Librarians love to get free books into the hands of scholars and students who need them. Publishers love it when their books find readers - but they also need to cover the costs of turning an idea into a finished monograph.

The different approach needed to market traditional educational resources and OER

The structure of MOOCs is continually evolving. Presently the major trend is the transferal of knowledge from the Western English speaking world, but this is changing. Collaboration and other countries' participation in creating this form of education are developing. I believe this is essential for specific regional needs to be satisfied and understood. It is technology and open education collaborating for the benefit of all, not only those with Western privileges. It's not education for education's sake, but brings in a more entrepreneurial approach - not only in Africa where one initiative has started. This article clearly illustrates these new developments in the MOOC arena, providing examples of projects underway and future plans for MOOC 2.0.

May Siyavula go from strength to strength. May they gain much support for the fantastic work they're doing to improve education and the lives of South African (and other) youth.

8 elements of digital literacy This video has merit despite the some of the distractions which divert the viewers' attention from the valuable content. Belshaw's introduction of his topic and objectives are clearly identified when he's in the street, he then walks into a building (at an accelerated time speed), sits down to describes the difference between the traditional mode of literacy found in print and books to that of digital media e.g. smart phones. This works well until he's suddenly in a railway station and later back in the street with all the commotion linked to these settings. This makes it very difficult to hear what is being said. However, his re-cap of at the end is helpful. Although reading and writing is necessary in both traditional and digital milieus, this is in figurative sense with the digital setting. There are numerous definitions for digital literacy (DL), but he describes digital literacy as being "a social linguist construct" rather than an intellectual concept. He describes an intersection between information and digital literacy. DL is divided into 8 elements: Cultural, Cognitive, Constructive, Communicative, Confident, Creative, Critical and Civic. The order of importance of the elements is dependent on the context in which the DL is found. There is no one correct choice as geography and networks have an impact.

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.

How do I evaluate the quality of websites? How can I teach students to evaluate websites? Where can I find checklists for evaluation? There's lots of good information on the Internet, but you will also find opinions, misconceptions, and inaccurate information. How do you judge the quality of Internet resources?

"Evaluating Internet Resources" has been designed for teachers, but is a good starting point for all who want to enhance their critical skills when using the internet. Three main areas are covered: Instructions on assessing the validity of websites, guidance on educating students in these skills and other website links on the topic. Examples of legitimate and fictitious websites are provided to use for teaching purposes. The website masters should have categorized the different website links into the genuine and bogus sites to facilitate their use for the teacher. Access to some of these websites has been discontinued. Measures to be used for evaluation, including authority, objectivity, authenticity, reliability, timeliness, relevance and efficiency are considered. Indicators to verify the website and exercises to practice student evaluation skills are provided. The layout of this resource is easy to use and well-organised

Interview with Jeffrey Beall on predatory publishing, his description of this, stories of scams, where it's most prevalent and his recommendations

Although this was published in 2007, the creation of OER is put in an historical context. It's interesting to see the rapid and continual growth of the movement in seven years.

This article describes how the Notification Service of SHARE (SHared Access Research Ecosystem) has come about. It clearly specifies the associations and organisations which have collaborated to alert scientists and others to the status of the latest scientific research being conducted to drive their mutual goals of the advancement of science and access to this research for all.

Although 'open' is used in MOOC name, this questions how the actual course material could be made truly open for adaptation or redistribution. The commentary below the article is interesting too

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Research by the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) project thoroughly covers the issues related to copyright and access to learning resources in higher education in 8 African countries, namely Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. For each country, the authors give the background setting, an analysis and critical evaluation of the legal doctrine and inter-relationships, a qualitative assessment and then draw conclusions and make recommendations for improvements to be undertaken to improve the status quo of these challenges. It's acknowledged that much more research is still needed. This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

A dissertation by Tobias Schönwetter which comprehensively covers and compares digitalization, copyright and fair dealing not only in South Africa but in USA, Europe, Uk and Australia

A well-organised, comprehensive list of CC and Public domain multimedia resources. Some of these links indicate license attribution categories for usage.

Useful resources for Citizen Scientists who wish to publish, so sharing valuable data which otherwise may have been lost. Of course, caution should be taken to ensure that all data recorded is done scientifically and is reliable.

What Role Can MOOCs Play in the Development Agenda? Five Key Questions By: Rajika Bhandari on Tuesday, July 15, 2014 With the Millennium Development Goals nearing their deadline, the development sector has been rife with speculation about what the post-2015 development agenda will look like and what role, if any, higher education should play in this future outlook. Personal note: This highlights the reality of so called 3rd world countries and the real reach of MOOCs

Similar to Twitter, a good way to reach "a common intellectual enagagement with material" can be achieved by bonding and sharing personal aspects of life with students without intimacy. There is an art to maintaining this balance.

This is taking the access of quallity participatory online education beyond tertiary level. It will also provide the opportunity for those who have been unable to complete high education to do so.