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This is about the inequitable global power and how it dynamics the confronting global knowledge production in nowadays.

Underlying this notion of global knowledge production inequities is how developed countries "The Global North" dominate modern knowledge systems. This hegemonic control of global knowledge, driven by increased globalization, places pressure on virtually all societies to adopt global values and services. While this development does have positive implications (e.g. better understanding of modern health practices, nutrition, environmental protection, governance systems, etc), on the negative side, the imposition of cultural forms from the developing world could be considered a form of political and economic domination. This leads to the increasing homogenization of cultures and a threat to local knowledge, and the exacerbation of local differences and inequalities through uneven access to such knowledge and the means for it's application. The production of knowledge implicates and is implicated in power relations, as those with superior technology cannot only generate but also store, monopolize and disseminate information to safeguard their interests. Foucault (1972) suggests that the relationship between power and knowledge has its origin in the ownership of the means of material production and technical expertise. According to Said (1978), Western powers in a colonial and post-colonial context, using agents in developing countries, have been able to develop elaborate cultural and political institutions where knowledge production exists with supporting mechanisms that dominate and suppress African communities. In a critical examination of development policies and programs in Africa, Okolie (2003) considers these to be shaped by knowledge and assumptions about knowledge production that are primarily Euro-American centered, and are consequently "exclusionary and often contemptuous of other ways of knowing" (Okolie, 2003). The establishment of the continent's universities and research centers was primarily driven by Western powers, and the African elites who h

On my navigation searching for initiatives to see how Open Knowledge are making the difference on the Latin America society I found this... nowadays unfortunately on South America (and in other places as well) open knowledge initiative are not divulgated. Universities seem to be not interested about promoting these initiatives and few people know about them. I was amazed reading the text from Francisco J. García-Peñalvo (Open Knowledge. Challenges and Facts) and seeing that a lot of Universities on Europe and North America are promoting and working with open and free access to texts and online courses. It's incredible how people have the possibility of learning in a world that each day is more competitive. I really hope that this great news about Brazil helps more and more people to understand the impact and the changings on the educational process.

This blog about Open Data Developments in Asia analyses the recent state of Open Data adopted in Asia and highlights some of the 11 Asian countries participants that attended the Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva in 2012. Of the 11 countries that attended the conference, the author of the post focuses on the East Asian and Pacific countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and discusses their state and role in Openness. The author does a good job at providing statistics of the different countries in terms of the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), which analyzes the economic rankings of countries. The author then compares economic rank to that of openness, stating that countries low on the economic rank contribute little to no open data within their own countries or externally to other countries. Next, the author talks about the overall internet penetration in Asia as being only 27.5 percent and in that statistic, there is still a wide gap between North and South East Asia in terms of internet use and information distribution and acquisition from citizens and others. Moreover, the author continues to compare how many social, economical, political and cultural influence information distribution, contribution and acquisition in Asia countries. Openness is growing in the more developed Asian countries, but openness is limited, or even nonexistent, in developing (authoritative) countries. After reading this article, I've had a greater understanding of the current state of Open Data in Asia an the influences that contribute to enabling Openness. What I expected from the blog post or something that would've made the post even better could be some examples or projects of Openness or Open Data in Asia.

This piece was published as part of the GIZ compendium "10 trends in open innovation" and talks about self-organized and connected peer-to-peer learning for sustainable human development worldwide. Might be of interest as additional resource for Module 11: Global Perspectives on Equity, Development, and Open Knowledge

Dear Pris, dear Jurado, thanks a lot for your comments. I like the ideas and I would particularly like to know more about the thought, that "freedom has its own process tht could eventually produce a network ...". Thanks and cheers, Your Balthas

Thanks for sharing this great article! These topics are where I would like discussions about open access to start. We may be able to use that base of peer learning communities to think about all the other issues of open access in a new light.

"So what does knowledge mobilization mean for education? It asks us to reimagine what it means in exchanging knowledge. It requires us to embrace being open and unselfish in our learning and knowledge exchange. It requires admitting that a large part of what continues to happen in our world isn't good for our students, our teachers, our communities - or our world. It means creating change in our education systems or risk the return to the tragedies of the early 20th century."

More about KMbeing: http://www.knowledgemobilization.net/

Provides a list of important skills and how those skills are embedded within the curriculum.

Thank you Kevin Stranack for sharing. Tony Bates ends with five questions: 1. Have I covered the main skills needed in a knowledge-based society? What have I missed? 2. Do you agree that these are important skills? If so, should universities explicitly try to develop them? 3. What are you or your university doing (if anything) to ensure such skills are taught, and taught well? 4. What roles if any do you think technology, and in particular online learning, can play in helping to develop such skills? 5. Any other comments on this topic - My answers: 1. Frustration tolerance and keeping a balance between work and private life is a necessary skill 2, The skill set mentioned is important, but more likely trained in college than in university 3. I do have a personal coach and a counseler, and I'm enrolled in #OKMOOC 4. The activities required in every module of #OKMOOC ask to reach out, connect, build relationships, Have you answered the feedback questions?

