Group items tagged

"Based on a series of research projects, this book explores the role of technology in the lives of three- and four-year-old children. We analyse children's experiences at home and in preschool settings and include the perspectives of parents,

The paper is divided into two main sections. The first explores the central concepts of the ResIST project: the knowledge economy; inequalities; and science and technology policies. The second provides illustrations of the treatment of inequalities in S&T-related policies at three levels: national, European, and global.

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.

Sad and interesting situation here, scientist publishes his research, and in the comments, his work is called into question and it costs him a job. Brings into question the integrity of pre-publication peer review, and casts a shadow on the future of comments. Frequently, the comments are made by anonymous users, which itself should be a problem, even if the comment brings to light errors in the research. Now it seems, entire websites have sprung up with the sole purpose of debunking the hard work of others, sometimes needlessly. It's a good read.

Thank you for sharing. The situation with PubPeer actually encounters problems which are common on internet. As long as one comments anonymously, there are many off-topic and offensive comments. As soon as only registered comments are welcome, there are very few of them or not at all. Besides, one can presume that some scientific communities, even world-wide, are quite small and because of different reasons people do not want to comment under their real names... Another interesting resource to explore.

This year, the fifth annual Publishers for Development (PfD) conference explored current developments in scholarly communication including their impact on publishers, researchers and information professionals in the global South. The rapid growth in open access, the potential for social media to increase communication of research and also new measures for the way research is used were all topics viewed from a Southern perspective. The one-day conference was held in London on 15 October and titled 'Forward Thinking: Developing a global research cycle which fully engages South and North'. It brought together publishers from 16 publishing houses, librarians and researchers from universities in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Also present were representatives of organisations involved in research access, production and use such as the World Bank, African Journals Online, Research4Life, Development Research Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa (DRUSSA), Talloires Network and Partnerships in Health Information.

I wanted to share a OK resource: Cory Doctorow... yes a whole author as resource. He writes about open access on a number of different platforms and enacts open access in his published works. He is a YA novelist with many good books that explore many of the complex issues of society and technology that we are considering in this class. He sells his books through major publishers in print--but does not allow them to have DRM. But he also provides ebook copies for free on this website. Basically you can read it and remix it, but if you like it and want to support him--buy the book. This model seems to work for him. You can find him ranting about DRM and other open access issues all over the net, such as BoingBoing. Interesting guy, interesting topics--and some interesting free fiction books that are relevant to this class.

for a specific book suggestion, check out Little Brother http://craphound.com/littlebrother/ exciting SciFi all about online surveillance state, but also supposed to be filled with actual advice about how to hack your way around it and be a subversive, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_%28Doctorow_novel%29

Thanks. I like this. I haven't read his stuff, but now I will.

eLife is a unique collaboration between funders and practitioners of research to communicate influential discoveries in the life and biomedical sciences in the most effective way. eLife began following a workshop at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2010, where attending scientists concluded that there was a need for a model of academic publishing that better suited the needs of their community. In eLife a team of highly regarded, experienced and actively practicing scientists ensures fair, swift and transparent editorial decisions followed by rapid online publication. The editorial team are editorially independent of the funders. They rely on their scientific expertise and active research experience to identify the best papers, make scientifically based judgements and exercise leadership in steering these papers through peer review. The entire content of the journal is freely available for all to read and reproduce for unrestricted use.

Very interesting project. I spent some time exploring some of the papers. They do seem to be opening up the peer review process slightly be publishing a "decision letter" and "author response" with each paper. I also appreciate the seeming attempt to include data publication in the publication of the paper. Though it does seem to me that some of the papers don't have enough data accompanying them, so I wonder what their data publication policy is.

The different approach needed to market traditional educational resources and OER

Thank you for sharing. The article highlight a real-life problem. I am sure in my country many faculty members and librarians of higher educational establishment are not aware of OER and therefore they prefer safe and sure textbooks. Librarians should be first to explore, understand and market this type of resources. At the same time time may be needed in order to change educational policy and choice of textbooks.

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.

Yousef Eldin explores the impact that new developments in mobile phone technology are having on life in some of Uganda's most isolated communities

I think technology has very important role that we should mention. everything that we mentioned above is possible because of technology revolution. and here is the thing; the low-developing countries is the places that need education the most but people in those countries have minimum access to technology like internet and computer. So in this case, can open education really change the world?

This video is the project that I made with my partner. We tried to explore the business and sustainable model of MOOC. Hope it will be useful! And yes you can reuse and remix it.

David Wiley - In this piece I briefly explore the damage done to the idea of "open" by MOOCs, advocate for a return to a strengthened idea of "open," and describe an open education infrastructure on which the future of educational innovation depends. MOOCs: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back for Open Education

Underdeveloped website for public domain classical sheet music. I would love to see better sites with the inclusion of much more public domain music that is easy to explore and navigate. Would love any suggestions!