Open-Content

I suppose if faculty deliberately choose to misunderstand their role and torment students, they’re free to do so. As Wired reports, another faculty member is claiming that notes students take in his class infringe his intellectual property rights. Michael Moulton, pictured right, and his publisher Faulkner Press (no link love for you!) are asserting what they suppose to be their right to control what students do with the information he teaches in his classes. While this all seems very confusing, the lawyer representing his publisher (a Mr. Sullivan) makes it quite clear: ...

My newest boy, sixth month-old Lorenzo, has a shirt that says “Fun To Be Me.” I’m feeling that way lately. This week I was named the USU College of Education and Human Services Researcher of the Year for 2008. It was a huge compliment from my peers here at USU and automatically makes me a finalist for the USU Robins Award, one of the university’s most prestigious (and tradition-rich) annual awards. ...

Via the amazing Peter Suber, some quotes from a story called Internet book piracy will drive authors to stop writing in the London Times: Chevalier, the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring who also chairs the London-based [Society of Authors], said that her members were deeply concerned that the publishing industry was failing to adapt to the digital age…. Ms Chevalier told The Times that the century-old model by which authors are paid – a mixture of cash advances and royalties – was finished. “It is a dam that’s cracking,” she said. “We are trying to plug the holes with legislation and litigation but we need to think radically. We have to evolve and create a very different pay system, possibly by making the content available free to all and finding a way to get paid separately.” ...

As many of you know, COSL is undertaking a project to lead the development of an “OER Handbook for Educators” on Wikieducator.org. We went through a really informative process while drafting the outline, and were grateful for all the contributions we received then (and even for the conference call!). Now there is a modest amount of content in the Handbook - basically a very first draft. And while the development has been completely open and well documented on the Wikieducator.org site all along, we’d really love to get even more of you engaged with the project now, and have you come contribute. We’re especially looking for user stories - are you an educator who has used OER? See Seth’s post to get a sense of what we’re looking for. ...

A very brief post today. I’ve lately heard some people express regrets that that the Cape Town Declaration focuses exclusively on open educational resources. In fact, it doesn’t. The “Cape Town Open Education Declaration” talks about “Unlocking the promise of open educational resources,” saying explicitly that: Open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It also draws upon open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues. It may also grow to include new approaches to assessment, accreditation and collaborative learning. Understanding and embracing innovations like these is critical to the long term vision of this movement. ...

This is one of the special times of the year when “us Christians” around the world pause for extra reflection on the incredible gift we’ve received from God in His Son Jesus Christ. Even if you aren’t Christian, I’d encourage you to take some time this weekend to “count your blessings.” There’s no feeling in the world like gratitude, and the world needs more people whose hearts are filled with thanks. ...

Before you start screaming that you’ve already written about this and I haven’t cited you, notice what I’m asking here. I’m giving a talk with the following abstract in a few weeks and am still doing research for the talk. If you have written something on the topic, let me know so I can be sure to include you. If you know of something interesting in this area that you didn’t write, please let me know anyway! ...

Simple wins. I certainly didn’t say it first. Of all the times I have said it, I probably said it best in my Openness, Localization, and the Future of Learning Objects talk at BCNET last year. It was then that I adopted Simple Gifts as the theme song of all my open education efforts. Wired and then Scott reiterate. Found these via Stephen. Note that the Apple and Google examples demonstrate that Simple Wins is a rule of the front end. No one would accuse the iPhone or Google search as being simplistic on the back end.

A nice, brief description of four technologies people think will be key to long-term portability of data across social media.

Whether they realize it or not, when people talk about a “social network,” they’re talking about a social LAN. All the profiles in Facebook or MySpace or Orkut or wherever are on the same network - they’re Local. What we need to be thinking about and putting in place is a social WAN - a fully distributed system where everyone completely controls their own profile, friends, and other data, and these are pushed out to the edges of the networks. ...