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This is a recently launched online exhibit of 100 objects from the Royal BC Museum in Victoria BC. The collection is not open in the regards to rights (all rights reserved), but an interesting approach to opening up the physical museum collection.

This is really great, and reminds me of the Museum of Anthropology's MOACAT here at UBC: http://collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/ It's so important to allow access to these collections in the online environment, not only for those individuals that may not be in the same location as the museum or gallery itself, but also for those that may have financial or physical barriers to in-person access.

"This paper provides a brief overview of the ideas and principles underlying the connected learning movement, highlighting examples of how libraries are boosting 21st century learning and promoting community development by partnering with a range of organisations and individuals to incorporate connected opportunities into their programmes"

Thanks Kevin for sharing this.

El lado oscuro de las bibliotecas: "¿Quieren leer? Pues a pagar" Es un delirio: cuando tomemos prestado un libro de una biblioteca será preciso pagar un canon http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2014/08/27/babelia/1409137321_870906.html

Helping individuals and organizations utilize secure, efficient, easy-to-use and interoperable identity credentials to access online services in a manner that promotes confidence, privacy, choice and innovation. The NSTIC calls for a vibrant Identity Ecosystem where identity solutions adhere to four Guiding Principles: * Identity solutions will be privacy-enhancing and voluntary * Identity solutions will be secure and resilient * Identity solutions will be interoperable * Identity solutions will be cost-effective and easy to use

The Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG) has been established as a new organization led by the private sector in conjunction with, but independent of the Federal Government. As a key stakeholder and active participant in the Identity Ecosystem, the government has funded Trusted Federal Systems, Inc., through a competitive grant, to provide technical, administrative and operational support for the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group. IDESG is an open collaboration charged with realizing the goals of NSTIC: National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (http://www.nist.gov/nstic), helping individuals and organizations utilize secure, efficient, easy-to-use and interoperable identity credentials to access online services in a manner that promotes confidence, privacy, choice and innovation.

This source makes many of the points made in the video and readings for this week; Specifically, that scholars have a duty to use open source culture as "creation and curation of human knowledge, scholarship is an open-source endeavor. The end product - human knowledge - is not a fixed product, it is distributed, has diverse manifestations, and belongs to no individual or entity." He extends this notion to pedagogy suggesting "the best pedagogy take the best of what already exists and make it better, at least better for the task at hand."

The essay "The Human Presence in Digital Artefacts" by Alan Galey from "Text and Genre in Reconstruction", an open book on the effects of digitalization on ideas, behaviours, products and institutions (http://stephanieschlitz.com/dh/Text%26Genre-McCarty_vol_2.pdf). Would be of interest to those curious about publishing, literature, digital texts, etc.

Fifty startups were launched at MIT in five days, courtesy of a unique experiment "that could reshape existing educational paradigms." Nearly 55,000 individuals are enrolled in the MITx on edX massive open online course, " Entrepreneurship 101: Who is Your Customer?" Of the thousands, the school welcomed 47 to campus on August 18 to participate in a five-day bootcamp-turned-blended-learning-experiment.

Publishers of scholarly journals currently obtain most of their revenue from subscription fees charged to libraries and individual users. We call this the 'Reader Pays' pricing model. An alternative pricing method has recently emerged, in which publishers collect their revenue by charging significant publication fees to authors, and then supply their content over the Internet, at no cost to readers.

Shule.Info is a project that puts data about Tanzanian schools online, providing information for the overall country, regions, and individual schools. The website is also in both English and Swahili, the language of the majority of Tanzanians. This is a great attempt at making this open data accessible and understandable to the people to who need it. "We all know that education in Tanzania is in a state of crisis. Massive failure rates. Not enough teachers. Not enough books. Poor teaching. And many more problems. So what do you do if you are a parent, brother or sister and want to find a good school? What if you are a council or national government leader and want to track progress? Right now it is very difficult to do so, because data is not easily available. And when you can access data, it is very difficult to understand and use. Open data is in fact relevant to all of us in making beter decisions. It is not just a concept for technical experts. If we knew which medicines were available in our nearest health centres we would save ourselves wasted trips. If we had live traffic updates we could better plan our travel. And if we had data on school performance we would have the chance to make better decisions about our children's education and potentially shape the course of their future differently."

Argues that increasing corporate control is undermining the foundational values of higher education.

Here in Spain we have a similar evolution of higher education; private postgraduate private schools give masters that guarantee the access to top jobposts, but they are not focused on analysis, creativity and critical minds, but on pure business. What you need to be on your future job post is what you learn. Public institutions are still on air, but they are struggling with less and less public resources to survive. So I guess this is not only going on in USA.

Italy is going even worse...i'm an Adjunct Professor for maybe 1000 euro per year ... surviving by scholarships, call center mid term contracts, collaborations where i'm asked to pay for taxes the university should pay, all levels teaching.. I like "Some of the basic principles underlying effective pedagogy, such as small class size, individual attention and the importance of mentoring, are being sacrificed in order to increase head count, limit labor costs and create a one-size-fits-all educational experience." The problem is that universities are to make profits from fees (that's why they hire me instead of employing me) and offer any kind of courses, masters to increase their income! The problem is: how can we expect to increase the quality of learning as far as decisions are taking by political, business, organizational sides instead of scientific and educational ones?

Free access to 3 articles: The Unfolding of the Knowledge Commons pp. 13-24(12) Author: Hess, Charlotte Free Content From Lobsters to Universities: The Making of the Knowledge Commons pp. 25-42(18) Author: Caffentzis, C. George Open Access Scientific Publishing and the Developing World pp. 43-69(27) Author: Contreras, Jorge

Hi Raúl. Thanks for sharing these free resources. Which one do you like best? Which new insight did you gain?

I think Elinor Ostrom's approach to commons pool resources (used by Hess, for example) is very useful not only for understand the case of natural resources as commons (the tragedy of the commons to which it was originally applied), but to matters more close to this course, as knowledge. The approach is useful because it complicates the original perspective on commons. Originally (Elinor Ostrom) her perspective considered only group boundaries clearly defined (very small groups, peasants or indigenous); rules governing the use of collective goods well matched to local needs and conditions; cases where most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules; the right of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external authorities; monitoring mechanisms by community & graduated sanctions. With the new commons (surprisingly, not only knowledge but roads, budgets, radio spectrum; medical commons, atmospheric commons and even silence as commons), new questions rises on the evolution or building new types of commons with no pre-existing rules and norms; increasingly complex; with size, communities, incentives often unknown; extremely dynamic; reactions to threats of enclosure; heterogeneous community; new forms of collaboration and collective action; and global in many cases. I think is a perspective that can help a lot in the case of knowledge and new forms of learning.

Nuestra misión es proveer a la innovación en la educación política pública y el pensamiento y garantizar el acceso a los conocimientos necesarios para cualquier tipo de educación individual. Creemos que se requieren recursos educativos abiertos a través de este debate! más información http://www.rea.net.br/site/missao/