This question is really the elephant in the room in a lot of university programs, especially in the humanities. I myself was a doctoral student in the humanities before leaving because, as I eventually learned, there were essentially no employment opportunities and my skillset in today's economy was sorely lacking. But the old mantra that "we teach critical thinking" is become a worn excuse. Do we really need four years to teach people the skills to survive "out there"? How much of our specialized knowledge will really be useful outside of the academy? These are questions we just don't have the answer to, and I'm not sure there are many people willing to ask them. But more to the point, I didn't see anything in this link about the changing ways that millennials (I promise that I hate the term as much as anyone, but it's a useful one) are engaging with information, and how that is changing how they actually think. There have been arguments made that digital natives (again, a pretty terrible term) think about and process information in very different ways that have serious implications for contextualization and long-term research. I'm not saying that universities don't teach these things in their own ways, but it's an important issue that needs addressing. I know that the link talks about the important of knowledge management, but there's a huge difference between simply knowing how and when to access information and quite another to properly contextualize its place in a larger hierarchy (or web) of knowledge. I would argue *that* skill is the one that universities are best poised to provide, and maybe why we keep hearing talk about how undergraduate degrees are the new highschool diplomas.

"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. "

Who has heard of this festival about Open Knowledge? Who has been there?

This part of the globalissues.org web site looks at the issue of intellectual property rights on food ingredients and traditional, common knowledge. Food patents based on knowledge that has been around for centuries is controversial, risking threats to food security due to concentrated ownership of this otherwise common knowledge.

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.

A great article clarifying the definitions of indigenous knowledge and traditional knowledge

A really interesting course (also from Stanford Online) that has just started and I believe will be of interest to many doing Open Knowledge! "This interdisciplinary course features talks from thought leaders and innovators from medical education, instructional design, cognitive science, online learning, and emerging technology. Over the course of eleven weeks, we'll consider how to build educational experiences that address the unique learning preferences of today's Millennial medical students and residents. As the volume of new medical knowledge outpaces our ability to organize and retain it, how might educators disrupt outdated practices through thoughtful use of technology and learning design? How might MOOCs, social media, simulation and virtual reality change the face of medical education? How might we make learning continuous, engaging, and scalable in the age of increasing clinical demands and limited work hours? Joining the conversation will be experts from all health care and education stakeholder domains, including patients, and students from nursing, medicine and engineering sciences."

You sold me and I signed up, this is exactly what I was looking for when I signed up for this course. Hoping to bring this into clinical research and improve the perceptions, understanding and participation to forward medical innovation.

Many interesting charts and data of the global internet use, access, and contributions

Atlas, publications, charts and tables of global information and internet geographies and impacts on information access, information production and information distribution, done over a four year period by Oxford Information Institute. Findings, data, and publication will be published in Open Access formats and platforms. The website is simple but contains lots of information relevant to the topics in Stanford. There are links to external related publications about information geography, access, distribution and production. Very good website. Some limitations include: bias from the two developers and producers as well as institution itself, unknown (not identified) contributors and sponsors.

A very valuable collection demonstrating how economic, political, cultural and linguistic ties impact the flow of knowledge is and information. Of course, such charts do little to explain, why this happens and where a more even distribution of knowledge is desirable. Also, the data that lies behind the visualisations is not always open. Especially vauable are the links to the data collections that are accessible.

Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends.

Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends.

Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends.

I began at Code Academy last year, and completed various courses. The problem I had was knowing about the architecture and systems behind the code, so, now I am learning to use Command Line and working through FLOSS manuals. I like Code academy, and I may go back there, but not before I have understood Command Line and more specifically what works with Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora etc The thing is, free software development, open source and education for all, begins with Linux OS and whatever branches from that is free to share, iterate and scalable. The trademark socialist, philosophically opposed to the capitalist.

"Every day we face challenges - from the personal, such as the quickest way to get to work, or what we should eat, to global ones like climate change and how to sustainably feed and educate seven billion people on this planet. At Open Knowledge we believe that opening up data - and turning that data into insight - can be crucial to addressing these challenges, and building a society in which is everyone - not just the few - are empowered with the knowledge they need to understand and effect change."

really good! I think this is a very good summary about what we are learning in this course: "We need to create a culture of "open data makers", people able and ready to make apps and insights with open data. We need to connect open data with those who have the best questions and the biggest needs - a healthcare worker in Zambia, the London commuter travelling home - and go beyond the data geeks and the tech savvy to make data be useful to all."