"Good Copy, Bad Copy" is an excellent film about the struggle to redefine intellectual copyright in a manner that fosters creativity rather than stifling it. It is clear from this video that there is a need to develop new business models that account for the ways in which people are using, synthesizing, and creating new media. The current legal regime surrounding copyright is excessively tilted toward corporations and rent seeking behavior instead of supporting artists, fans, and a dynamic economy.

Labels: globalization, open source, technology, web technology

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is open for signatures. The declaration states:

1. Educators and learners: First, we encourage educators and learners to actively participate in the emerging open education movement. Participating includes: creating, using, adapting and improving open educational resources; embracing educational practices built around collaboration, discovery and the creation of knowledge; and inviting peers and colleagues to get involved. Creating and using open resources should be considered integral to education and should be supported and rewarded accordingly.

2. Open educational resources: Second, we call on educators, authors, publishers and institutions to release their resources openly. These open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone. Resources should be published in formats that facilitate both use and editing, and that accommodate a diversity of technical platforms. Whenever possible, they should also be available in formats that are accessible to people with disabilities and people who do not yet have access to the Internet.

3. Open education policy: Third, governments, school boards, colleges and universities should make open education a high priority. Ideally, taxpayer-funded educational resources should be open educational resources. Accreditation and adoption processes should give preference to open educational resources. Educational resource repositories should actively include and highlight open educational resources within their collections.

Labels: open source, teaching

Okay, a few days back I noticed that MS Word 2007 has a bibliography function which can put citations into the proper format. I wondered aloud if/when open source programs would acquire this. After a little bit of research, I am happy to learn that the open source community is way ahead of me...

OttoBib generates the proper citation for any book if you just enter the ISBN number.

Zotero is a Firefox add-on which adds citations directly as you surf. There is also integration with MS Word, which most of my students use.

Awesome.

Labels: citations, open source, research, teaching, web technology, word

Plans are afoot to link BlackBoard with mobile phones like BlackBerry. The notorious CrackBerry may finally be used to promote something beside e-mail and sms addiction.

Personally, I am not opposed to having students access coursework on any platform they prefer, from a desktop to a cellphone. I remember editing and reviewing my dissertation on an old Palm Pilot while taking the bus everyday when I was in graduate school. So I hardly have any issues with students working when, how, and where they want.

Even if I had an objection, it would be useless since web surfing technology is already a feature on most new mobile phones.

However, if this integrated link between proprietary courseware and mobile technology becomes a monopoly, it may pose some serious challenges to those of us who prefer to minimize their reliance on proprietary courseware and software. At the moment, it is relatively easy to set up blogs for mobile telephone downloading (it is a standard feature even for free sites like Blogger), but it is significantly more challenging and time-consuming to design an entire course that can be readily viewed on multiple platforms. However, Twitter software can easily be used to replicate some of the SMS features promised by the newly integrated proprietary courseware.

Of course, Blackboard is trying not only to make their courseware interface with mobile phones, they are also marketing a link with their point-of-sale systems. One can envision a situation in the not too distant future in which students use their Tablet PC or Blackberry's to logon to the course, purchase and download their readings in digital format during a class session. Of course, I am not completely sure how all of this will work, but it does seem to be blurring a line between providing educational content and establishing a monopoly in the business of education.

The original reasons that I gave up on WebCT and BlackBoard is that their products are clumsy, ugly, costly, and slow compared to what I could make myself. In fact, I don't see why any college should pay for this service when almost any professor could make smoother, better, cheaper and faster sites themselves (... one of the aims of the posts on this blog is to encourage exactly this). Proprietary courseware systems encourage dependence on technology instead of selective and thoughtful appropriation of technology. The philosophy that guides proprietary course management software is inappropriate to my personal outlook on teaching and that of many other academics. Professors should have the option and the ability to make as much of their courses available to the general public as they please. Finally, students and professors should have the ability to prevent corporations from monopolizing the commercial aspects of academic interaction.

The more that professors use proprietary courseware, the less ability they have to control how much of their intellectual labor they can liberate. Corporations which aim to establish a monopoly in the businesss of education benefit from the practice of exclusive and password protected on-line course content. Resisting the emergence of a corporate monopoly and maintaining academic freedom therefore requires academics to maintain ownership of the means of intellectual production.

Labels: open source, teaching, technology, web technology

Good news! Yale University has launched its open source courseware, Open Yale. There is only one Political Science course available, Steven B. Smith's Introduction to Political Theory, but I am sure it will grow.

What's really interesting is that the site includes video and audio pod casts. It is clear that the video recording is very professional. One might even conclude that Yale is using its open source for promoting its brand.

I have read that the professors selected to participate were mainly senior scholars who had won teaching awards. Apparently, Yale also insisted that the content of the lectures must not infringe on any intellectual property so professors were asked not to rely on published texts unless permission was obtained prior to filming. My hunch is that such precautions are unnecessary given the core notion of fair use and the fact that the lectures are not being distributed on-line for a fee.

Labels: open source, teaching, web technology