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This blog is especially great because it talks about the motivation and mindset behind adopting an ope approach. Open is not simply about making or using open resources but open as a 'way of being'

"By leveraging technology, we can open new doors to scholarly inquiry for ourselves and our students. Through new collaborations, we can create exciting shared spaces, both virtual and physical, where that inquiry can take place. The library is a natural home for these technology-rich spaces.

This article is fantastic, and speaks to just about everything I'm passionate about as an aspiring academic librarian. I'm somewhat worried about how smaller universities-my chosen workplace-will adapt to these newer models of scholarly communication and publication, and generally with how the academic conversation is changing. These exciting developments in what the university means have the potential to widen the already extensive divide between smaller and larger schools. I know the challenges section at the end talks a little bit about convincing decision makers to fund these projects, but has anyone read anything about how these changes can be made specifically by smaller or poorly funded universities?

"...we need to recognize you can't kill the instinct the technology produces. We can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using it. We can only drive it underground. We can't make our kids passive again. We can only make them, quote, "pirates." And is that good?" - Larry Lessig This is a great talk about the free use of materials to make something new. The crux of Mr Lessig's argument is that every time a "kid" remixes a song with a video they are committing a criminal act. By doing this the law is making their free expression criminal. He shows three great examples of this starting at 8:29 in the video. He suggests that by using Creative Commons materials, we can avoid being criminals, and by doing this we can break the cartel of the RIAA and others. He uses the example of BMI causing the downfall of ASCAP. You can see this at 4:55 in the video. Here is the quote: "Finally. Before the Internet, the last great terror to rain down on the content industry was a terror created by this technology [Shows a picture of a broadcast radio antenna]. Broadcasting: a new way to spread content, and therefore a new battle over the control of the businesses that would spread content. Now, at that time, the entity, the legal cartel, that controlled the performance rights for most of the music that would be broadcast using these technologies was ASCAP. They had an exclusive license on the most popular content, and they exercised it in a way that tried to demonstrate to the broadcasters who really was in charge. So, between 1931 and 1939, they raised rates by some 448 percent, until the broadcasters finally got together and said, okay, enough of this. And in 1939, a lawyer, Sydney Kaye, started something called Broadcast Music Inc. We know it as BMI. And BMI was much more democratic in the art that it would include within its repertoire, including African American music for the first time in the repertoire. But most important was that BMI took public domain works a

Dr Jane McGonigal (a professional game developer) talks about the time spent playing video games (which approximates to the span of human evolution), and that this time has to increase to make any major changes to the world. I have selected this resource partially in relation to week 3's Clarke's lecture (and others), which talks about using our idle time to do something meaningful - participate in citizen science games, for example. Dr McGonigal's talk very much illustrates this point - except that it talks about solving global issues through indirect games, e.g. a World Without Oil online game simulates a world in which you have to survive oil shortage. Creator's research shows, that people maintain the skills and habits they have taken up after playing this intense game, which include making better choices for our changing environment. The only difference here from actual citizen science games is that Dr McGonigal's games are fictional (rather than providing direct data / input for actual scientific research), however, they empower people to influence global change, which is the topic of the other lectures this week, especially Morozov's thoughts about the power of internet and connectiveness to create "revolutions". Although Morozov has taken up a rather critical view, suggesting only those who want it, take the best from the Internet, Dr McGonigal's ideas might be what bridges the two - taking games, which are integral part of many people's lives, especially in the younger generation, and turning them into real "life schools" may help more people get the idea and the essential skills to "fix" their environments. In all honesty, this is a video I would watch again and again, and recommend it to anyone who would listen (and that doesn't happen often for me).

Gamification for learning - using game elements - sounds very promising. Prior to the internet, technology, there were board games or hands on projects - all with the intent to engage and interact with each other. So it is no surprise to me given the appropriate design/project that students can learn and solve real world problems. Letting students choose their persona and role also allows them to make their own future and take ownership for how they want to participate. Just like the original promise of multimedia training that was purported to replace the traditional classroom events and enable getting the "best" teacher recorded for all to have the same experience...I believe it was then thought that the learning experience needs o be "blended". Different techniques - online, face to face, etc.. This is not my field of expertise so these are just personal opinions. If the online game approach can be combined with face to face and tactile/outdoor activities, aka a blended approach - I think that might be very useful. I do also believe that design solutions should be encouraging win win situations to reinforce collaboration and the feeling that all can succeed. One question I might have is how do you measure success in learning?

