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Open access (OA) publication has emerged, with disruptive effects, as a major outlet for scholarly publication. OA publication is usually associated with on-line distribution and provides access to scholarly publications to anyone, anywhere-regardless of their ability to pay subscription fees or their association with an educational institution. The article overviews the growth and impact of OA publication in Canada and elsewhere. The article also presents a case study of the evolution over its first nine years of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Education (IRRODL). IRRODL has become the most widely read and widely cited journal in the distance education and open learning community, yet it continues to struggle for recognition by some academics, funding, and rating organizations.

The federal government's pledge for increased access to computers for students has been held up as "groundbreaking reform" as "digital schools" become a reality for more students. However, access to technology remains uneven across schools, student compe

This essay examines the role of technology and social media in the performance of decentered heteronormative bodily and pedagogical power. Today's teaching spaces occupy traditional, physical outlets but also imaginary, online gathering places such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook that have become extensions of our pedagogical bodies. I argue that feminism and queer theory-united by Foucault's upheaval of norms-provide critical sites to engage this discussion. Where feminism has become accessible inside and outside the classroom, resistance to queer theory persists. I share some of my own experiences with bodily ambiguity via teaching and living with social media that I hope can bridge the accessibility gap to move toward an emancipatory theory of pedagogical bodies in the digital age.

Under the administration of President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian state has advocated the use of Free/Livre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) throughout the public sector. How did FLOSS adoption gain traction as a developmental strategy across a large federal bureaucracy that had embraced information technology policies supporting export-oriented growth and market liberalization during the 1990s? In an historical case study, I argue that the FLOSS agenda emerged as a result of the actions of a network of insurgent experts working within elite political, technical, and educational institutions. I trace the history of this mobilization and show how a dedicated network of experts brought about conditions for institutional transformation that contradicted prevailing neoliberal policy proscriptions. The Brazilian FLOSS insurgency offers insights into the means by which a group of elites endeavored to reframe debates about technology-driven economic growth around questions of state-led access to source code and knowledge.

"Why and how do issues expire? This paper applies the concept of path dependency to issue-life cycle and argues that the manner in which an issue dies is closely associated with how it comes to life. This paper argues that, on the Access to Medicines issue, the first actors (1) to have called attention to a legal problem, (2) to have capitalised on the HIV/AIDs crisis, and (3) to have used the example of Africa, were also the first to have felt constrained by their own frame in their attempt to (1) look for economical rather than legal solutions, (2) expand the list of medicines covered beyond anti-AIDs drugs, and (3) allow large emerging economies to benefit from a scheme designed by countries without manufacturing capacities. In order to escape an issue in which they felt entrapped, issue-entrepreneurs worked strategically to close the debate in order to better reframe it in other forums."

Under the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian state has advocated the use of Free/Livre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) throughout the public sector. How did FLOSS adoption gain traction as a developmental strategy across a large federal bureaucracy that had embraced information technology policies supporting export-oriented growth and market liberalization during the 1990s? In a historical case study, I argue that the FLOSS agenda emerged as a result of the actions of a network of insurgent experts working within elite political, technical, and educational institutions. I trace the history of this mobilization and show how a dedicated network of experts brought about conditions for institutional transformation that contradicted prevailing neoliberal policy proscriptions. The Brazilian FLOSS insurgency offers insights into the means by which a group of elites endeavored to reframe debates about technology-driven economic growth around questions of state-led access to source code and knowledge.

"Indigenous scholars have debated the impact that researchers and the act of researching have on Native and Indigenous people and communities. Although literature on this subject has grown, little has been written explicitly laying out the doing of research with these communities. The authors seek to articulate their doing by drawing upon the essential research principles and standards set by scholars. The authors seek to examine their work as education researchers in three different international contexts-Kenya, Cambodia, and "Indian country" in the United States-highlighting research practice shaped by context, relationship, and discourse emergent in their investigations of schooling, language revitalization, and scientific knowledge access. The authors reflect, analyze, and summarize their actions of decolonizing research that were present or particularly challenging cross-culturally, in each context. Examples of common action in the projects include relinquishing control, reenvisioning knowledge, cultivating relationships, and purposeful representation of communities. Finally, the authors connect their actions to the principles and standards set by scholars and discuss lessons learned."

