Gavin Baker at Open Access News is reporting that TriQuarterly, a prestigious literary journal is moving to open access. A subscription-only article at The Chronicle of Higher Education is skeptical of the move. From Baker’s commentary:
This is a journal converting to OA at a moment of internal crisis, rather than in a moment of strength.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged commons, higher education, journal, library, open access
Bill Tucker has published a response to a post critical of open content on Eduwonk. The original post was concerned that openness meant reduced quality. From Tucker’s reply:
…nobody sensible is in favor of poor quality instructional materials. But right now, in most states, quality and effectiveness are not the main drivers of purchasing decisions. Billions are solely dedicated to funding textbooks—regardless of the efficacy or quality of alternative options. What we need are policies that allow money to flow to whichever materials are the most effective.
David Wiley has a new post on the quality of education data. Wiley suggests that the real advantage of education technology is not improved effectivness, but increased access and data-driven decision making. From the post:
Think of distance learning… Think of opencourseware and open educational resources… Think of the millions of people who now have access that never would have had access otherwise. The impact of using technology to deliver content on increasing access to education is completely unassailable and totally undeniable.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, K-12, oer, online learning, Open Education, policy
Sanjiv Kataria has a new post urging the use of technology to assist in educating all of India’s children. From the post:
Technology is the best way to get all the 250 million children in the 6-14 age group into schools and to keep them in the system till they have significant skills ‘to fish for themselves’.
Richard Poynder has a new post critiquing the recent announcement by five notable U.S. universities (reported by OEN). Poynder argues that it is “well-meaning but probably ineffectual initiative.” From the post:
…the first step of any institution serious about OA should be to do the most obvious and rational thing: introduce a self-archiving mandate.
The state of Florida has launched Orange Grove Texts Plus, a join venture with the University Press of Florida to offer open textbooks. Nathan Crabbe at The Gainsville Sun has an article on the project and there is an opinion piece in the Tallahassee Democrat. From the Gainsville Sun article:
The initiative, called Orange Grove Texts Plus, currently offers about 120 textbooks and scholarly monographs. The books lean to the mathematics and sciences, with volumes such as “Advanced Calculus” and “Newtonian Physics.” Officials will be working to get more authors involved and faculty at the University of Florida and other schools to require the books in their classes.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, oer, open content, Open Education, open textbook, open textbooks, policy
In July OEN reported on an upcoming collaboration between WikiEducator and New Zealand. Ten days ago WikiEducator posted a press release indicating that a new non-profit organization, The OER Foundation, will manage that collaboration. From the press release:
“OER is a sustainable and renewable resource” said Phil Ker, Chief Executive of Otago Polytechnic, “our strategic commitment to sustainable education was a natural fit for our decision to establish and host the OER Foundation. This decision is already delivering returns, judging by the interest and confirmed investment from international donors and national agencies.”
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, oer, open content, Open Education, openness
“Kattekrab” has posted the program for Open Edge 2009. The conference is being held in Darlinghurst, New South Wales on Oct. 9th. From the post:
This one day forum will address issues around ‘open education’ in Australian schools. We hope the forum will bring together school leaders, practitioners and policy makers to discuss strategies for fostering open education.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged open content, Open Education, open source, openness
Tomasz Finc has posted a presentation by Mike Linksvayer and Samuel Klein on open educational resource interoperability for the WikiMedia platform. The video is in OGG format, which may require a plug-in for some media players.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged commons, oer, open content, Open Education, Wikipedia
David Kravets at Wired is reporting that Obama has selected Victoria A. Espinel as Copyright Czar. Espinel has taught intellectual property at George Mason University. From the article:
The czar’s position is charged with overseeing government anti-piracy crackdowns and, among other things, training other countries about IP enforcement. The Pro-IP Act also called for the creation of an FBI piracy unit and allows for the forfeiture of equipment used in large pirating operations.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged cc, CC licenses, copy right, copyright, creative commons, policy
