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"It is an irony of the digital age that at a time when we are used to having easy access to seemingly endless information and knowledge, so much of it is disappearing into a digital black hole. For 450 years the concept of legal deposit has helped to preserve the nation's intellectual record.| There is this aspect of disappearing data as well.

See my bookmark post 'Academic citation practices ...' for some geeky stuff on the reference / citation issues.

Jacynthe, you are welcome, and Phillip, many thanks!

"In a nutshell, Knowledge Unlatched would act as an intermediary between a global library consortium and individual academic publishers. The latter would approach Knowledge Unlatched with titles they would like to see published in Open Access. Knowledge Unlatched would then regularly send out a list of titles to libraries which would opt in to fund the unlatching, that is, the publication in Open Access, of certain titles. The titles so funded would be released with a Creative Commons licence by the publishers which retain the right to sell special editions and extra services around the titles. "

Christopher Kelty has written a book on the cultural importance of open source software and made it freely available under a CC license. It looks at free software from both a technical and social perspective, allowing for greater insights into its significance for today and for tomorrow.

This is a very interesting and thought provoking ebook. Not only does it provide a helpful historical view of how free software came to be, but it posits the impact of such a phenomenon on industry and culture. I particularity liked the view that the pervasiveness of free software - thanks to the Internet - is such that free software itself is instigating much change beyond its original perceived sphere of influence, being software applications. A good read if open source software, free software and impacts on culture interests you.

Breaking new ground for the open-access movement, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major funder of global health research, plans to require that the researchers it funds publish only in immediate open-access journals. The policy doesn't kick in until January 2017; until then, grantees can publish in subscription-based journals as long as their paper is freely available within 12 months.

This serves as a significant catalyst to change the mentality of both the researcher and the funder. The Gates Foundation is a leading organization in resolving world health issues. This action demonstrates their drive and desire toward their cause; and will hopefully it will start a trend amongst authors and other research funding NGOS.

As mentioned in class discussions, this is the only reasonable response. Bill and Melinda have put their time forth into creating charities, and attempting to control content which was given from charitable grants is lunacy. It is comforting to see the Gates foundation scrapping the 6-12 month window of restriction. WIth this said that said, this draws interesting parallels with journals that receive government grants due to the fact that the privately sold resource is already being funded by the tax payers.

YouTube, Full Sail University, Published on Mar 12, 2014 "Technology has made it easier than ever to publish your own work. This Full Sail University panel discusses how to successfully self-publish your own work, and how to do it without getting lost in the sea of all of the other content that's out there." A panel of successful self-published authors talk about the flexibility of new technology within the publishing realm to sell books/music: formatting your work, business models, copyright , print on demand options, music aggregators,, marketing, worldwide distribution, etc.

The video length of one+ hour might seem a bit daunting at first, but I ended up watching most of it in one go - this is really an excellent and easy-to-follow overview of all the important aspects of self-publishing. (I was especially pleased that this video listens to well in the background, as opposed to most other videos that I find require more "involvement" and that do not fit well with a busy day schedule.) What is best about this is that it is all based on actual people experiences - successful self-published authors participating in the panel, and sharing their knowledge & tips in real-time. I was especially curious to find out about the marketing side of of self-publishing a book, and was pleased to discover quite a few helpful ideas and tips. As someone who is thinking about self-publishing soon, this has answered a lot of questions and definitely sparked confidence in the process as a whole. Thank you very much for sharing! Hopefully, this will help and encourage many more self-publishers to be.

"Self-publishing is at a stage analogous to the early days of Wikipedia, when users were reluctant to trust information contained in a communally written encyclopedia. It turns out that online democracy performs quite an effective self-regulating function. "

Good points in the article: There are several good reasons a novelist chooses to self-publish: 1. Because of repeated rejection. 2. To get the book to market more quickly. 3. To have more control over the process. 4. To receive a larger share of the book's earnings. 5. To attract the attention of a major publisher.

With digitization of publishing its now an option to self publicize especially for new writers who thing their work will never be acknowledged. But musicians are also using the self publicizing/promotion and later one it does pays on. I heard of Justin Bieber story of when the mother was busy posting you-tube videos.So its possible to go a "freenuim" way and start with e.g blogging and eventually build a fan/interest base

The year I graduated high school, the media was overrun with speculation about a new technology set to shake the foundation of the world. What was it? We weren't told, exactly. All we knew was that code name "IT" was so revolutionary that we would have to rebuild our cities from scratch.

