Today at Macomb College, President Barack Obama announced a proposal to commit $50 million for the development of open online courses for community colleges as part of the American Graduation Initiative: Stronger American Skills through Community Colleges. As proposed, the courses will be freely available for use as is and for adaption as appropriate for targeted student populations. The materials will carry a Creative Commons license. More information in the White House Page.
Stephen Downes has posted on the release of a report entitled “The Edgeless University: Why Higher Education Must Embrace Technology.” The report was written by Peter Bradwell, a researcher at DEMOS, and was partly funded by JISC. Downes reports that several bloggers have weighed in on this report. From Downes’s commentary:
The good stuff in the report begins at page 55 where the authors discuss the details of managing an edgeless university.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, JISC, Open Education, policy
Keith Hampson has posted a short interview with Jeff Shelstad, CEO of Flat World Knowledge. Flat World Knowledge is a fairly new open textbook company. From the article:
…we believe strongly that instructors should not have to take a step back in their quality of experience just to address the rising cost issue. We don’t believe many will. We think legislative and authoritative/administration involvement, while nice, is not really a path to change, especially in institutions where faculty independence remains an important goal.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, oer, Open Education, open textbook, open textbooks
Jim Groom has a new blog post about sign-up restrictions on the University of Mary Washington blogs, noting that the University of Calgary has opened their blogging system up to anyone. Groom started the UMW blogs and sign-up is currently restricted to persons with a UMW e-mail account. From the article:
So, I got to thinking out loud, “What the hell is going on here, is UMW Blogs really open? What are we BlackBoard or something? Pandering to the term open, but slaving under the idea of ‘membership’ in the form of an institutional email?” I punched the wall, I banged my head against a stand up mirror and bloodied my forehead a bit.
Samuel Nikoi has written a blog post on defining the terms “learning objects,” “learning units” and “OER,” while reflecting on whether all three mean the same thing. Nikoi notes that one colleague prefers “OER” because it is more generic, and another colleague prefers “learning object” because of its technical connotations. From the article:
The question which for me still remains answered is “What specific feature(s) of a learning activity makes it a “learning object” or an “OER” for that matter?
A few weeks ago OEN reported that Google image search had added the ability to filter search results by Creative Commons license. However, at the time the results could only be reached by tweaking the URL. The Washington Post and Creative Commons are both reporting that Google has now added it as an option under “Advanced Search.” From Creative Commons’ post:
Remember, Google can only provide search results that its algorithms find tagged with the license you specify; it is your obligation to verify the license of the image you’re using and make sure you’re conforming to its guidelines.
The University College of Falmouth has launched its own OER initiative called openSpace. OEN contacted openSpace regarding the status of the project and learned that engagement in the forums wouldn’t begin until September. The project is expected to go fully live in March 2010. From the project’s home page:
The openSpace project team will use this space to disseminate information about the project. It’s also a portal for sharing information about Open Education: pedagogy, research, theory, projects, internationalisation, online educational collaborations, technology and more.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, oer, open content, Open Education
Brian Lamb has announced on his blog that the dates and times for individual sessions are now available. Lamb also highlights Alan Levine’s presentation, entitled “Amazing Stories of Openness.” From Lamb’s blog post:
We have an incredible selection of presenters that represent mainstays of the movement as well as some newcomers to the conference who will bring some welcome energy and fresh insights.
Glyn Moody has a new blog post questioning the need for open access journals. Moody suggests that preprints are more effective in disseminating information. From the blog post:
On the one hand, it would be ironic if the very field that acted as a midwife to open access journals should also be the one that begins to undermine it through a move to repository-based open publishing of preprints.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, journal, library, OATP, open access
David Wiley adds a short post on the current rate of BYU Independent Study OCW visitors who sign up to take courses for credit. From the post:
To date 7559 people have visited BYU IS OCW, and 232 of those people have enrolled in at least one course…
