Monthly Archives: August 2009

Bonk Interview on Open Education

Posted on August 25, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Curtis Bonk, a Professor at Indiana University, has been interviewed by InsideHigherEducation. Bonk discusses several topics in-depth, such as MIT OCW, wikis and quality control. From the article:

Leadership from MIT as well as Tufts, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Utah State University, and hundreds of other institutions of higher learning lends immediate credibility to the field. It has forced many institutions to abandon notions of trying to monetize everything they place online. And in effect, there is a shift in thinking from how much can we make to how much can we share.

Bonk was also interviewed in eLearn magazine last month.

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Academic Earth Named One of the 50 Best Websites

Posted on August 25, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Academic Earth has been named by Time magazine as one of the 50 best websites for 2009. For readers unfamiliar with Academic Earth, it is a website that aggregates video OER/OCW. From Academic Earth’s blog:

We are extremely honored to be in such great company in the TIME.com Top 50 Websites of 2009,” said Richard Ludlow, Founder and CEO of Academic Earth. “We’ve been truly astonished by the initial response to site’s launch; in the first 6 months since it opened to the public, the site has received more than 2.5 million visits from internet users representing more than 200 countries. We are very pleased to play even a small role in extending high-quality learning opportunities to people around the globe.”

Thanks to Ryan Case on Twitter for the link.

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Open University Lists Strategic Priorities

Posted on August 25, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Nadeem Shabir on Twitter has pointed out that the Open University has posted its strategic direction for the upcoming year. The page lists five business areas OU will pursue. From the page:

OU Freemium — new businesses deriving income from open educational resources (OER) and associated services. This business area was previously called OU for Free and has been re-titled to stress the need to monetise OER in order to create a sustainable business model.

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2009 International MAN@eLA

Posted on August 25, 2009 by | Leave a comment

The call for nominations for the 2009 International MAN@eLA is now open! The MERLOT Africa Network (MAN) and its network of partners present its 2009 International MAN@eLA Awards for Exemplary Open Education Resources (OER)Practices for Development.

These prestigious awards are presented annually to organizations, individuals, online educational resources and authoring software tools dedicated to advancing development in Africa, and recognize three categories of excellence: (1) Leadership Award to an individual or group that has made significant advances in the understanding of the issues or innovations surrounding OER and the OER Movement applied to development issues, (2) Virtual Laboratory Award to exemplary teaching and learning resources that promote inquiry-based/discovery learning, internationalization (such as multi-lingual accessibility) and usability, (3) Software for OER Content Authoring Award (This may be a free or lower cost/affordable proprietary software.

Do you need motivation or guidance? Check the 2008 winners of the MAN@eLA Award!


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News from MERLOT International Conference

Posted on August 25, 2009 by | 1 Comment

mic09_200wYou already can check what happened in the MERLOT International Conference, from August 13 to 16, 2009.  The 624 tweets were gathered through Twapper Keeper and give us a taste on how dynamic the conference was.

The conference program also brings some of the presentations, icluding the keynote by John Wilbanks, VP for Science at Creative Commons and many more!

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Share your word on the OER Survey!

Posted on August 25, 2009 by | Leave a comment

If you haven’t already, break up your Monday with the ccLearn’s OER Copyright Survey. It only takes ten minutes, and it’s for a good cause—mainly to “gather information regarding the ways in which copyright law plays a role in, and perhaps acts as a barrier to, the practices of those who create or facilitate the production of Open Educational Resources (OER).”

ccLearn also has just published interviews they made during the Open Education 2009 Conference, a couple of weeks ago in Vancouver! Watch them here.

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Wikimedia Receives $500,000 from Hewlett

Posted on August 24, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Dana Oshiro at ReadWriteWeb is reporting that the Wikimedia foundation has received $500,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The exact use of the money isn’t specified, though it is assumed to aid in OER development. From the article:

“The Hewlett Foundation’s support comes at a critical time,” said Wikimedia Foundation’s Executive Director Sue Gardner, “We’ve just begun the planning that will help us identify how to maximize our impact around the world. This support will help us to execute our priorities for the current year, and enable us to plan for the future.”

Link to article provided by TechNews.AM.

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Museum Photos and Openness

Posted on August 24, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Nina Simon has a new post at Museum 2.0 on restrictions surrounding taking photographs in museums. Simon presents a list of arguments including promotional value and inclusion. From the post:

Telling visitors that they can’t take photos in museums reinforces the sense that the museum is an external authority that owns and controls its objects rather than a shared public resource. How can visitors be “co-owners” of museums if they can’t own an image from their experience?

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Symposium on OER and IT Held in India

Posted on August 24, 2009 by | Leave a comment

World Latest News is reporting that a two day symposium was held on OER in India. The symposium was sponsored by the Indira Gandhi National Open University. From the article:

“We feel that technically enabled open education, as not just an education agenda for the rest but in a central way to provide scaled access to quality education is most important for India now,” Vijay Kumar said.

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OCW as Theft Prevention

Posted on August 24, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Terri Bays at the OCWC Blog has a new post on a recent string of articles regarding concerns about research ideas being stolen. Bays suggests that OpenCourseWare is one way to “stake their claim to ideas or techniques” before they are published in academic journals. From the post:

Having your work visible and labeled as your own allows the vigilant to find evidence of fraud when they go looking rather than harbor vague suspicions they have no way of substantiating.

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