NPR has posted an interview with Glen Thomas, who is California’s Secretary of Education. Thomas discusses Caifornia’s digital textbook initiative. From the transcript:
A number of these are books – were developed by foundations, which they have seen as their purpose in developing open content. And I might just say, the traditional textbook publishers have also been very active in this space. It’s just that their materials are not free.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged K-12, oer, open content, open textbook, open textbooks
Ashraf Khaled at University World News is reporting on criticism of the recent expansion in enrollment of Egypt’s open education system. The expansion allows students who have just completed their secondary education to enroll, whereas previously they had to wait for a few years. From the article:
“The objective of easing conditions for applying to open education is to encourage students to complete their education and raise the quality of learning,” Helal said in press remarks. “Open education is still the most inexpensive and as such its expansion is not meant to generate profits.”
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, online learning, Open Education, open learning
A number of bloggers have provided commentary on Open Education Conference 2009. Michael Korcuska provides a list of the highlights for him. George Siemens weighs in on the future of universities and their relationship to open education. Tony Hirst shows visualizations of conference Twitter use. As a reminder, all conference sessions are available through ustream. From Siemens’ post:
The research role of universities, due to its integration with government and policy, will morph and change, but will not disappear. Teaching is what is most at risk. Can a social network – loosely connected, driven by humanistic ideals – serve a similar role to what university classrooms serve today?
Readers are encouraged to add links to more commentary through the comments.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged conference, oer, open content, Open Education, openness, presentation, research
Scott Leslie has a new post on an effort to help OER Africa find open educational resources. A Twitter account has been created to help forward requests. From Leslie’s post:
Only time will tell if it works and how effect it is. You can help, really easily. If you use twitter, then follow findanoerafrica and basically respond in the helpful way you already do.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, Internet, oer, online learning, Open Education, open learning
David Wiley has a new post on the Berne Convention, which makes a work fully copyrighted by default. Wiley asks the question whether someone can opt out of the Berne Convention. From the article:
If the government didn’t automatically copyright my works for me – whether I wanted them to or not – I wouldn’t need a CC license. I could just share with people.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged CC licenses, copy right, copyright, creative commons, open content, policy
Christopher Phillips has a new post on open education and accessibility. The post links to some accessibility documents created at Open Education 2009. From the post:
Through the conference website I was able to find a couple of good resources on the accessibility of open educational resources for people with disabilities
Posted in Open Education
Slashdot is reporting that several open textbooks have been approved for the state of California. These textbooks include material from Connexions, CK-12 Foundation and Curriki. From the press release making the announcement:
“California’s Digital Textbook Initiative gives school districts high-quality, cost-effective options to consider when choosing textbooks for the classroom – not only during these difficult economic times but in the years to come,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “This represents an important step toward embracing a more interactive learning environment that leverages technology to meet the changing academic needs of California’s students.”
Posted in Open Education
Tagged oer, open content, Open Education, open textbook, open textbooks
According to the blog Inside Google Books, Google Books will now support Creative Commons licensing. Seven types of licenses will be available, ranging from BY-NC-ND to CC0. From the post:
We look forward to working with Creative Commons, authors, and publishers to bring even more content online for you to search, enjoy, and remix.
Thanks to tweeters Kiwanyang and KyleMathews.
Posted in Open Education
Several tweeters have pointed out the availability of a survey on copyright. The survey is sponsored by Open.Michigan and is focused on the relationship between copyright and OER. From the survey’s introduction page:
It is our goal to develop a deeper awareness of the degree to which OER practitioners and users grapple with copyright law issues, and whether those issues pose barriers to the creation, dissemination, and reuse of OER. We hope that this initial survey will form the basis of a larger international study led by ccLearn.
Brian Lamb pointed out during in the Open Education Conference opening remarks that they will be attempting to live stream every conference session this year. Various observers report that the feed is generally good, but there are occasional volume problems. The streams are available on right-side the Open Education Conference home page.
