The Open Book Alliance, which is opposed to the settlement, has posted part of a transcript of a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing. Michael Masnick at Techdirt has posted commentary on the current status of the case (and largely siding with Google).
Posted in Open Education
Tagged google, Google's Settlement, policy, public domain
The following is another round of news relating to the Google Book settlement.
From the Public Knowledge post:
It [class actions] is not to be a tool to enable the mass licensing of rights which were never violated in the first place and where was not sufficient incentive for the owners to license those rights individually. Here, the aggregate small “harms” are allegedly caused by the scanning, indexing, and excerpting of books, while the proposed remedy is licensing the sale and full display of books — all for rights belonging to people who are not present. There is a reason class action law is not structured to allow this kind of settlement.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged commons, google, Google's Settlement, policy, public domain
Denise Nicholson at The African Copyright and Access to Knowledge Project (ACA2K) has a new post providing tips to policy makers in African nations. The recommendations are an interesting mix, suggesting both strict default copyright laws, while promoting open licenses. From the post:
Encourage authors not to sign over all their rights to publishers – encourage them to retain rights to enable them to place their works in open access institutional repositories, on personal blogs or to include in teaching materials. Encourage them to make use of an Author’s Addendum.
Jane Park at Creative Commons is reporting that the Food Safety Knowledge Network is looking for OER related to food safety. From the post:
These materials will be curated by experts in the field as well as aligned to a set of core competencies for food safety managers so that the users can identify the specific area the resource covers as well as trust the quality of the content. This fall, the Food Safety Knowledge Network will be pilot tested to support implementation of supplier training at the pre-certification level in developing countries including India and China.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged oer, open content, Open Education, open learning, openness
The Zambian Watchdog has posted the Zambian President, Rupiah Banda, address to the Zambian Open University. The translation is a little rough, and is unfortunately presented entirely in upper-case, but the content is readable. From the address:
Education is a pillar that should drive economic success. The improved trends we have noted in our economy should be complemented by the right calibre of human resource.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, education, higher education, online learning, open university
The Law Librarian Blog has a new post on the Open Conference System and Open Journal System. Both software projects were created by Public Knowledge Project (PKP). From the post:
There are many other tools that we can take advantage of in our efforts to present and conduct our activities in a professional manner and in pursuit of an OA world. I found PKP to be relevant because they are already working with other countries to develop scholarly portals
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, OATP, open access, openness
Jane Park at Creative Commons is reporting that the winners of the Open Architechure Challenge have been announced. The challenge was to create a “sustainable classroom of the future.” All designs have been released BY-NC-ND, which means that the designs cannot be improved upon as suggested in the post. From the post:
The massive response by schools and design companies around the world also signifies how learning has evolved, and how the old brick and mortar classroom is no longer considered sustainable. By redesigning our learning spaces, we are making concrete the new technologies and pedagogies of the 21st century.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged cc, CC licenses, commons, creative commons, openness
Kaitlin Thaney has a new post at Science Commons reporting that Nature has endorsed the Creative Commons Zero license. The editorial discusses lost opportunities to science when information, even genetic material, is not made available publicly. From the editorial:
Although it is usual practice for major public databases to make data freely available to access and use, any restrictions on use should be strongly resisted and we endorse explicit encouragement of open sharing, for example under the newly available CC0 public domain waiver of Creative Commons.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged cc, CC licenses, creative commons, journal, library, open access, openness, research
John Robertson has a new blog post reacting to the discontinuation of funding for USU OCW (reported by OEN back in July, before the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education). Robertson suggests that the institution needs to change to embrace openness, along with some of the costs. From the post:
An OER initiatives that tries to do all that work for the institution, without the instituion undergoing some changes to the basic institutional processes of how we do education. runs the risk of remaining a project (irrespective of their funding source).
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, ocw, oer, Open Education, policy
ResourceShelf has a new post copying an e-mail announcement from MIT OCW. Assuming ResourceShelf is accurate, the announcement has some current statistics for MIT OCW and indicates that the layout of the site will be changing. From the announcement:
The cost of operating OCW this fiscal year is $3.6 million USD, a 10% reduction from last year’s budget. We were able to lower our expenses through use of free video hosting services, changes in our video production process, and realignment of staff.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, ocw, oer, online learning, open content, Open Education
