Monthly Archives: August 2010

Creative Commons Australia “Roadshow”

Michelle Thorne has a new post announcing a Creative Commons “roadshow.” From the post:

Each CC Roadshow is designed for those interested in finding out about CC for the first time, looking for an update on recent developments, the Australian Version 3.0 licenses, or just wanting to know how CC is being used by people in their local area.

Are We Winning Yet?

Dorothea Salo has posted slides addressing the state of open access in higher education. Readers will need to zoom in on the slides to reader her notes.

OpenSolaris to Shut Down

Stephen Shankland is reporting that the OpenSolaris operating system project will phase out development and support for OpenSolaris. While many open source advocates in education use Linux, the shutting down of OpenSolaris represents one less choice for educators.

Why Do Open Courses?

Dave Cormier has a new post on why he wants to help with an upcoming open course. From the post:

Too often, I think, we feel the need to agree with the concepts that we are in the process of covering in a course. In a transmission model of learning, things tend to get parcelled out into positions that must be categorized before they can be learned.

Project Gutenberg’s Goal to Digitize 1 Billion Books

Mark Milian is reporting on Project Gutenberg’s goal to digitize 1 billion books. From the post:

Project Gutenberg persists as a leader in the field, offering more than 33,000 out-of-copyright books as free downloads.

Reforming Government Through Openness

Reuven Carlyle has a new post suggesting that the best way to reform government is to increase access to high education, including through open education initiatives. From the post:

We need to educate more people to higher levels not only through traditionally more, extremely expensive “high demand” static slots paid by taxpayers but through radical approaches to access to information.

Thanks to Education_Ind for the link.

Openness Works Both Ways

Alan Levine has a new post addressing the issue of “drop outs” in open courses. From the post:

The notion of “drop out” seems to assume that the measure of success is people doing all the assignments/activities from start to finish, filling the forums and blog space with their activity.

Viplav Baxi also has a post on why there’s more to an open course than the network.

Open Education Conference 2010 Program Announced

David Wiley is announcing a draft version of the Open Education Conference 2010 program.

Two Reasons for Not Producing OCW

Peter Sefton has a new post addressing two of the most common reasons faculty give him not to produce OCW. From the post:

In this post I want to mention my two favourite objections to going open, which come up every time I start talking (ranting?) about OCW and OERs at USQ [University of Southern Queensland].

OCW at Elite Institutions

Taylor Walsh has written an article on OCW at elite institutions. From the post:

There are, indeed, signs of change afoot in the elite tier, with first movers coming from the cash-strapped public university sector.