Comments on: Responses to the Rev and Stephen on “Openness”

By: » What’s Really Going on in the Latest “Openness” Discussion? Chris Lott

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:38:05 +0000

[...] comment thread that has ensued, and the many fine follow-ups (see: David Wiley’s response and response to responses, Martin Weller, Brian Lamb, Pontydysgu, Always Cool Alan, Jim Groom’s response and a response to [...]

By: Luke Fernandez

Luke Fernandez — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:30:29 +0000

As per your post it’s ill advised to conflate open source software initiatives with some of the other open initiatives that academics are working on. I was impressed by how Christopher Mackie described them in “Open Source in Open Education: Promises and Challenges.” ( http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11309&mode=toc ) All this said, isn’t it important to also identify the commonalities between these endeavors? More collegially isn’t there utility in articulating the interests and educational visions that you, Ira Fuchs, and open source programmers share? Call it coalition building or something else but to me this seems like one tactic worth pursuing in reinvigorating the missions of the university that are best aligned with the ideals of openness.

By: Opinions on Open › Effective Advocacy Without Ideology in Open Education

Opinions on Open › Effective Advocacy Without Ideology in Open Education — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:35:29 +0000

[...] Siemens posted some thoughts on the topic of openness as an ideology, and a dialogue began to take shape around whether the open education movement is best served by pragmatists or ideologues. In true [...]

By: Teemu L

Teemu L — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:49:31 +0000

You wrote: “The differences between software and content are not marginal. The necessary and appropriate considerations of openness in these two contexts are significantly different. People taking the naive position of “OER is like open source software for content!” fail to carefully consider what they’re saying and consequently miss important differences.”
…
“Our inability to speak and write with precision and clarity about the differences in the openness of content and the openness of software is a huge roadblock to the progress of open education.”

If I consider Wikipedia (and the other Wikimedia projects) and recall the original idea of the projects, I do not see that there have ever been huge difference between the free/libre/open source software and free/libre/open content.

In practice the original idea of the Wikipedia was to try out if one could use the free/libre/open source software development model with content.

More interesting than the question of free/libre/open educational resources is the next step, the free/libre/open education, that includes (1) access to the free/libre/open content and (2) arrangements of meaningful learning tasks (some people call this teaching).

How these could be provided free/libre/open for all?

This would be something one could call free/libre/open education (choose the first word based on your priority)?

PS. The Wikimedia’s mission is “to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally” (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Missiaon_statement).

By: Joseph Thibault

Joseph Thibault — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:58:02 +0000

The differences between software and content are not marginal. The necessary and appropriate considerations of openness in these two contexts are significantly different.

@the reverend and @david, this is my favorite part of the discussion. For many I think that the difference is not acknowledged (which is why we rail against FB and Bb and Twitter).

In fact, it nearly pops up here too (in the original post about defining openness); if it’s the content that’s open, individuals putting a CC badge on their twitter account, Bb course or Facebook activity stream could truly have “opened” their content on a closed software. I think that’s an important detail to note (not to mention that if we raise issues of “sustainability”, who better to safeguard content and guarantee it’s long-term availability than Google or Facebook?–note, I say that last bit with only half sarcastically).

By: Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning » Blog Archive » A radical definition of Open Education

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:34:27 +0000

[...] Open Education debate is continuing – see contributions by George Siemens, Dave Wiley, Frances Bell, Jim Groom and Stephen [...]

By: Ideals or ideologies - open minds and mouths

Ideals or ideologies - open minds and mouths — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:57:37 +0000

[...] lost through abuse, Dave Cormier seeing openness as too Zen for definition whereas David Wiley argues for more precision of the context of use of the adjective open – content, software – to which I would add services and [...]

By: Jeremy Browne

Jeremy Browne — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:37:31 +0000

Reverend’s comments remind me of the slogan: Anarchy does *not* mean “chaos”; it does not mean “no government”; it means “no leader.”

I personally won’t stop people from having conversations about what “open” means, but I also won’t respect their authority to issue edicts on the matter.

By: Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:29:09 +0000

Well, David, it is the _content_ in Twitter, Blackboard, and Facebook that is being called open (nobody would say that the software is open, and I am not discussing these sites as software, but rather, as content sources). And the argument is that calling this content ‘open’ stretches the meaning of the term ‘open’ beyond recognition.

By: A response to David’s response :) at bavatuesdays

A response to David’s response :) at bavatuesdays — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:24:47 +0000

[...] is a comment I left on David Wiley’s post “Responses to the Rev and Stephen on ‘Openness’”, it’s extremely long, and should really be read in the context of the post on david’s [...]