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This is a great follow-up reading to the core reading for module5 from J. Willinksky (2006). I thought it was timely now though written 12 years ago, due to the surge in citizen video journalism and ease of access to government websites now for public policy information, voting and campaigning.

A humorous segment on the John Oliver show that critiques the NZ government's inability to adhere to copyright laws for their own campaign

Introducing R2K's 2014 Secret State of the Nation Report Today the Right2Know Campaign releases its 2014 'Secret State of the Nation' report, a snapshot study of trends, patterns and challenges with secrecy in South Africa. The report's key findings include signs of abuse of secrecy and continued securitisation of some parts of the state: Increasing [...]

Michael Eisen is a researcher at UC Berkley and a co-founder of Public Library of Science. He discusses the news that the American Association for the Advancement of Science named Kent Anderson as its new Publisher, who is a critic of the open access movement. The most interesting thing for me was the mention in his blog post as well as in the comments section by another, that it is perhaps a trend for scholarly publications to produce open access journals. A peculiar motive, to perhaps "own" the open movement? It would be interesting to learn more about this trend, motivations behind it, and the implications on how that affects the OA movement.

And then a quick Google search found an announcement that Nature will be fully open access as of 20 October 2014... but still costs $5,200 USD to cover the article processing charges - perhaps Universities should (will) start to pay these costs instead of the high costs of subscriptions to scholarly journals as they continue to open up their access. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/open_access/index.html

Wow--these article publishing charges are ridiculous. I don't know if the scholars whose work gets published in these esteemed journals have budgets that would allow them to cover such fees, but I am sure that I wouldn't be able to get multiple articles covered by grants for my own work in the social sciences. And I'm 99% sure that the public universities I've worked for would not be ponying up that kind of money to cover my publication fees. This seems like yet another way to penalize scholars working in fields that don't get big grants or living in countries that don't have this kind of money to throw around. I prefer the UK's policy of requiring all nationally funded research to be published open access without any publication fees. That's the only way to even the playing field.

Get involved: "Sign the petition to express your support for Open Access as the default for scientific and scholarly publishing, so researchers like Diego [Gomez] don't risk severe penalties for helping colleagues access the research they need. Sign-on statement: Scientific and scholarly progress relies upon the exchange of ideas and research. We all benefit when research is shared widely, freely, and openly. I support an Open Access system for academic publishing that makes research free for anyone to read and re-use; one that is inclusive of all and doesn't force researchers like Diego Gomez to risk severe penalties for helping colleagues access the research they need." (Creative Commons)

The first time I heard of Diego's case, I couldn't believe it and yet it was shared by the EFF, an authoritative source. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that someone would want to sue over the sharing of his thesis. I didn't even thought you could have copyright on a thesis and how do you even make money on a thesis? Especially when it is said that a large majority of all thesis are never looked up more than twice (by the author and the director). This person should be ashamed.

Since I'm in South Africa, ... --- "My campaign has been working on the National Key Points Act for over a year, and some of the people in my team have been working on it for more than a decade. In this session, people who'd never even heard of the National Key Points broke new ground within 20 minutes."

The digital project management process is usually a straight-forward step by step one and by that I mean for every website build, banner campaign, social media application, the key steps never change to successfully deliver a project on time and budget.

On Monday 8 September 2014, the Nal'ibali reading-for-enjoyment campaign, in partnership with Mxit Reach, will launch a literacy app. The Mxit social networking platform, which has five million monthly users, will allow anyone with a mobile handset to help put their children on the path to educational success with access to regular stories, literacy tips and support

Great idea. Part of a lots of creative digital projects taking advantage of the interest of child for mobile phones and permanent connection

San Francisco - Computer security firm Symantec on Monday said it uncovered stealthy software wielded as part of a years-long spying campaign, most likely by a nation state. The malicious software, dubbed Regin, has a rare level of sophistication and has been targeting government agencies, telecoms, utilities, airlines, research facilities, private individuals and others since at least 2008, according to Symantec Corporation.

Aaron Hillel Swartz (8 de noviembre de 1986, Chicago - 11 de enero de 2013, Nueva York)1 fue un programador, escritor y activista de Internet. Recibió atención de los medios después de la recolección de artículos de revistas académicas JSTOR. Fue cofundador de Reddit y Demand Progress, y previamente cofundó la Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Asimismo fue director técnico de Open Library.2 También se centró en la sociología, la conciencia cívica y el activismo. En 2010 fue miembro del Centro de Ética de la Universidad de Harvard. Cofundó el grupo Progreso demanda en línea (conocido por su campaña en contra de SOPA)3 y más tarde trabajó con Rootstrikers grupo activista internacional y de EE.UU. y Avaaz. En junio de 2013, Swartz fue incluido póstumamente en el Salón de la Fama de Internet.4 5

Canadian community activism organization that rallies for open internet, and launched the international organization openmedia.org "OpenMedia.ca works to engage, educate and empower citizens to defend and advance their communication interests, values and rights. Engage: Through online campaigns and participatory events that resonate with everyday people, and civic engagement around media and communications policy in Canada. Educate: Through educational events high school and university presentations and workshops, and online resources.

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