Gina, I love this phrase "cut off from the flow of information." That's exactly what it feels like, and yet the irony is that we bloggers, who publish everything out in the open, are made to feel like the marginal ones even though often the stuff we write is critiqued, examined and improved upon 100 times more than some of the academic 'peer reviewed' materials.
And while I'm not one to promote silos, even when they are open, imagine what it would look like if instead of explaining how to use the complicated proprietary databases, the librarian had showed them http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx?c=oaister;page=simple
I really thank you for this comment - one level I knew this argument, but I don't think it's ever been so crystal clear for me as another case for openness.
Scott Leslie
Posts made by Scott Leslie
The standard line on this, from for instance Wiley's work (cf. http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/viewArticle/797/768), is that open content should enable the 4Rs, the rights to "Reuse, Redistribute, Revise, Remix."
Another way this often gets framed is around the three 'ways' in which something can be open, "legally, socially and technologically" (cf. http://www.openknowledgefoundation.org/three_meanings_of_open/).
I find both of these helpful ways to think about specific situations. So, for instance, the 'Open Access' journals I mention above typically ensure your right to redistribute and reuse (though still with some caveats), but definitely not your right to Revise and Remix. They would be, I think, socially open, in that people are not trying to hide them away, but to a lesser extent legally and technologically open.
So, if you buy into this general notion of openness, which of the 4Rs is most important to you? All of them? Some of them? Why? And why, if you want yourself in an open way, is it important to use resources that guarantee ALL of these rights (or to share yourself in a way that does)?
Another way this often gets framed is around the three 'ways' in which something can be open, "legally, socially and technologically" (cf. http://www.openknowledgefoundation.org/three_meanings_of_open/).
I find both of these helpful ways to think about specific situations. So, for instance, the 'Open Access' journals I mention above typically ensure your right to redistribute and reuse (though still with some caveats), but definitely not your right to Revise and Remix. They would be, I think, socially open, in that people are not trying to hide them away, but to a lesser extent legally and technologically open.
So, if you buy into this general notion of openness, which of the 4Rs is most important to you? All of them? Some of them? Why? And why, if you want yourself in an open way, is it important to use resources that guarantee ALL of these rights (or to share yourself in a way that does)?
Clearly, "freedoms" are core to the idea of "openness" - but which one? Is it important to you that you be able to re-sell a derivative work that may have included someone else's seed content? How about not having to share your derived work with others? Is that important?
I think I understood what the person in the chat room was saying about even requiring attribution to be an impediment to reuse (and frredom), but it does seem a bit extreme, and certainly not what I'd see as a mainstream position within either the open content, or open education, or even open source community, from which many of the ideas and practices first came.
I hear what you are saying about continuity in attribution, though my take is typically that people need to make a "reasonable" effort. But it does get tricky - we get this at times with people submitting a course to the SOL*R service I run under a Creative Commons license but either not citing a source properly or indeed occassionally including 3rd party copyrighted materials, which one can't simply 'liberate' under a CC license (much as I'd often like to.)
Here's some other ways to frame this - is http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=22 "open" in the sense of OER? It bills itself as a "Directory of Open Access Journals," but do you think you could reuse content from any of the journals listed in here in ways the same way as say content from a course in the Connexions repository (cf. http://cnx.org/)?
Or, how about the education you'd get at one of the "open learning" agencies, say BC's own TRU Open Learning (cf. http://www.tru.ca/distance/about.html)? To what extent is this the sense of 'open' that you understand it in "open educational resources" versus some other sense of "open."
I think I understood what the person in the chat room was saying about even requiring attribution to be an impediment to reuse (and frredom), but it does seem a bit extreme, and certainly not what I'd see as a mainstream position within either the open content, or open education, or even open source community, from which many of the ideas and practices first came.
I hear what you are saying about continuity in attribution, though my take is typically that people need to make a "reasonable" effort. But it does get tricky - we get this at times with people submitting a course to the SOL*R service I run under a Creative Commons license but either not citing a source properly or indeed occassionally including 3rd party copyrighted materials, which one can't simply 'liberate' under a CC license (much as I'd often like to.)
Here's some other ways to frame this - is http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=22 "open" in the sense of OER? It bills itself as a "Directory of Open Access Journals," but do you think you could reuse content from any of the journals listed in here in ways the same way as say content from a course in the Connexions repository (cf. http://cnx.org/)?
Or, how about the education you'd get at one of the "open learning" agencies, say BC's own TRU Open Learning (cf. http://www.tru.ca/distance/about.html)? To what extent is this the sense of 'open' that you understand it in "open educational resources" versus some other sense of "open."
Rather than descend into what I fear might be an interminable discussion into what, exactly, is an 'Open Educational Resource' how about we start off on a slightly different angle; as an educator seeking digital content online, what does 'open' mean to you? What rights are important to you as a content re-user to have?
Picking up on a strand in the chat room in the kick-off session today, is something 'open' only if it *doesn't* require attribution? i.e. if it is truly out in the Public Domain? Or is requiring attribution ok (even important)?
Is it ok if a work does not allow you to create derivatives? Even if you don't want to change the work, what might some of the issues be with using a work that doesn't allow derivatives?
Let's try that for a start, but as Sylvia remarked in today's opening session, please don't hesitate to start your own thread. I'm hear to spark some discussion when needed, and I will try to share what expertise I have, but this seminar will ultimately be what you make out of it, so please, join in!
Picking up on a strand in the chat room in the kick-off session today, is something 'open' only if it *doesn't* require attribution? i.e. if it is truly out in the Public Domain? Or is requiring attribution ok (even important)?
Is it ok if a work does not allow you to create derivatives? Even if you don't want to change the work, what might some of the issues be with using a work that doesn't allow derivatives?
Let's try that for a start, but as Sylvia remarked in today's opening session, please don't hesitate to start your own thread. I'm hear to spark some discussion when needed, and I will try to share what expertise I have, but this seminar will ultimately be what you make out of it, so please, join in!
Therese, it's awesome to have someone chime in here and take the perspective of a learner! Indeed, I think many of us who are passionate about trying to provide free and open educational resources are so in part because we often have benefitted so much ourselves from what others have shared openly. But it's easy, especially for those of us 'inside' educational institutions or structures, to come at the problem solely from that angle, knowing all of the reasons why it will never work, instead of remembering who it can benefit and why its important, so thanks!
If you are interested in science videos, in addition to all the great stuff you can find in Youtube itself you may be interested in other sites like http://sciencetube.magnify.net/, http://www.science-tube.com/, http://www.teachers.tv/series/20792, and http://sciencehack.com/ that aggregate a lot of the good science content or provide an even better way to search for it.
If you are interested in science videos, in addition to all the great stuff you can find in Youtube itself you may be interested in other sites like http://sciencetube.magnify.net/, http://www.science-tube.com/, http://www.teachers.tv/series/20792, and http://sciencehack.com/ that aggregate a lot of the good science content or provide an even better way to search for it.
(Edited by Sylvia Currie - original submission Monday, 19 January 2009, 02:28 PM Created hyperlinks for the URLs Scott provided)