Ocw

Reading Wayne Macintosh’s feature on WikiEducator got me thinking again about some people’s dissatisfaction with those projects that use the NC clause. (I’m not a fan of the NC clause, but I have never projected these negative feelings onto institutions or faculty who adopt the clause.) So I started asking myself - why do universities adopt the NC clause for their OER projects in the first place? And if we wish they wouldn’t use the NC clause, what can we do about it? ...

I’m very pleased to announce the opening of Novell OpenCourseWare today, as part of Novell’s annual BrainShare conference. This is the first foray into open education by a for-profit training services group, so props to Novell for showing that corporations can take the idea of “openness” beyond open source software and into open educational resources. Novell OCW runs eduCommons, COSL’s open source OCW management software, and is an extremely pleasant partnership between USU COSL and Novell Training Services.

Steve Carson writes about a recent survey of Japanese attitudes toward open education projects at universities (like OCWs). I have to agree with his selection of a favorite bit from the survey: Q9: What should be the scope of the universities that open up their lecture materials? (Sample size=1,050) Just well-known public and private universities 17.2% As many public universities as possible 14.2% As many private universities as possible 3.4% As many public and private universities as possible 64.8% Other 0.4% Two out of three surveyed felt that as many schools as possible should open access to their courses. I agre with them. =)

A few months ago I blogged about a project idea called Send2Wiki, that would let you (via a bookmarklet) send any page you’re viewing in your browser directly into a wiki for instant editing / remixing. Today I’m happy to announce that the first alpha of Send2Wiki is available! You can play with it over at http://send2wiki.com/. Send2Wiki includes preliminary support for license detection and preservation, automated translation (via Google Language Tools), PDF support, and chrome-stripping for specific sites (some OCWs and wikipedia at this point). ...

Apparently some of the readers of my new OpenCourseWars draft misunderstand. They think that I don’t like MIT OCW, or the opencoursewares in general. Let me set the record straight. ...

Here’s a draft of a chapter I am writing for an upcoming book on open education. It’s (supposedly) written from some time decades in the future, and is part autobiography and part history. I’d love any feedback you have… ...

I recently challenged students in one of my classes to build some educational materials primarily from existing, openly licensed materials. The results are in and the work is crazy / excellent / inspiring: Learn about how to use wikis and blogs in education at wikiblogedu.org. (Don’t forget to pick up a Rick Noblenski t-shirt afterwards). Learn how to prepare for and carry off an effective job interview at Interviewing Basics. Learn how to find or make clean water after a natural disaster at the Open Water Project. ...

I am extremely pleased to announce that the Utah Legislature has provided $200,000 to Utah State University for OpenCourseWare-related activities in the 2007-2008 budget year. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first state or federal funding to be set aside anywhere in the US for opencourseware-like initiatives, and only the second governmental funding so allocated world-wide. The Dutch government provides partial funding for the Dutch Open University’s openER program (which also happens to use eduCommons). The Hewlett Foundation provides the rest of the funding for openER. ...

I recently received an email from Hal Abelson (you never know who’s reading your blog, I guess) in response to my post about MIT and CC’s differing interpretations of the NC clause. He reiterated that the Proposed Best Practice Guidelines To Clarify The Meaning Of “Noncommercialâ€? are only a draft and do not represent CC’s interpretation of the NC clause, and assured me that MIT and CC do not take different stances on the interpretation. Hal can speak from a position of authority since he is both the Founding Director of Creative Commons and a member of the MIT faculty and the MIT OCW advisory board. ...

Preface: You will please notice that this is neither a “the NC clause is evil” post nor an “MIT OCW is evil” post. If you were hoping for either of those, then ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for - you can go about your business; move along.’ In doing some research for a book chapter I’m writing, I came across the following oddity: CC and MIT OCW have diametrically opposed interpretations of the meaning of the NC clause of CC’s own licenses. ...