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UNESCO Resource exploring the four key elements of freedom of expression: the right to hold opinions without interference, the right to seek information, the right to receive information, and the right to impart information to others. These are all important pieces of access to open knowledge. 

Ranking digital rights, human rights resources.

"Increased access to information and knowledge, underpinned by universal literacy, is an essential pillar of sustainable development. Greater availability of quality information and data and the involvement of communities in its creation will provide a fuller, more transparent allocation of resources."

"In this context, a right to information would be transformational. Access to information supports development by empowering people, especially marginalised people and those living in poverty, to: - Exercise their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. - Be economically active, productive and innovative. - Learn and apply new skills. - Enrich cultural identity and expression. - Take part in decision-making and participate in an active and engaged civil society. - Create community-based solutions to development challenges. - Ensure accountability, transparency, good governance, participation and empowerment. - Measure progress on public and private commitments on sustainable development. "

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.

Have you ever been in a similar situation? It´s important to know your rights on the street as well as on the internet, does anyone know a good resource for reading about what our rights are on the internet? Besides that, does the internet give us more freedom or does it take it away by monitoring us and making our personal profiles into data? I think that was the transcending question and dilemma which the first module presented, so do we accept the internet as an oxymoron, if not what is happening in the world inregards to being able to opt out from being monitored and used as a statistic and still enjoy the benefits of internet.

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.

Very good collection of useful sites + instructions how to find Creative Commons licensed items

Quite interesting guide on how to find relevant OER of different types and natures. «Reusing existing Open Educational Resources (OER) can save significant time and effort. The OPEN partners recommend TAACCCT grantees invest up-front time finding OER to reuse rather than starting development of new educational resources right away. A significant benefit of OER is that they provide source material to build your development efforts around.» Ricardo twitter: @ricbruno71

Really helpful go-to collection of links with explanations for each, and more than just image references (videos, sounds, etc). Great resource, thanks for sharing.

Traditional Healers Organization For Africa: " Biopiracy and Indigenous Traditional Medicine Knowledge The blatant plunder of indigenous knowledge and genetic resources in South Africa continues unhindered and without State monitoring. Since 1997, We have been monitoring private and public enterprises (or their intermediaries) who are actively collecting, sampling and acquiring traditional knowledge for the development of pharmaceutical products. What concerns us is that international organizations are entering South Africa to carry out this research. Not even the World Health Organization are free of scrutiny in this regard. "Biopiracy" refers to the use of intellectual property laws (patents, plant breeders' rights) to gain exclusive monopoly control over genetic resources that are based on the knowledge and innovation of indigenous peoples. Biopiracy and bioprospecting don't just happen in the field ; biopiracy is even more likely to take place in the laboratories of industry and academia, and in patent offices in the cities not even in South Africa."

I have found all information needed about IP at this website.

This site is very helpful in terms of resources, such as definitions of terms and seminars for learning how to apply IP

Thanks for sharing this information, it increases the understanding about Intellectual Property.

Merete Sanderhoff edited this collection of 18 articles on the topic of Openness in the cultural sector (predominantly museums). An excellent resource as museums struggle to retain image rights while at the same time fulfilling their both their educational and preservational missions.

This is really interesting! Thanks for sharing - I'll be reading this on my commute this week. The juxtaposition raised between safeguarding collections and allowing access (and possible re-use) is enlightening.

Caring for collection being shared is also a part of knowledge openness to access because all collections are precious for its timeless value , memoirs, and cultural heritage.

"Intended to serve as a "citizen's guide," Controlling Knowledge is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand how freedom of information and privacy protection are legally defined and how this legislation is shaping our individual rights as citizens of the information age."

module1 privacy knowledge "public policy" "digital citizenship" ebook

Negotiations over the rights of a journal article can be tricky and authors are not always aware of what they have the right to ask or not. This addendum from 2006 propose a template that authors can use to modify the publication agreement of a publisher

An interesting overview of the challenges that the open education faced in the last 10 years. The "Last mile" part emphasizes the role of a teacher in guiding students to the right resources available online.

Adding a few high quality photos is a great way to improve a website, article or presentation - but be careful. A search engine like Google Images will quickly locate just about any shot you could ever want, but using them will almost certainly violate someone's copyright.

Very useful. Thank you.

thank you

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?

This is a brief synopsis covering the main aspects of Research4Life, including information about the creators and stakeholders, criteria for access, its composition and training given. In 2001 Research4Life was initially started by WHO with HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative) to enable developing countries to access free or greatly subsidized biomedical and health literature. From 2003-09 this type of access to the AGORA, OARE and ARDI databases of scientific journals and books became available to over 77 poorer developing countries by Cornell and Yale Universities, FAO, UNEP and WIPO with other publishers. Institutions are required to meet specific criteria and categories to be entitled to the right to use of Research4Life resources. A few case studies are described which clearly show the impact Research4Life has had so far. We are informed of the future plans for the project too. This article gives a clear insight into how first world organisations are giving researchers and the populace of less developed countries the opportunity to advance their own research and development by providing access to current information and data.

As a librarian, research4life boosts my morale. Truly, librarians can be the unsung heroes in scientific researches. Librarians happily serve researchers without expecting anything but ensuring that they get the information they need. Research4life values the role of the librarians in the field of research and I appreciate that. I wish to express my gratitude to resesarch4life organization for giving value to the contribution of librarians in research