Gaming promoters unfortunately for me have a commercial agenda and its always difficult to make that balance of pure learning and commercialization aspect

I was lucky to be in Berlin with some colleagues earlier this month for the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival and associated fringe events. There's really too much to distill into a short post-from Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, making the case for " Embracing the open opportunity," to Patrick Alley's breathtaking accounts of how Global Witness uses information, to expose crime and corruption in countries around the world.

A useful summary of some of the key take-aways from the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival, courtesy of Tariq Khokhar From the article: 1. There are some great open data initiatives around the world and two common themes are the need for a strong community of technologically literate data re-users, and the sustained effort needed within governments to change how they create, manage and publish data in the long term. 2. Spreadsheets are code and we can adopt some software engineering practices to make much better use of them. There are a number of powerful tools and approaches to data handing being pioneered by the scientific community and those working in other fields can adopt and emulate many of them. 3. Open data fundamentally needs open source software. App reuse often doesn't happen because contexts are too different. Reusable software components can reduce the development overhead for creating locally customized civic software applications and a pool of high quality civic software components is a valuable public good worth contributing to. Reading time: 15mins

I see that Google are the sponsors of the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival but despite having little knowledge about Google's role and interest in the Open Knowledge , I also feel they are the culprit when it comes to data manipulative for their own profit motives.

"Logan Laplante is a 13 year-old boy who was taken out of the education system to be home schooled instead. Not only was he home schooled, but Logan had the ability to tailor his education to his interests and also his style of learning, something traditional education does not offer." I realise this article (and the video on which the article is based) does not fall neatly into any category we've studied yet, though I hope many of you may find it as interesting and inspiring as I have. At core, this is about "hacking" the educational system. As Logan explains, his methods can be applied in mainstream schooling (or indeed for anyone interested in lifelong/lifewide education). There's also the element of "participatory culture" embedded in the production of this video: Logan is sharing his experiences, allowing others to comment and contribute so that he might learn as others are learning from him.

This is a truly amazing talk, I was especially pleased to discover your post since I was just about to share a talk that speaks to many of the same issues! My shared video talks about how schools simply aren't made for boys - for many reasons - and what should be done to reengage them in education. (You can check it out here, if you're interested - https://groups.diigo.com/group/okmooc/content/gaming-could-the-ultimate-tools-to-re-engage-boys-in-education-12782090) The part about "writing about butterflies and rainbows" quite literally made me chuckle, here's why: (from my video) "Boy comes home from school, and he says, "I hate writing." "Why do you hate writing, son? What's wrong with writing?" "Now I have to write what she tells me to write." "Okay, what is she telling you to write?" "Poems. I have to write poems. And little moments in my life. I don't want to write that stuff." :) The boy then goes on to saying "I want to write about video games. I want to write about leveling-up. I want to write about this really interesting world. I want to write about a tornado that comes into our house and blows all the windows out and ruins all the furniture and kills everybody." ...which is one of the main points of "hackschooling" -writing through experiences & interests. Also, speaking from personal experience as someone who also left a diploma behind, I can confirm that leaving a rigid non-functional study environment for an open world of possibility can be the best thing you can ever do. All in all - thumbs up for sharing the talk!

Thanks for sharing - what an inspiring talk. Many of his lessons are just as valuable for adults, who often seem to lose any sense of creativity after settling in to their lives, careers, and relationships. FYI - my wife and I have done some limited homeschooling with one of our kids who really doesn't thrive in traditional school settings. I wish we could have done more, but at the very least I encourage each of our kids to explore other ways to learn to either supplement (or question) what they are learning in school. Traditional education just isn't supportive of creative thinking and creative thinkers.

