Monthly Archives: June 2010

Reaction to DIY U

Scott Leslie has a new post reacting to the book DIY U. From the post:

mean, how do you implement a plan of national reform on the back of this? Well, you don’t. Not that it’s not needed, but if you take seriously the ideas of autonomy, of nodes, of emergence, then at best you figure out how to un-bundle while not falling prey to the conservative lie, the myth of the individual.

Leslie’s post represents only one of many who have weighed in on the book. More from D’Arcy Norman, Jim Groom, Marc Bousquet.

Khan Academy Source Code Available

The source code for the Khan Academy is now available and uses the BSD license. The Khan Academy is a website that offers open videos for free.

Share-Alike Open, But Not Non-Commercial

Rufus Pollock has a new post arguing that the Share-Alike clause of the Creative Commons license is open, but the non-commercial clause is not. From the post:

To reiterate: it is a mistake to view the set of licenses as some continuous spectrum of ‘openness’ with PD at one end and full rights reserved at the other — with the implication that all licenses in between are more or less open.

David Wiley responds. Steve O’Connor on why he choses CC BY.

Open English Textbook

Charlie Lowe is a announcing Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, which is an open textbook for college English. From the home page:

Topics in Volume 1 of the series include academic writing, how to interpret writing assignments, motives for writing, rhetorical analysis, revision, invention, writing centers, argumentation, narrative, reflective writing, Wikipedia, patchwriting, collaboration, and genres.

Response on PLoS Impact Factor Concerns

A few days ago OEN reported on a recent post with concerns about PLoS and its impact factor. Bjorn Brembs responds. From the post:

Given the skewedness of citation data, citations (the numerator) accumulate faster than the number of papers in a single journal (the denominator) and hence the correlation. PLoS One is on its way to become the largest journal of the world and hence, over the long run, it’s IF would increase, if the IFs weren’t deprecated before then.

Opensim Better Than Second Life?

Zonja Capalini has a new post arguing that Opensim is a better platform for education in comparison to Second Life. From the post:

To do so, I will use two strategies: on the one hand, I will make a product comparison between SL, Opensim and Webex, comparing features, price, quality of technical support, etc: on the other hand, I will resort to my own experience: I have been working for companies that have used Second Life and Opensim for education and meetings for more than two years, and I’ll share some of the things I have observed.

Note: The link to this article has changed based on information left in a comment below.

Interview with Wayne Mackintosh

Timothy Vollmer has posted an interview with Wayne Mackintosh, Director of the International Centre for Open Education based at Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand. From the post:

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 76% of the children of the school-going age for the last 3-years of the K-12 system will NOT have the privilege of attending school. The conventional education system that has evolved in the industrial world is unaffordable to the majority of our planet. Consider for example, that in many African countries, the cost of sending a child to secondary school is typically more than 20% of the per capita income. I live in a developed nation and have three children. I would not be able to afford to send my three children to school assuming that 60% of my income were required for school fees.

OU Conference Roundup

A series of posts from the Open University Conference 2010:

Does Creative Commons Hold Up?

Scott Bourne has a new post asserting that Creative Commons has a “very little track record.” From the post:

In my own personal tests with CC, I can’t see any appreciable difference in results versus posting my images as Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved.

Next Gen Learning Challenges

David Wiley has a new post discussing EDUCAUSE’s “Next Gen Learning Challenges,” one of which includes OpenCourseWare. From the post:

’m humbled to serve on the Advisory Panel for the program, and am deeply interested in the topics of the first set of challenges identified for grant-making…