The 2010 Horizon Report makes some very interesting points about where educators are taking the concepts of open content and what the benefits will be for the world. How Flat World Knowledge operates as a publisher and their compensation for authors was interesting. The idea of giving electronic versions of their publications for free struck me a little odd, since they charge for the print version and compensate the author for the sale. This idea reminded me very much of Napster, I'll charge for the CD, but the download is free and we won't compensate the musician.
While I realize that open content delivers on the promise of the World Wide Web which is non-brick and mortar access to "everything", music, libraries, museum and in this case educational material I wonder what the implications of that access are.
I would think that having books for free would have a negative impact on books for sale, so I went looking. I followed the Delicious link provided in the materials and used some of my new tagging skills to find Bloggasm.com and a posting discussing an article from The Journal of Electronic Publishing titled "The Short-Term Influence of Digital Versions of Books for Sale", where in the author John Hilton discusses his research. Seemingly from Hilton's perspective books for free actually boost the sales of print version, so in this scenario it would be a great idea to give away the electronic version. The study only covered 41 books and to the researchers point it is very hard to do a blind study, i.e. how does a book do if launched on hard copy only verse launching the same book both ways simulataneously...its impossible to do therefore impossible to quantify.
Two other concerns I have are licensing or copy right concerns and the second is the idea of open access. Am I naive, does open access really mean anyone can offer or place content into the arena of open content for educators with out review for bias, mistruths etc.?
While I realize that open content delivers on the promise of the World Wide Web which is non-brick and mortar access to "everything", music, libraries, museum and in this case educational material I wonder what the implications of that access are.
I would think that having books for free would have a negative impact on books for sale, so I went looking. I followed the Delicious link provided in the materials and used some of my new tagging skills to find Bloggasm.com and a posting discussing an article from The Journal of Electronic Publishing titled "The Short-Term Influence of Digital Versions of Books for Sale", where in the author John Hilton discusses his research. Seemingly from Hilton's perspective books for free actually boost the sales of print version, so in this scenario it would be a great idea to give away the electronic version. The study only covered 41 books and to the researchers point it is very hard to do a blind study, i.e. how does a book do if launched on hard copy only verse launching the same book both ways simulataneously...its impossible to do therefore impossible to quantify.
Two other concerns I have are licensing or copy right concerns and the second is the idea of open access. Am I naive, does open access really mean anyone can offer or place content into the arena of open content for educators with out review for bias, mistruths etc.?