The Office of the Governor of California is announcing the second phase of their digital textbook initiative. From the press release:
The second phase calls on content developers to submit high school history-social science and higher-level math course textbooks for review against California’s academic content standards. The first phase of the initiative focused on high school math and science textbooks.
Thanks to Lisa Petrides for the link.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged oer, open content, Open Education, open textbook, open textbooks, policy
Tom Caswell has a new post on the benefits of OpenCourseWare for Utah State University. From the post:
The more I do, the more I see that most OCWs are simply not going to make money. That is not their aim. So what does it mean to be sustainable or self-sustaining? Does it always involve making money?
Also, Capilano University begins its own OpenCourseWare.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, ocw, oer, online learning, open content, openness, policy
Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, a professor of computer science at Université Paris-Sud (France), has posted an overview of open access. From the post:
Can we get out of this situation? Can we escape both the escalating subscription fees of commercial editors and the dangerous author fees of prominent Open Access publishers? It is important to understand that the scientific community is largely at fault: we sit on the editorial boards of the very journals published at exorbitant prices by commercial publishers,f and we submit our best articles to these journals.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, journal, library, OATP, open access, openness
Leigh Blackall has a new post giving an update on his “open” PhD. From the post:
The research question that arises out of this then is: How does open education and research develop in an Australian university?
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, Open Education, openness, research
Angus Kidman is reporting that Albany Senior High School in Auckland, New Zealand has moved to open source software. From the article:
Ditching Microsoft is highly unusual within the NZ education sector, as a long-standing contract with the national government means the software giant is paid for technology for the school even though none has been used. Microsoft’s dominance also means that most planning documents for education presume an Microsoft infrastructure.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, K-12, online learning, open source, openness
Michelle Bryant is reporting that the Texas Language Technology Center (TLTC) has received $263,000 to create foreign language textbooks. From the post:
By comparison, Français interactif, a TLTC online curriculum aimed at first-year French students, offers a range of prices and options: free downloadable PDFs or print-on-demand textbooks delivered to your doorstep for just $16.95 for black and white, or $50.95 for color.
The license that will be used was not mentioned in the article. Thanks to Curriki for the link.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, K-12, online learning, open textbook, open textbooks
Dee-Ann LeBlanc is reporting that Red Hat has created Opensource.com. The website includes an education section. From the post:
Whether an open source community sponsored by Red Hat will gain traction remains to be seen, but in its short lifetime it’s chock full of content and healthy discussions on what the site should be and support.
Alan Levine has a new post on an online reading group forming around the topic of new media. Participation is open to anyone. From the post:
A few months ago and an NMC Board meeting, Gardner Campbell conjectured the idea to try and create some sort of online reading group among our community.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, online learning, Open Education, open learning, open-teaching, openness
Roy Tennant has a new post on being unable to sign up for Flickr Commons. From the post:
Flickr laid off George Oates over a year ago, who was at the very least the public face of the Flickr Commons. Since no one apparently replaced her in that role, the level of commitment Yahoo has for the project seems obvious.
Dinah Sanders has a new post reflecting on what happens to works when someone dies. From the post:
We in the United States have CC0, which is basically a “No Rights Reserved” license. We have traditional copyright which protects our work for 70 years after our death. But we don’t have an easy way to say “While I’m alive, this belongs to me, but after I die, I want to give it to the public domain.”
Posted in Open Education
Tagged CC licenses, commons, copy right, copyright, open content, openness, public domain