It is interesting that whenever a new innovation is introduced, the current one is declared dead before its final time arrives. Books in whatever format are appealing to different audiences for various reasons. To think that the introduction of e-books was going to lead to a declaration of war on printed books is laughable. Books will be with us for as long as we are still in this world. Does format matter? only time will tell.

Long back Lancaster wrote about paperless society but still we are heavily depending on paper only. Technology has fast evolved. First we talked about e-libraries then virtual libraries and now contemplating cloud based libraries. Many technologies have come and gone but paper is still ubiquitous.

Are you agree that social media profile becoming as important as your resume?

Actually I don't think so. Personally think Facebook is more about personal use and private, but resume is more professional. For example you wouldn't never put a photo that your friend and you was in a pub on your resume, but you may put this on Facebook. However, LinkedIn do better in professional online profile in terms of social media networking.

I would argue that LinkedIn and Twitter are better indicators of professional accomplishment. I would like to think that as of now Facebook is still relatively private considering its primary function is to serve as a social (more intimate/private) communication tool rather than a networking platform. I have heard employers openly admit to using LinkedIn as a preliminary screening tool. Regardless of the forum, social media will continue to play a significant role in reflecting our personal and professional identities.

A personal view of Open Access Science. It's part of a weekly series on Open Access from Open Access Button, so I will be posting them as they become available ... "We caught up with Graham Steel, a tireless advocate for Open Access who believes in sharing information as widely and as easily as possible. A native of Glasgow, Scotland, Graham works as a property claims adjuster/recovery specialist. After losing his sibling to a rare condition known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), Graham became involved in patient advocacy work, and more recently, in lobbying for open access to published scientific research. He acts in advisory capacities to the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Public Library of Science (PLOS) and Digital Science".

"CAN 3D printing be subversive?" asks a voice in the creepiest Internet video you'll be likely to watch this month. It's a trailer for Defcad.com, a search engine for 3D-printable designs for things "institutions and industries have an interest in keeping from us," including "medical devices, drugs, goods, guns."

I've read in Japanese paper that Ricoh and Canon started producing and announced 3D printers. The market has been expanding. It used such as a design of dental work etc. I don't think it's matter of that "open source" is winning or not. It's been and will continue to utilize, but how to use it could be changing. Maybe more creative way, people may need to be smarter about how to analyze to SELECT right source before analyze the source of data, etc..

Interesting article but he couldn't really develop a cogent argument in a op-ed. However, "open is the new green" could be true. That's why I want to learn about 'open' now so I can be ahead and stay ahead of what happens to 'open' when it gets reduced, like 'the environment' did to 'green'.

In thinking about the Wayback Machine and archiving webpages, this new tool brings to light archival possibilities for social media.

Wow, great article! This really complements the ideas we have been talking about this week regarding digital preservation. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of preserving and accessing closed social networks of the past this week, and didn't even think to make the connection to this weeks' readings until now. I actually introduced my roommate to the Wayback Machine this week and together we were able to find her tacky old Lord of the Rings themed archived geocities website (and it was even worse that I could have imagined! hilarity ensued.) Of course, we were able to access something like geocities because it's a website that's open and available to the public. But what about a social network that requires a username and password? I recently tried to see if I could access my old myspace profile, and was shocked to find that myspace has transformed itself into a music-sharing site with none of the old social networking features it used to have. The information that used to be contained -- and the interactivity that went along with it -- are gone! Not to mention that, if it were searchable via a tool like the Wayback Machine, one would need to remember the *exact* URL to find it (for this sad, sad, reason, I have not been able to find my tacky old geocities website from way back when). This is a great idea and I look forward to seeing how the project evolves. Thanks for sharing!

BC Open Textbooks is an initiative started by the province of British Columbia in Canada. It is open textbooks adapted and created by BC faculty. It's difficult to tell which texts are complete and ready for use as Tony Bates incomplete text that I created another post about appears on the same page with complete texts (eg Chemistry, Biology Geography.) All the texts can be modified through Creative Commons licensing. This project has been creating concern for publishers who stand to loose business in BC and other provinces if the texts get adopted outside of BC. Initially, the project was focused on creating "a collection of open textbooks aligned with the top 40 highest-enrolled subject areas in the province. A second phase was announced in the spring of 2014 to add 20 textbooks targeting trades and skills training." Initially they looked for existing Creative Commons books they could adapt and they adapted 8 textbooks. From inception to fall 2014, 2244 students have used their open texts for a savings of $353,000 or $157 per student. The aim is to reach 200,000 students annually so they are at .6% and save each $900-$1500/year, still quite a way to go. Wondering how much this project is costing taxpayers, I googled and found this article http://www.ousa.ca/2013/04/24/textbooks/ which claims $600k-$1m/year. So the government has spent $1.2 - $2 million to save students $350k over the past two years. Still a long way to go to break even. In summary, 65 texts published, 45 adoptions, 2244 student users, for a savings of $353k to date. If this was a traditional textbook publishing company, they'd soon be out of business if they weren't already.

