Monthly Archives: February 2010

The State and Challenges of OER in Brazil

Carolina Rossini has published an article on open educational resources in Brazil. From the abstract:

The government also plays a major role in the markets, with taxpayer monies the largest single investor in scientific and professional books for higher education in Brazil. This role of “single investor” plays out in multiple areas which give origin to the textbooks: since unlike most countries, the federal and state public Universities in Brazil are free 69, the payment of salaries for employees and professors come from the University budget (and this from the government) and a great number of scholarships, including for master and doctoral level, are provided.

Thanks to Pumpkin Yang for the link.

Open Education Curriculum Board Legislation in Virginia

eLobbyist VA has tweeted about legislation in the state of Virginia authorizing the creation of an Open Education Curriculum Board. From the summary:

The purpose of the Board is to designate qualifying entities as Open Education Consortiums and set the standards for submission of education materials and subsequent licensing of educational curriculum developed by the Consortiums.

Google Book Settlement News 2/8/2010

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Wired Campus is reporting that the U.S. Department of Justice has announced its opposition to the revised Google Book settlement. The Department of Justice notes that the revised settlement is better than the original. From the post:

But it [the Department of Justice] said that “the United States has reluctantly concluded that use of the class-action mechanism in the manner proposed by the [Amended Settlement Agreement] is a bridge too far.” It also said that anti-trust concerns persist over pricing arrangements and a Google monopoly.

Open University Cuts Fee Reducation Scheme

Briar Burley is reporting that the Open University is eliminating a program in which shopping at the store TESCO helped customers reduce fees for enrolling at the Open University. From the post:

Existing students writing on the site and in the OU’s online community pages complain that they had budgeted for their courses and now face a struggle to meet fees.

Thanks to Jon Rosewell for the link.

Python Textbook Remixed in 11 Days

Timothy Vollmer writes about a professor at the University of Michigan who remixed a textbook on the Python programming language in 11 days. From the post:

The book, Python for Informatics: Exploring Information, is currently being used in his winter semester Networked Computing course. The textbook is based on the openly licensed book Think Python: How to Think like a Computer Scientist by Allen B. Downey.

Textbooks are Not the Curriculum

Karen Fasimpaur has a new post lamenting the focus on textbooks instead of curriculum as a whole. From the post:

There are many dynamics that affect learning in a classroom. Textbooks are not the most important of these. Teachers and the learning process they create and nurture have everything to do with how students learn.

Copyright Posters – WWII Style

Scott Leslie has a new post presenting several posters protesting copyright restrictions in the style of WWII posters. From the post:

…I am getting tired of people blindly accepting the official line of copyright and intellectual “property” as some sort of eternal right, rather than the modern (and increasingly faltering) invention it is.

Why Open Educational Resources Matter

The UK Centre for Legal Education has posted slides by Paul Maharg on why open educational resources matter.

GlaxoSmithKline Opens Dataset

David Bois is reporting that the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline is releasing a dataset relating to Malaria. According to the article, the data will be released into the public domain with “no strings attached.”

Capturing Explanation

Mike Caulfield has a new post pointing to Khan Academy and suggests that educators should stop capturing course, and instead capture explanations. From the post:

Forget the “lecture capture” vendors. Don’t worry about editing out false starts. Don’t spend any money on post-production.

Thanks to Judy Baker for the link.