Janet Fang has a new post on BioTorrent, a new P2P service for sharing data. From the post:
A new website that allows people to share scientific data using the principles that underlie hugely successful peer-to-peer systems has been unveiled by University of California, Davis scientists, who present the tool this week in the open access journal PLoS ONE.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, open content, openness, research
Milena Popova has a new post on why content is a public good. From the post:
There’s a theory in economics about things called “public goods”. To understand the distinction between private goods, public goods and the couple of shades of grey in between, you first need to get your head around two concepts: rival and excludable.
Dru Lavigne has tweeted about PloneEdu, a project for using the open source CMS Plone in education. From the “about” page:
Our community includes decision makers, developers and integrators, website administrators, and Web content owners interested in supporting the needs of education through the use of the Plone content management system.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, online learning, open source
Jeffrey T. Sultanik has a new post cautioning educators about questionable intellectual property in open textbooks. From the post:
At a minimum, the district should attempt to verify the open source nature of the materials or run the risk of a copyright violation action.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged oer, open content, Open Education, open textbook, open textbooks, policy
Miles Berry, a senior lecturer at Roehampton University has posted his thoughts on open education. From the post:
This equivalent of ‘access to the source code’ of education is pretty much necessary if teachers are to be empowered as professionally autonomous and accountable, and if pupils are to be empowered as independent learners, each taking their full share of the responsibility for the learning that takes place in their classes.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, ocw, oer, online learning, open content
Joseph Thibault has a new post on Moodle for mobile platforms. From the post:
The apps, at least in terms of rendering Moodle for a phone, both deliver. Public availability of the apps will truly mean that Moodle has gone mobile. It’s a huge step for Moodle in general, but it’s a giant leap for mobile education at large.
The E-Learning 24/7 Blog has a short post listing other open source LMS besides Moodle.
Barbara Fister has a new post discussing recent pricing and exclusivity arrangements made by the publisher EBSCO. From the post:
Farkas was provoked to criticize EBSCO because, after a series of unfortunate events, her Rubicon was crossed: a scholarly society that publishes a journal essential for her community of users signed an exclusive deal with EBSCO that pulls its content out of other databases, including any future contributions to JSTOR.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, journal, library, OATP, online learning, open content, openness
Judy Breck has a new post comparing the recent possibility of the US federal government creating open online courses to a “tar baby.” From the post:
OER needs to get itself tossed into the brier-patch where it can disentangle from creating courses under federal oversight.
Posted in Open Education
Tagged e-learning, higher education, ocw, oer, online learning, open content, Open Education, openness
David Wiley has a new post on the “Pay-Twice Paradox,” in which he compares paying for journal articles to paying twice for other consumer goods. From the post:
…from my perspective some of the most important forms of openness are simply about obeying one of the standard laws of capitalism: if I pay for a good or service, I am entitled to the good or service. Could the market (or society) survive if we didn’t obey this rule?
Posted in Open Education
Tagged higher education, journal, library, OATP.new, ocw, oer, open content, Open Education, openness