"The cultural complexity of student populations presents major challenges for contemporary schooling in Western migrant nations such as Australia. While this has much to do with the diverse linguistic and ethnic backgrounds of students, other differences such as socio-economic status, family histories and gender add to this complexity. Yet, the complexities of education are not only a function of the cultural and social diversity of the student population. There are vast differences in students' educational and physical capital which are related but not reducible to these diversities. Complexity is inherent in the culture and philosophy of schooling; the processes of becoming literate, numerate and learning how to learn. While students have diverse needs, there are common skills that must be acquired, skills that are requisite for effective social participation in contemporary globalized societies. The challenge for education, and for dealing with complexity in any field, is to avoid being reductionist in the process. This article explores approaches to navigating these complexities in educational policy and practice, highlighting the ways in which simplistic understandings can prove problematic and yet, how certain forms of complexity reduction are necessary in achieving goals of educational access and equity."

"Research exploring the means by which new media technologies can shape development within marginalized communities worldwide has began to move away from discussion limited to technical and infrastructural, to consider the interactions, beliefs, and values of local communities. Yet most projects continue to focus on enabling communities to access external information, rather than on the possibility of using media to catalyze community reflection and thereby developmental activity from within. This article shows how this promise can be actualized by providing an overview of an experimental project that made available a set of video cameras to a carefully selected group of community members in a ritualized, largely nonliterate village in Andhra Pradesh, India. It concludes that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners would benefit from considering the possibilities that reflective media hold to generate collective action and consensus building, and that these possibilities can synergize with the need to develop scalable projects."

"This study explores the implications of Canada's official bilingual status on young immigrant adults who are presently studying at the undergraduate level at university. More precisely, I examine how these young adults have experienced and judge French as a second official language (FSOL) learning in 'English-dominant' regions of Canada. Through a questionnaire and interviews, the participants reveal that they invest in FSOL with the goal of adding French to their multilingual repertoire that includes English primarily in hopes of future economic gain. Examining the data through the lens of investment, I posit that access to FSOL as an investment and conversion of the investment into economic gain is mitigated by unequal positions of power that highlight Canada's emphasis on official language bilingualism to the practical exclusion of multilingualism. I suggest that means to change unequal practices may lie in the bi-directionality of relations between education and society and propose that rather than having language education in Canada reflect the official discourse, that education be used as a means to influence the discourse and practice thereof to be more inclusive of all languages."

The internet media require the development of new user skills not required by the traditional media. Current European initiatives focus on providing access to a PC with internet and ensuring basic usage skills to address the digital divide, while media co

This paper briefly discusses some of Antonio Gramsci's contributions to the theorization of politics that Peter Ives elucidates in Gramsci's Politics of Language. I also highlight a few of the many illuminating aspects of Ives's in-depth but accessible ex

This paper describes an attempt to exploit the potential of email as a means of granting access to a 'pedagogical arena' in which trainees and students might attempt to negotiate their own ways of working together. It concludes by suggesting that both gro

This article recounts a community's struggle for access to biliteracy in one of the largest urban school districts in the country. The authors examine the roles school personnel assume, the symbols they employ, and the scripts they follow in their efforts

The modern city is torn by conflicts and contradictions, marked by serious environmental problems (pollution, waste, traffic, etc.), and by large areas of human and urban blight, because its profound changes and the inhabitants of cities meet in a very fractured and parcelled out relationship; the contacts may take place face to face, but nevertheless are impersonal, superficial, and transitory. The critical approach to environmental education and sustainability is to target the inequalities, the wasting of resources, and the arrogance of human domination over nature, but its contribution to appropriate urban development is nevertheless still weak. It is therefore necessary to develop the research on the educational approach to the urban environment. Critical thinking, participation, the ability to imagine future scenarios, and a shared and free access to knowledge are essential elements of the necessary social change toward sustainability.