"Just as important as learning these helpful tools, however, is unlearning and avoiding the most common pitfalls of common sense. Reminding us of where society is most vulnerable to those, Sagan writes: In addition to teaching us what to do when evaluating a claim to knowledge, any good baloney detection kit must also teach us what not to do. It helps us recognize the most common and perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric. Many good examples can be found in religion and politics, because their practitioners are so often obliged to justify two contradictory propositions.He admonishes against the twenty most common and perilous ones - many rooted in our chronic discomfort with ambiguity - with examples of each in action"

The 20 fallacies: "ad hominem - Latin for "to the man," attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously) argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia - but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out) argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous - perhaps even ungovernable. Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives) appeal to ignorance - the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist - and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don't understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - each in their own way enjoined to

Wonderful post, Kim! These are great guidelines alongside which to test ideas.

I have gathered a large list of on-going citizen science projects and related tools which, I am sure, will benefit everybody interested in getting involved with hands-on science. Some of the projects in my list were mentioned in Clarkes' video lecture - I realize that some people were looking for references to those.

The list is now here as well: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3os4Z9kDO9UeFBMYTBPR0tqMW8/edit

Gracias por tu contribución. I liked it so much because of "Marine LitterWatch" because it is a really big problem in Mexico, it can be applied by government to clean the populated beaches, el Cañón del Sumidero or Sumidero Canyon, and to sensibilize people. Additional to that, the app can be used in big cities to decide where to colocate new tanks of rubbish.

Are you a new linux user? (and why not give a linux a try! There are many great, stable, simple to use distributions out there now! And you can try many of them out with out even installing via live cd) The GUI is great, but to "unlock the POWER" it is great to learn about a few more advanced commands. I don't bother memorizing the command, but you will be amazed at the things you can easily figure out how to do with Linux, making your computing life easier and more powerful... The website is very helpful, and the book version is free and CC.

I LOVE linux. I have let my brain turn to iOS mush in recent years, but since it's open source, I was able to google --er search via duck duck go-- fixes for a wifi connection issue and that shellshock thingie. And in far less time than it ever took to fix a Microsoft or WIndows issue. There are guys you can find online who will ship you a machine pre-loaded with Linux or Ubuntu or Debian, if you can't or don't want to bother with wiping and doing it yourself. If an easily distracted and slightly airheaded person like me can handle it, imagine how a more 'normal' person can do! Great post. Thanks for sharing. In fact, all your shares are interesting.

Perhaps a bit narrow, but relevant to me. The article touches upon some aspects of privacy and openness bothering librarians. On the one hand people themselves are sharing lots of information about their reading lists, reading habits and favorites. On the other hand, libraries are trying to preserve patrons' privacy and protect their privacy from unwanted eyes.

I enjoyed this reading very much, thanks! Not to spoil the end, but it is a good comment that in order to protect the patrons' privacy, they must do their part too. If they use machines that requires to log in to Amazon, for example (I don't own a Kindle so I don't know it that is true), well, libraries cannot protect their privacy on what they are reading. Which reinforce the idea of the role that libraries should play in educating people about online privacy. the example of combining books that were borrowed by the same person that allows to identify the patron is very powerful and shows how something that looks innocent like a list of borrowed books can be harmful.

I think this article really demonstrates how the meaning of libraries is constantly in flux, and in recent decades has been evolving quicker than it has in perhaps the past couple of centuries. But the library has always been evolving, first mostly accessible to academics and eventually democratizing its mission by bringing literacy to the masses with public libraries. Now we are evolving to decide how open and social the patron habits should be. I think there is a way that libraries can adapt to this change and incorporate ways for patron data to inform the collection and recommendations, but also give patrons the option of being completely private, perhaps similar to an "incognito" browser window. Ultimately, the library should take privacy seriously and give patrons options that do not deceive. Thanks for sharing!

It´s been great fun recieving so many comments and I do feel that I am lerning new tools as you come with your recommendations for creating a Course Resource Library - a place where we can make a list of useful links, which should be categorised so that all of us can find the resources we need when we need them. I have created a Google Drive Spreadsheet to which everyone can contribute and use. Everyone with the link can view and edit. Lets make this library now and keep looking for more attractive ways to present it. Here it goes:

Text from 2011, still extremely timely, about privacy. The author, professor of Law, deconstructs the "nothing to hide" argument that says that we should not be scared to disclose private activities or information when we do nothing wrong.

