to the Dark Side and pledged his subservience to Darth Sidious—there is a perplexing exchange: […]

For remote instruction, faculty and administrators at Catholic institutions should turn to free & open source software

Faculty and administrators at Catholic institutions have a responsibility—perhaps, I dare suggest, a moral imperative—to employ free and open source software. That responsibility becomes particularly clear during a time when we are all involved in remote instruction as a temporary means of survival. At this moment, we have a unique opportunity to reevaluate our software choices. Let us not allow that opportunity to be wasted. Moving forward, we ought to use only free and open source software.

CLI Bibles: Greek, Latin, & English

Since the goal of making Scripture available in an array of formats is widespread, it is unsurprising that Christian free and open source software developers have blessed us with various command line interface (CLI) Bibles for GNU/Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. The three that I use regularly are grb, vul, and kjv, which show […]