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In this 2009 bulletin, Leslie Chan discusses the growing inequalities in access to publications. A striking example he mentions is that of a doctor in Africa who makes a decision to alter a HIV programme based on an abstract. It's interesting to think about the strides we have taken to bridge inequalities in access in the past five years. It seems that though some gaps in access have been addressed, there are still obstacles to be overcome. Another point to be addressed is not only allowing access to information published by developed nations to reach those who cannot afford it, but also hearing the results of research and findings of institutions in the developing world.

The official home of the Python Programming Language

Open source is the future. Obvs, Microsoft et.al. paved the way, but moving forward, the route to privacy and access is via free software that can be adapted on the fly.

Microsoft también tiene un sitio sobre "open source" llamado Codeplex (https://www.codeplex.com/), aunque no siempre se debe fiar (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/lest-codeplex-perplex.es.html), hablan de open source, pero no de software libre.

ISKME is non-profit organization pioneering open education initiatives!

While attending another work-related webinar, I heard about this web site and thought about this class. On the surface, this site looks like a portal to many, many other image and video repositories about the history and geography of the United States. Many are contributed by local public libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies. What caught my attention and connect to this course is that all the metadata of the repositories are open access, so that developers can take advantages of the metadata and create additional apps. In this sense, this site becomes a platform. The contents from the various repositories have different degrees of rights and restrictions for reuse, some are under CC, some are protected by copyright, but the metadata is all open!

The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science is an open community offering countless ideas, DIY instruction and kits for carrying out science projects from your own kitchen (literally). Even better - you can become a part of a collaborative community, which shares ideas & tips, and all data collections are available under CC!

I particularly like the open source approach of the Public Lab, which ensures a collaborative building of creative solutions, which are then available under fair and open terms. Thanks for sharing the resource. Balthas

President Barack Obama marked the Open Government Partnership's (OGP) third anniversary by announcing that in addition to the commitments outlined in the current U.S.

Thanks for sharing. The Dutch government also has an NAP for OGP excluding open education. OE could be within scope of NAP of the Dutch OGP as well.

In a timely and incisive talk at TEDxWaterloo, Michael Nielsen made the case for open science - the idea that research data and results should be freely available to the public, and that scientists should collaborate more freely with each other and with the public.

I think the big theme that open science is profit and has the power of knowledge, many think that the knowledge open to all profit will not exist and the power of knowledge too!

Why Open Education Matters video competition.

I think this is a beautifully simple and clear wonderful explanation of why open education matters! I like how it discusses the conflict that exists without too much judgement and explains some of the open jargon such as OER. Thank you for sharing.

It's Banned Books Week! An annual event held in the last week of September, Banned Books Week seeks to draw attention to books being banned or challenged in libraries and schools while promoting free and open access to knowledge.

Wow. To be honest, I really thought that this was a thing of the past. I had no idea that it is still happening today. Super interesting - sad, but interesting.

This report addresses four main questions: * How can sustainable cost/benefit models for OER initiatives be developed? * What are the intellectual property rights issues linked to OER initiatives? * What are the incentives and barriers for universities and faculty staff to deliver their materials to OER initiatives? * How can access and usefulness for the users of OER initiatives be improved? This is part of an OECD series of reports looking at the impact of Open Knowledge on education systems and learning

Hi Matt, Thanks for sharing this OECD report from the year 2007. The OECD is really forward looking. One sentence strikes me: "Wikipedia has two employees and well over a million articles in multiple languages." Yes, that was true, back in the year 2007.

A very interesting paper that discusses issues around OER, as well as some topics already covered in the course is, "Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources" (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The paper highlights some of the barriers, sustainability issues, and how to improve access and usefulness of open educational resources. I found the paper very comprehensive, with many additional resources. While published in 2007, when conversations around OER were fairly new, many of the points they raise are still in discussion and relevant.

"building a low cost, sustainable, Open Access future for the humanities."

"The Accelerating Science Award Program (ASAP) recognizes individuals who have applied scientific research - published through Open Access - to innovate in any field and benefit society". It's funded by 27 different organizations. 

The OAD is a wiki and depends on the OA community to keep it comprehensive and up to date. It's a great place for many references to open access resources, events, organisations, publishing software etc