Monthly Archives: July 2010

National Learning Registry

Education Week that U.S. Department of Education will be creating a National Learning Registry to index digital learning resources. Presumably OER will be included. From the post:

In a speech to the National Rural Education Technology Summit, Duncan gave the example of digital artifacts pertaining to the first moon landing in explaining the value of the planned registry. Currently, recordings of the conversations, digital exhibits about the rockets involved, and weather records from the mission are scattered across the websites of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Thanks to Timothy Vollmer for the link.

OER vs. Traditional Textbooks Study

David Wiley has a new post announcing that a study to compare students learning from traditional textbooks compared to open textbooks. From the post:

Because expensive, traditional textbooks have to be passed from student to student over 4-7 years, students are typically prohibited from marking in the books in any way. By contrast, because the open textbooks are so inexpensive as to be considered consumables (from a budget perspective), students will be able to engage these books through active study processes like highlighting and annotating.

ASCAP’s Response to Lessig

Last week OEN reported that Larry Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, wanted to challenge ASCAP to debate of negative comments regarding Creative Commons. An astute reader, “Sarah” as well as the blog Mind the Gap notes that ASCAP President Paul Williams has responded. From the response:

I am well aware of those “copyleft” mouthpieces who take a highly critical view of ASCAP’s efforts to protect our members’ rights. That will not change ASCAP’s commitment to doing so. ASCAP exists for one purpose — fair payment to music creators for the use of their music by businesses and others who seek to attract viewers and customers.

Journal Costs at Purdue

Zoe Hayes is reporting on the cost of journal subscriptions at Purdue. From the article:

James Mullins, dean of libraries, explained why publication costs – even with the shift to digital publication – have gone up, with digital publications taking up about $10 million of the Libraries’ $11 million budget.

U.S. House of Representative to Hold Open Access Hearing

Jennifer McLennan is announcing that a hearing will be held within a U.S. House of Representatives committee meeting regarding open access to federally funded research. From the announcement:

“The hearing will examine the state of public access to federally-funded research in science, technology, and medicine. The hearing will assess and delineate the complex issues surrounding public access policies. The hearing will afford an opportunity for representatives from the areas of publishing, science and research, education and patient care to provide perspective on challenges, potential impact and opportunities regarding increased access.”

Note: The security certificate for the SPARC mailing list posting appears to incorrect. Still.

More on MELIBEA

Last week OEN reported on MELIBEA, a directory of open access policies. Stevan Harnad has a new post responding to the project. From the post:

I can only agree with Steve Hitchcock’s points and conclude that consulting MELIBEA today would be likely to create and compound confusion rather than helping to bring the all-important focus and direction to OA policy-making that I am sure CSIC, too, seeks, and seeks to help realize.

Note: Many of the stories regarding open access that have been posted by OEN have been found through the OATP project on Connotea. We encourage readers to contribute open access links to their project.

Adopting the Open Knowledge Definition

Jonathan Gray has a new post following the debate whether the Open Source Initiative should adopt the Open Knowledge Definition. From the post:

We’re excited at the prospect that the OKD might get adopted as an official open data definition by OSI…

Opening Higher Ed. Infrastructure Data

Christopher Gutteridge has a new post on opening up data at the University of Southampton. From the post:

We have formally added a “CC0″ public domain license to all our infrastructure RDF data, such as staff contact details, research groups and publication lists. One reason few people took an interest in working with our data is that we didn’t explicitly say what was and wasn’t OK, and people are disinclined to build anything on top of data which they have no explicit permission to use.

Google to Acquire Freebase

Jack Menzel has a new post announcing that Google will purchase Metaweb, which owns Freebase. Freebase is an open database of content. From the post:

Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data.

BookLiberator, a Device for Creating e-Books

Andy Greenberg has a new post reviewing BookLiberator, a device for creating e-books. From the post:

All of which may send a small twinge up the spine of the publishing industry’s copyright lawyers. Why buy a book–or even an e-book from Amazon or Apple–if it can be copied from a friend, a college classmate, or your local library?