"With regard to individual rights,.... there exists a private domain in man which should not be regulated or violated. This realm constitutes what is deepest, highest, and most valuable in the individual human being." http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Younkins/Social_Cooperation,_Flourishing,_and_Happiness.shtml

Privacy off course matters.It is right that if I have not done anything wrong then why should I hide it. On other hand we can not share our family relationship information with anyone.

Interesting reading in this Module, esp the article about having an additional anonymous online persona. It's interesting in that reddit not only allows users to register using obviously fake names, but also declines to require any authentication, but still offers it as an option. I participated in the reddit community for about a year, and in that time connected with numerous individuals, most of which I never learned 'who' they were. Personally, I was never harassed, bullied or otherwise hassled, save for one or two PMs from various mods when I had run afoul of their guidelines.

You beat me to it, i was planning on posting about reddit! Yeah, it's anonymous, and it's against its rules to post personal information, but it gets leaked and some people managed to get someone's information by reading old posts and connecting dots. The information you post, as a whole, its your footprint and can be tracked.

You beat me to it too! Reddit is a fascinating experiment. I actually mod a couple subreddits over there, and it's always interesting to read articles about it. In my two or so years on Reddit, I have: --Made friends (and lost touch with) with people from all over the world. --Been cyber-bullied and therefore witnessed exactly how good the moderators of certain subreddits can be. It was taken care of quickly and cleanly. I still love the community. --Seen people get "doxxed" (where their anonymity is broken, and often angry users track down the victim in a rather frightening way). --Seen the outrage the general community expresses at "doxxing", which was heartening. --Seen it used as an amazingly effective social networking and marketing tool. Posts and posters that come across and genuine, informed, and amicable are usually welcomed with open arms, even if they deal with a subject or product Redditors dislike. --Seen it completely backfire as a social networking and marketing tool, which happens when someone uses marketing "tricks" or comes across as anything less than genuine. --Gotten death threats for posting a picture of a squashed coin that made the front page. Reddit can be very weird. --Gotten beautiful, kind, completely random private messages for no reason at all on days where I really need them. Reddit can be very sweet. --Read articles in the Washington Post comparing Reddit to a democratic fiefdom. Sounds about right. --Been exposed to points of view I never would have seen before in my life, simply because of where I live and who I know. It's mind-blowing. The whole website just never ceases to amaze me. Honestly, it sort of reminds me of a MOOC: it's an ever-continuing event where people learn and argue and network.

A local group of the open knowledge foundation 1. Push for Open Science and Research practices in Indian research institutions. . 2. More involvement of citizens in the spirit of Open Knowledge Involvement of the masses in order to work towards making ourselves a better managed nation. Constitutional instruments like the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Right To Information (RTI), etc., lose their relevance without complete transparency in the dissemination of government as well as non-government data. Building a mass-based system of knowledge-banks can help us a lot in achieving our goal. We can assist the governments for making more information public, wherever necessary. 3. Push for education. Involving the masses can to a great extent result in a quicker transformation of the present scene (for example, we can have citizens making study material open and free and also involve them more in the dispersion of education). We aim to arrange for vocational profession-based education for the adult population.

"What kinds of knowledge are we going to expect? How we going to incentivize to scientists to share?"

A radical vision of the open access and books: The Political Nature of the Book: On Artists' Books and Radical Open Access. Janneke Adema: http://tinyurl.com/kv5hg2f In this article we argue that the medium of the book can be a material and conceptual means, both of criticising capitalism's commodification of knowledge (for example, in the form of the commercial incorporation of open access by feral and predatory publishers), and of opening up a space for thinking about politics. The book, then, is a political medium. As the history of the artist's book shows, it can be used to question, intervene in and disturb existing practices and institutions, and even offer radical, counter-institutional alternatives. If the book's potential to question and disturb existing practices and institutions includes those associated with liberal democracy and the neoliberal knowledge economy (as is apparent from some of the more radical interventions occurring today under the name of open access), it also includes politics and with it the very idea of democracy. In other words, the book is a medium that can (and should) be 'rethought to serve new ends'; a medium through which politics itself can be rethought in an ongoing manner.

I read his book (Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science) and really loved it. It inspired this blog post of mine: http://www.scopeofscience.com/2014/04/the-need-for-open-science/ Highly recommend that book to anyone who enjoyed his ted talk - it is a quick read!