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Peter Downes wrote this blog criticizing the Cape Town Declaration. It was very interesting reading in terms of looking at the issues from different perspectives. I did not agree on everything he wrote, but the following paragraph was resonated in my mind as I read it. I DID , however add a word - in parenthesis. "If there is anything that could be thought of as a truism in contemporary education, it is the idea that we are all learners and that we are all teachers. The idea of lifelong learning makes explicit the former idea, and the principles of learner-centered, constructive and inquiry-based learning make explicit the latter. Knowledge - particularly social and public knowledge - is not something that is (only) produced by a hothouse meeting of experts, but rather, is produced through a process of dialogue and conversation".

The fact is someone had to initiate and ask for comments. The door might not have been widened enough as the author comments. It is perhaps time to understand that in as much as we would like to live in an open world, our views will always diverging to a number of directions.

This is an open education tutorial that is designed to help people find the courses that they want to take. Provide directions on how to define success when taking an open education course so that you have a plan that you can execute. Finally it gives ways to stay motivated when taking and open education course so that you can fulfill your goals. This was created by a student in the OKMOOC.

Thanks for linking to this tutorial. I think it touches on some great points of staying motivated while participating in courses that rely more on self directed initiatives (such as this mooc)!

Recently had to use YouTube to figure out how to make videos licensed under the creative commons!

Interesting how the article closed with this statement: "The rethink of Moocs has given rise to a new buzzword in the education industry: Spocs, which replace "massive" and "open" with "small" and "private". Should we change the "massive" and "open" words to ease fear of losing privacy, especially after viewing the video on online privacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCmKJyVx9AY Your thoughts?

The site won't allow me to read the article without a subscription. The heading of the article touched on my initial concerns for this course. In saying that, my experience at University showed that the student's who wanted to really get something out of their studies were the least reliant on the guidance of their lecturers and found their own ways to improve making it easier for the lecturer to guide. I read this https://landing.athabascau.ca/blog/view/617323/what-is-connectivism article on connectivism which https://twitter.com/@stranack posted earlier. It makes sense that personal success within this education format relies on the pro activity of the student to engage in the described culture of connecting, forming groups, targeting desired information, and making sure that when they share it the reason it is important to others is made obvious.

This is an interesting presentation given at 'EUNIS 2014 Conference: Higher Education in the Digital Era' by professors from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Although the presentation concentrates on UAB experience and the COURSERA platform, it gives also a European perspective on use of MOOCs. According to the presentation, there were 510 MOOCs in April 2014 in Europe. Some findings are especially thought provoking. The UAB course on Egyptology had 25350 initially enrolled students. Only 1/3 of them watched the first video, and a completion certificate was issued to only 2950 students (11.7%). Another course (Pre-Calculus) had only 0.01% completion ratio. Something to really think about!

Great article that talks about the very nature of openness! In this article the author argues that openness in education has been successful in establishing itself as an approach. However, this initial victory should be viewed as part of a larger battle around the nature of openness. Drawing lessons from history and the green movement, a number of challenges for the open education movement are identified as it enters this new stage. The value of openness to education is stressed in that it relates to opportunities for development and the role of the higher education in society.

Thanks for sharing this, Marieke. It provides a wonderful overview of the central issues of "openness". This is one that should definitely be bumped up into the course reading list.

Hola Marieke. Coincido con Kevin en que el artículo es muy ilustrativo, con datos y una interesante reflexión sobre el acceso abierto. Pero me parece que la comparación con el movimiento verde requiere matizarse, principalmente el de los verdes porque era un movimiento político de transformación civilisatoria (eso se proponía, al menos) y terminó bastante desinflado (http://newleftreview.org/II/81/joachim-jachnow-what-s-become-of-the-german-greens). Igual, el texto vale la pena. Danke

The massive expansion of higher education across all continents is one of the defining features of our century. This volume examines two dimensions of this: those of access and equity. Building on the country studies undertaken by this group of Fulbright New Century Scholars, the book offers a unique focus in its commitment to bring together an analysis of the theoretical literature on equity; a focus on the methodological problems of measuring access and equity from a comparative perspective; a comparative analysis of trends and policy developments set in a global framework; and a comparative analysis of targeted initiatives which are currently in place in different societies. The need to develop a comparative research programme addressing the question of measuring equity is noted

Founding editor and previous co-editor of the open access journal Feminist Media Studies provides an in-depth account into her experiences engaging with feminist, open access processes. Lisa McLuaghlin spends a great deal of time discussing the implications of hierarchies in (academic) publishing and the political implications of editorial boards. Also engaged throughout the article is a conversation about diversity within academic publishing. She emphasizes how Feminist Media Studies does not have a very diverse authorship despite the journal's intention and specific policies and editorial policies that are intended to encourage non-English speakers to publish in the English journal. This reflection on feminism and open access demonstrates what these fields have accomplished, while also indicating how far we still have to go. Overall, the article provided many insights from someone on-the-ground in regards to feminist, open access initiatives.