Social movements operate in 'an environment for politics that is increasingly information-rich and communication-intensive' (Bimber 2001, p. 53). There is an established literature on new ICTs and social movements, but little of it considers mobilization in the global South. This paper presents a case study on the use of ICTs by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African social movement campaigning for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. McAdam et al.'s comparative framework of three theoretical perspectives on mobilization (McAdam et al. 1996) - mobilising structures, opportunity structures and framing processes - is used to link the analysis into the social movement literature. The findings show extensive use of email, mailing lists and the Internet in TAC activities despite low levels of access among the movement's largely poor activist base. ICTs are used to help the movement engage with elites, professional groups and media, as well as in the development of local and international movement networks. There is also widespread informal use of mobile phones, which a local NGO is working with the TAC to extend. Mobiles are seen as a way to reach the previously disconnected majority, strengthening their involvement in existing processes as well as extending the movement's reach beyond its current branch-based structure.

This reflection, using auto-ethnography as method, explores the value of attunement to feedback in the teaching of a professional postgraduate course for allied mental health professionals. This is, therefore, a story of two halves: a narrative of my learning based on my reflections of my own teaching, and a story of how I have integrated feedback from students and their clinical supervisors to refine my teaching and course development in the programme. The resulting model of teaching and learning I have developed involves a process of 'creative attunement'. 'Attunement' is a psychodynamic concept involving 'contact' or a quality of relationship based on availability, presence, empathy, respect and selective disclosure. The learning activities of the programme aim to develop an awareness of the students' own 'craft knowledge' as graduate social workers and occupational therapists during their intern year in the health services. Through a process of growing the students' awareness of self in the clinician's role by attuning to students' feedback, learning from undergraduate education becomes more available to be applied in a new field of practice. Designing learning activities that incorporate stories of practice and align with clinical supervisors and service user narratives provides access to a variety of learning experiences. I explore the implications for developing critical-reflective practice within a 'community of learners' model.

In recent years public libraries have experimented with user-generated or community-contributed content through the interactive tools of Web 2.0. For some commentators this not just establishes a new relationship between libraries and their publics, but signals the end of information hegemony and an 'expert paradigm'. Such claims need to be treated with caution. This article argues that public library experiments with user-generated content can be more usefully analysed in the context of wider institutional mandates around literacy, civic engagement and access. This article critically examines some recent library developments in this field, with a particular focus on Australian libraries.

Games are woven into webs of cultural meaning, social connection, politics, and economic change. This article builds on previous work in cultural, new media, and game studies to introduce a new approach to productive play, the promise of play. This approach analyzes games as sites of cultural production in times of increased transnational mediation and speaks to the formation of identity across places. The authors ground their explorations in findings from ethnographic research on gaming in urban China. The spread of Internet access and increasing popularity of digital entertainment in China has been used as an indicator of social change and economic progress shaped by global flows. It has also been described as being limited by local forces such as tight information control. As such, gaming technologies in China are ideal to ask broader questions about digital media as sites of production at the intersection of local contingencies and transnational developments.

This paper explores the structure of the project-based innovation networks promoted by tax incentives to innovation activities in the Brazilian ICT sector ("ICT Law"). It proposes a framework for characterizing the decentralized governance of innovation projects in sectors, identifying (i) the boundaries between firms and technological partners, (ii) the specialization of actors in types of activities and (iii) the speed of change in the collaborations between firms and technological institutes. The empirical analysis is based on the data of more than 10,000 innovation projects conducted between 1997 and 2003. The results show a strong re-organization of the innovation networks in the sector during the period, attributed mainly to a shift from investments in middleware to software-related innovation activities, the re-specialization of the subsidiaries of multinational companies, and the emergence of private research institutes as central nodes inside the sectoral innovation system.