Thank for sharing, I believe that the conclusions that this article leaves us are not surprising, although yes very interesting. "Recently, the Babson Survey Research Group and Pearson conducted a survey of nearly 8,000 faculty members in higher education to find out more about how faculty are using social media. While we often post infographics showing trends or results from specific studies here at Edudemic, I found the results of this survey particularly interesting - perhaps because they were so different from what I expected." Julia Echeverria

You are so, so lucky. Here in South Africa, we are regressing, not even looking at online textbooks, but trying to reduce textbooks to only one per subject. The textbook crisis: http://mg.co.za/article/2013-08-23-00-south-africas-hidden-textbook-crisis and the regressive "solution" http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-10-single-textbook-option-slammed. It is very frustrating for me, knowing all the possibilities, but not having any agency to get through to the authorities here.Llibraries are also failing horribly in advocating for the solutions that ARE available.

InTechOpen is a leading global publisher of Journals and Books within the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. We are the preferred choice of over 60,000 authors worldwide. Hello everybody, Editorial Intech is a good example of Creative Commons Publication Site: www.intechopen.com They are focused on the scientific world with a great variety of topics including engineering, mathematics, linguistics, software, radio mobile communications, etc. In this sense, let me one of my recent publications there: "A unifying statistical model for atmospheric optical communications", focused on the generation of a new statistical model that unifies in a single closed form expression many of other probability density functions employed in the literature to model the turbulent atmosphere as an optical channel of communications. http://cdn.intechweb.org/pdfs/20889.pdf Best regards, Dr. Antonio Jurado-Navas University of Málaga (Spain)

Thank you, Ibraghimova.

I have now only realized that this site is an Open Knowledge site, and I had used it over a year ago to cite some research for a paper on renewable energies. You might be interested in this site for sharing scientific data: http://www.researchgate.net/

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.

It is great that people are connecting with each other; however, we need to think about the influence of online social network on our Youth.

I think this is a valid concern, high schools around the country are permitting cell phone use in classrooms which is opening the doors to more group chat during and after class about everything but academics.

In a world dominated by technology there is no denying the significant influence of social media on our Youth. That being said, I think there is a critical demand for social media education in the classroom. I would love to see a stronger emphasis placed on employing technology as an instrument of education in the school system. Social media should be taught as a tool for research, collaboration and activism rather than a trivial pastime.

In everyday life we are learning continually from each other. Whatever the situation, most of us draw on the knowledge, skills and experience of our friends and colleagues. Within any educational setting learners naturally engage in informal peer learning to make sense of their course, test their ideas and share their concerns.

Peer learning is engaging, and researches say that people learns most effectively when they are interacting with each other. It creates this network of knowledge when you share and connect with people, it not only benefits the individual, but benefits everyone as a whole. It also relieves the pressure of University funding with teachers having to teach such a large class, which affects the quality of learning as well. With peer learning, students engage with one another, and will eventually find the correct answer. It is not independent learning, this is interdependent learning.

Thank you for your share. I think this is a great article that introduces the potential of peer learning in higher education from the teacher's perspective. I agree that connected learning does a great job in promoting student's interactivity, creativity, motivation and interest in learning a particular topic with peers. In addition, peer learning provides learners with opportunities to collaborate and learn a subject together, which might maximize the productivity if used in a correct way. Peers and collaborative learners can do their own research separately, and meet together to discuss and express different opinions on the issue, which can inspire student's deep thinking. However, peer learning and collaborative learning is not always superior to individual work, or contributing to the learning result of every individual. Sometimes it might decrease the learning productivity if the group members or peer partners over reply on others in the group without doing much themselves, or if they didn't communicate well. Thus it's important to practice students learning ability and teacher's facilitating ability in peer learning or collaborative learning.