Open access publishing in Feminist/Gender studies should reflect objectivism and diversity; therefore a diverse editorial board should be elected to recruit and select journal content that suits the target profile. It seems as if the editorial management of this journal is run more along business ethics than the principles of the journal.

I would say that ethics should nearly always come ahead of journal principles.

The best free cultural and educational media on the web

erikitaymarijo, thank you for the attached list it is very helpful.

Some of us get our education at film school. More of us get it from The Criterion Collection, that formidably cinephilic restorer, curator, and packager of classic motion pictures from every era.

I presented this paper to a conference in South Africa in 2005, and it was described as "too radical" by the top leaders in libraries in South Africa who attended. :) So am rather happy that my vague perceptions and musings about the emerging trends have been vindicated today. "This paper will focus on another aspect that is integrally linked to the ability to access literature and information - that of cost and economics. Both the broader macroeconomic context and the more focused microeconomic (South African) environment will be referred to. We will examine the assumption that the economic development of a nation is linked to the ability to access information and test whether this is a valid assumption. From there, we will take a brief look at the issue of the cost of books, specifically in South Africa. The advent of the electronic revolution and the many paradigm shifts that the Internet and electronic media have initiated and the effects on the publishing industry, will be outlined. We will explore the "information as commodity" paradigm and briefly look at the related Copyright and Intellectual Property developments before weaving these seemingly disparate threads together to form a picture of innovative solutions that have arisen in response to the information access crisis in South Africa. These solutions have arisen from the popular notion that information should be freely available for societal good, rather than commodified. Finally, we will ponder the effect that these solutions may have on the traditional book publishing industry in South Africa."

Thank you all, very much, it is quite a new experience for me to have the paper well received. :)

Thank you for sharing this. I really appreciated the non-North American context. I grew up in the States, and am working on my Master's degree in Canada, so it's really easy to get caught up in always looking at these issues from the North American point of view. Seeing papers like this really help to confirm how global these issues are, and cement their importance in my mind.

GAPMIL is an international cooperation to ensure that all citizens have access to media and information competencies. This pioneering initiative was launched during the Global Forum for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (MIL) which took place from 26 to 28 June 2013.The forum was held under the theme "Promoting Media and Information Literacy as a Means to Cultural Diversity".

OASIS aims to provide an authoritative 'sourcebook' on Open Access, covering the concept, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving it. The site highlights developments and initiatives from around the world, with links to diverse additional resources and case studies. As such, it is a community-building as much as a resource-building exercise. Users are encouraged to share and download the resources provided, and to modify and customize them for local use. Open Access is evolving, and OASIS invites the growing world-wide community to take part in this exciting global movement.

Millions of digital resources from thousands of contributors

OAIster is a union catalog of digital resources. Access to these digital resources is provided by "harvesting" their descriptive metadata (records) using OAI-PMH (the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting). It includes the Institutional Repositories of many universities.

Alison Hicks uses the example of foreign languages to explore the integration of critical information literacy into the curriculum of various disciplines. The paper provides an example of a librarian who integrated critical information literacy into curriculum and proposes that this approach could be effective in global learning initiatives.

ISKME is non-profit organization pioneering open education initiatives!

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has worked with the National Security Agency (NSA) on the release of Niagarafiles (or Nifi, to the initiated) technology designed to "automate data flows" among multiple computer networks. The software is free and open source (so is available to the public) through the Apache Software Foundation.

The Canadian Government promoting how sharing private content of someone is illegal. Having the internet and our social media tools, it is so easy to share and connect with people. It is great in many ways, like education, social life, work etc. but when it comes to personal life, maybe it is not as great. People like to share because it is easy and fast, there are no physical restrictions. There are consequences but because there are too many people doing it, it is hard to target everyone. With this digital age coming so quickly, maybe rules, regulations, and education are still trying to catch up. If I have not taken this course, I would not have known that sharing a screenshot on Whatsapp with friends is actually illegal. The point is when everyone is doing it now, and we were not deeply educated on this topic beforehand, how is this going to stop? When sharing screenshots has became a trend, how is it possible to stop?

I think this video does an excellent job of not victim-blaming, or casting any moral judgement. I think it's easy to say "don't take pictures", etc., but approaching it as a strictly legal matter may be a better route to take. Speaking of the general open access movement, I think some valuable lessons could be taken from this for raising awareness about appropriate uses of open access information. It reminds me of the Disney compilation copyright video we watched at the beginning of the course - using some very literal imagery to get a point across, and explaining what the law is, not what people are doing with it.

I think this PSA does a really good job of communicating a 'touchy' subject in a tasteful manner. The message is simple and very relatable for adolescents. Cyberbullying is a tremendous issue among youth in Canada and I am really glad to see the government taking preventative initiatives.

In a region where transparency is often scarce, a new initiative is working to foster an open and more collaborative society in the Middle East. OpenMENA is a project that aims at opening access to information, knowledge and data and creating an atmosphere of openness and transparency in the Arab World.