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"The Provost will charge an Open Access Policy and Implementation Committee with policy interpretation and with developing a plan that renders compliance with the policy as convenient for the faculty as possible. The OA Policy and Implementation Committee comprises two members of the Library/Faculty Advisory Board, one member of the General Faculty Academic Services Committee, one member of the library staff, and one representative of GTRC."

"Accessibility policies frame standards and expectations for how a college or university's programs, services, and facilities serve the needs of people with disabilities. Some policies are aspirational in nature and relatively short on specific mandates, while others are much more prescriptive in stating standards, rules for compliance, and sanctions for behaviors that fall short. Accessibility policies constitute a statement of values that the institutional community subscribes to, and they serve as guidelines for how the institution intends to ensure the equitable treatment of all members of the campus community."

"To acquire and practice literacy skills today, students and educators in Oklahoma City Public Schools require access to Evernote, Google Docs, Gmail, Edmodo, Posterous, Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, and other educationally appropriate, interactive websites. All these websites are currently (as of February 9, 2012) blocked by OKCPS for student access. OKCPS must stop its "draconian" and unjustified Internet content filtering policies and adopt BALANCED policies. The district must TRUST teachers and empower them to directly bypass the content filter with their login credentials when it is professionally justified for instruction and learning."

In Pennsylvania, the issue is primarily addressed at the local level with districts setting policy. For the most part, the use of such devices is banned during the school day. Some districts ban possession of such devices altogether while others allow students to bring them to school as long as they remain out of sight during the regular school day. Steel Valley School District officials are examining a policy already on the books that allows students to bring devices to school but requires the devices be turned over to school officials. A district committee recently discussed allowing students in secondary grades to stow their devices in their lockers rather than check them in each morning.

Schools and libraries subject to CIPA may not receive the discounts offered by the E-rate program unless they certify that they have an Internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. The protection measures must block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene; (b) child pornography; or (c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors). Before adopting this Internet safety policy, schools and libraries must provide reasonable notice and hold at least one public hearing or meeting to address the proposal. Schools subject to CIPA have two additional certification requirements: 1) their Internet safety policies must include monitoring the online activities of minors; and 2) as required by the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, they must provide for educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response.

"The response is not only technological. The best communication, remote meeting, collaboration or social networking solutions won't fix bad habits but can enable new ones provided they're desired. No one will switch from a reporting culture to an open work one without effort. And in the same way businesses establish social networking policies - and should even start with email policies - they should contemplate establishing meeting policies."

"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will require grant recipients to make their research publicly available online -- a multibillion-dollar boost to the open access movement. The sweeping open access policy, which signals the foundation's full-throated approval for the public availability of research, will go into effect Jan. 1, 2015, and cover all new projects made possible with funding from the foundation. The foundation will ease grant recipients into the policy, allowing them to embargo their work for 12 months, but come 2017, "All publications shall be available immediately upon their publication, without any embargo period.""

"If friend requests, invitations to connect and potential Twitter stalkers are keeping you up at night, that needs to stop. Today. All you have to do is develop your own personal social media policy. Determine your own rules of engagement and apply them. And don't be scared to let people know how they can connect with you."

"Even before evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller hit "send" on his idiotic Tweet, I'd been thinking about asking people what kind of social media policy might be in place on their campus."

In the past several years, Dartmouth undergraduates have written more than 100 nonpartisan policy briefs for state legislators, agencies, and local municipalities in New Hampshire and Vermont. Small-town traffic congestion, charter schools, broadband Internet access, drug courts, and the privatization of parks, hospitals, and prisons: All have been investigated by students from Dartmouth's Policy Research Shop.

These are just a glimpse of some of the most recent (within the last two years) updates to distance education policy standards set forth by regional and national accrediting organizations in the U.S. And as many institutions begin implementing online programs, it's never been a more critical time for administrators and leaders to become well-acquainted with the hallmarks of quality required for both new, and currently in-place, distance-ed programs.

"How about an empowered use policy (EUP) instead? In other words, instead of saying NO, NO, NO! all the time, how about saying yes? Here's one to consider…"

"In the wake of the Pearson social media monitoring controversy, edubloggers like Audrey Watters and D'arcy Norman have announced their policies regarding code that can potentially track users on their blogs. This is a good idea, so we are following their example."

"Leveraging the revolutionary potential of digital technology to provide access to the world's best faculty members, this new method of dissemination takes what were once exclusive, limited-access, high-priced resources and puts them online for anyone to learn from, freely. Despite its somewhat goofy acronym, this new model has been embraced, sometimes in the face of faculty objections, because of its democratizing, globalizing potential, as well as its effectiveness in improving an institution's reputation for innovation and excellence. I am, of course, talking about Coapi. If you haven't heard of it, the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions, which now comprises more than 40, began in 2011 as a way for colleges to coordinate and advocate for open-access policies, which typically require that all faculty journal publications be made available freely online, whether on a personal Web site, institutional repository, or discipline-specific public archive."

"The Federal Communications Commission approved the policy known as net neutrality by a 3-2 vote at its Thursday meeting, with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler saying the policy will ensure "that no one - whether government or corporate - should control free open access to the Internet.""

"According to the OSU Web Accessibility Policy (PDF), all content interfaces to be used by Ohio State University faculty/staff, program participants, or other university constituencies are required to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as amended. This page provides elaboration and guidelines to help OSU developers and purchasing agents meet the Web Accessibility Policy."

In its first big policy shift since Facebook bought the photo-sharing site, Instagram claims the right to sell users' photos without payment or notification. Oh, and there's no way to opt out.

I've published this paper in a journal called Science and Public Policy - a conventional way of being read by other academics. Except that whatever baroque negotiations have taken place between the journal's new publisher and the UCL library mean that, despite being a member staff at one of Europe's largest universities, I don't seem to have access to that journal. This piece of research, funded by British taxpayers, can't even be read by me.

"A study out this month made the point all too clear. Most of the 543 university students involved in the analysis didn't bother to read the terms of service before signing up for a fake social networking site called "NameDrop" that the students believed was real. Those who did glossed over important clauses. The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don't yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so. The privacy policy said that their data would be given to the NSA and employers. Of the few participants who read those clauses, they signed up for the service anyway."