Open-Content

Responding to some comments on yesterday’s post about my ideal open textbook legislation: Ben Werdmuller asked, “Is there any reason for not including the whole range of permissive CC licensing, including the Public Domain one?” Yes indeed! For one, I think it is crucial that the licenses allowed all be remix-compatible with one another. That means no ND license (no remix is allowed at all) and only one SA license (otherwise, no remixing is possible across works). BY and CC Zero (in effect a public domain license) are remix compatible with everything, as would be a public domain dedication (let’s please remember that licenses only apply to copyrighted material - since materials in the public domain are not copyrighted they can’t have a license!). Using NC is likely important to incentivize publisher participation, which I address below. ...

Stephen says, “My argument is that if you require a letter of suipport from publishers, then publishers will immediately turn this into a cartel, which would mean that prices would not drop at all. You do not address this line of reasoning at all.” I’ll happily address it here, but Stephen’s comment also ignores my main point. First, let me deal with the suggestion that price will not drop at all. A content-complete openly licensed version of the book online is all the price control that is needed. The existence of this version controls price by providing an alternate mechanism for accessing the content. If you really want a printed version, and you can purchase one for $25, you’ll purchase one. If you really want a printed version, but you can only buy one for $75, you’ll just print out all the pages at Kinko’s and put them in a three-ring binder. More than one person will create and distribute (legally) a PDF that makes printing for your three ring binder really easy, and no one will purchase the $75 version from the publisher. The same is true for an audio version, etc. So the existence of the free version provides price control all by itself. If the publisher wants to sell books, those books have to satisfy Wiley’s magic formula of open book sales: ...

There’s a lot of talk about open textbook legislation going around right now. I recently reported on HR 1464, which was a great first start, but on reflection could be improved significantly. I’ve had some opportunities to think about what the “perfect” open textbook bill would look like, so I thought I’d share MNSHO. The legislation would create competitive funding opportunities to create open textbooks in any content area. These would be multi-stage grants (like the SBIR program), with additional funding tied to the successful completion of initial project goals. ...

If you are cursing fate because you missed the Call for Proposals deadline for Open Ed 2009, never fear - the deadline has been extended to May 15! Get you proposals submitted today! (They’re only 500 words… what are you waiting for?)

Open Education News is holding a logo contest! Head over for the rules, and learn how to win fame, glory, and Creative Commons and Cape Town Declaration t-shirts!

The Deseret News has provided an editorial response to the interview with me they published earlier this week. The editorial is titled Universities will be relevant. The things about the response that make me giggle are: (1) the newspaper felt a need to write a response to a piece written by one of its own reporters, and (2) the editorial largely agrees with my assessment of the future risk to higher education. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only disagreement the Deseret News has with the earlier article is an argument with the headline of the story - in which I was quoted very much out of context, as I explained yesterday. ...

RT @zephoria: Most people who seek mass attention are unaware of the costs of being famous. Few know what they’re getting into. Coping w/ fame ain’t easy. If the Chronicle’s headline When Professors Print Their Own Diplomas, Who Needs Universities didn’t catch my colleagues’ attention, today’s front page story in the Deseret News seems to have done the trick: Universities will be ‘irrelevant’ by 2020, Y. professor says. By 8:30 am today (the day the article was published) I’d already received multiple emails and a phone call. ...

I recently posted a link to the OER Remix Game, a card game you can play with friends to learn about the license compatibility difficulties involved in remixing. Well, if you’ve had a hard time convincing your friends to play the game with you, you can now try a beta of the online (one player) version of the game! You can find it at OER Remix Game Online. Your thoughts and feedback would be appreciated. Critical and corrective feedback is, of course, the most useful kind.

I love to create stories to teach otherwise difficult to understand concepts. The Polo Parable has proven to be an effective way to help people see the madness involved in trying to “move” classroom teaching practices online and help them understand that different contexts call for different strategies. In the spirit of the Polo Parable, here is the “Trucker Tale.” Once upon a time there was an inventor. She was brilliant. All through the night and all during the day she dreamed, she schemed, she thought, she imagined. Then one day she had a “Eureka!” moment. She sketched out the design of her breakthrough product, and worked and reworked the design by showing it to friends and getting their feedback. ...

Sunnie links to the audio of our recent interview about open education, some of my current projects, and some unsolicited dissertation advice.