Monthly Archives: May 2009

Digg to Use CC0

Posted on May 28, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Fred Benenson at Creative Commons is reporting that the social news site Digg has opted for the CC0 waiver for its content. The CC0 waiver puts the applicable content into a public domain-like state (as much as local law will allow). From the Digg blog:

The CC0 waiver expresses that content posted on Digg is public domain even internationally. A minor point maybe, but our previous public domain dedication was only clear within the USA. When a friend from Creative Commons suggested that we move to a CC0 waiver, to even more clearly affirm our intentions, it seemed obvious.

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Open Education News: 500 Posts

Posted on May 27, 2009 by | 1 Comment

Open Education News is proud to announce that it now has over 500 posts (506 counting this one). This milestone is the proud culmination of the tireless efforts of OEN’s staff since April 2008. In particular, David Wiley has been instrumental in managing the site. The staff would like to thank the generous contributions of the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation. Without their financial support, OEN would not be possible.

In addition to financial contributions, OEN is also grateful to the efforts of reporters and bloggers within open education and related fields for their contributions to the discussion. Thank you to Peter Suber for setting the benchmark. Also, thanks to all the other bloggers like Stephen Downes, Jim Groom and Brian Lamb, each of whom make writing about open education fun. The list of bloggers who contribute to open education could go on and on…

Last, but certainly not least, OEN thanks the readers of this blog. We hope that you have found OEN informative and interesting. The past year has proved to be an exciting one for open education. If you have any feedback for the next 500 posts, please let us know.

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Open Access Tags on Twitter and FriendFeed

Posted on May 27, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Jim Till posts a list of open access tags used on Twitter and FriendFeed. Till also analyzes tags used on Connotea and Delicious. From the blog post:

Results of a Twitter search for #OpenAccess revealed that a number of Twitterers have added this hashtag to “tweets” that are related to OA.

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20,000 Albums on Jamendo

Posted on May 27, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Mike Linksvayer at Creative Commons is reporting that there are 20,000 albums on the music site Jamendo. Jamendo is unique from mainstream music sites in that its music is licensed using Creative Commons. From the blog post:

Look at it this way and you’ll understand why we’re the first to be impressed with the figures: it will have taken jamendo 3 years to gather 10,000 albums, and then just under one year later, that number has doubled!

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Open Access Parody-Style Video

Posted on May 27, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Greg Laden has posted a short video from YouTube depicting a Library Science scholar and a librarian talking about open access. The video is a parody of the “I’m a mac, I’m a PC” Apple commercials.

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First OA Mandate for South Africa

Posted on May 27, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Peter Suber at Open Access News is reporting that the University of Pretoria has voted unanimously to adopt an open access mandate. This mandate marks a first for South Africa. Access to articles is subject to publisher’s permission, but faculty are encouraged to submit to OA journals. From Suber’s commentary:

This policy breaks important new ground. It’s the first OA mandate for South Africa, and the first for Africa at large, either from a university or a funder. And it’s another unanimous vote! I applaud the mandatory language, the requirements for both deposit and permission, and the timing (deposit immediately upon acceptance).

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Data.gov Unveiled

Posted on May 26, 2009 by | 1 Comment

Peter Suber at Open Access News is reporting the launch of Data.gov. The website will make datasets used by the federal government available openly. From Data.gov:

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Although the initial launch of Data.gov provides a limited portion of the rich variety of Federal datasets presently available, we invite you to actively participate in shaping the future of Data.gov by suggesting additional datasets and site enhancements to provide seamless access and use of your Federal data. Visit today with us, but come back often. With your help, Data.gov will continue to grow and change in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

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Vancouver Openness Resolution Passed

Posted on May 26, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Recently OEN reported on a resolution to be taken up by Vancouver’s city council regarding openness. CBC News is now reporting that the resolution has passed. From the article:

“So it’s great,” said Andrea Reimer, the city councillor who proposed the motion that passed Thursday afternoon. “The local online community was all very, very happy, and now we just have to look forward on implementation and figuring sort of the order with which we do that.”

Thanks to Slashdot for the link.

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Rapid Rise in OA Mandates

Posted on May 26, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Peter Suber at Open Access News has a short post listing four departments (three different institutions) that have adopted open access mandates in the first half of May. Suber also links to a chart by Alma Swan illustrating the growth of OA mandates. From Suber’s post:

Note that there have been four departmental mandates so far this month, and all four by unanimous faculty votes.

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Free Software Pact

Posted on May 26, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Glyn Moody discusses “The Free Software Pact” in a recent blog post. The Free Software Pact is a document political candidates can sign indicating their support of free software, and opposition to legislation that is harmful to it. From the blog post:

…politicians are starting to wake up to the fact that openness is hot, and are beginning to talk about it – not always sincerely – in the hope of looking vaguely trendy. The other is that supporters of free software and the rest are beginning to realise that the main obstacles to spreading openness are increasingly political, rather than technical. This means the fight must be taken to the politicians directly.

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