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Education, and in particular higher education, has seen rapid change as learning institutions have had to adapt to the opportunities provided by the Internet to move more of their teaching online1 and to become more flexible in how they operate. It might be tempting to think that such a period of change would lead to a time of consolidation and agreement about approaches and models of operation that suit the 21st century. New technologies continue to appear,2 however, and the changes in attitude indicated by the integration of online activities and social approaches within our lives are accelerating rather than slowing down. How should institutions react to these changes? One part of the answer seems to be to embrace some of the philosophy of the Internet3 and reevaluate how to approach the relationship between those providing education and those seeking to learn. Routes to self-improvement that have no financial links between those providing resources and those using them are becoming more common,4 and the motivation for engaging with formal education as a way to gain recognition of learning is starting to seem less clear.5 What is becoming clear across all business sectors is that maintaining a closed approach leads to missing out on ways to connect with people and locks organizations into less innovative approaches.6 Higher education needs to prepare itself to exist in a more open future, either by accepting that current modes of operation will increasingly provide only one version of education or by embracing openness and the implications for change entailed. In this article we look at what happens when a more open approach to learning is adopted at an institutional level. There has been a gradual increase in universities opening up the content that they provide to their learners. Drawing on the model of open-source software, where explicit permission to freely use and modify code has developed a software industry that rivals commercial approaches, a proposed

"In 2008, HIT Lab NZ released the initial version of BuildAR, which provides the basic functionality required to construct augmented reality scenes. You can load a single 3D model onto each marker, and arrange the models using the graphical editing tools or the simple user interface. This version of BuildAR has continues to be free for non-commercial use. For commercial use, or to take advantage of an updated feature set, check out BuildAR Pro."

Does non-commercial include intermediaries for reproduction?

Interesting.

Short video of an AR future. Interesting. Commercialism and ads still rule!

Queen's University Belfast have a website which is provided for students to show evidence of learning and skills learnt from extra-curricular activities and achievements. "Many activities you participate in - whether you serve as a Course Rep or have a part-time job or are engaged in voluntary work - may be allowing you to acquire important employability skills such as teamwork, leadership, communication and commercial awareness.  The Degree Plus Award allows these skills and this experience to be formally recognised" The Award is awarded by the University and is a 'value added' item which students can get in addition to their formal qualification. 

An Open textbook and why it can be reused commercially.

Site promoting IT security by educating the end user. (commercial)

"For this list, we've collected [open source] educational apps from a variety of categories that can replace popular commercial software."

My Sound FX is your source for professionally recorded and edited, studio quality, free sound effects. These files may be used, without restriction, for both private and commercial use.

PicFindr searches the web* for stock photography that is completely free to use commercially. Several licensing arrangements have recently emerged as alternatives to copyright (sometimes called "copyleft") and PicFindr makes sense of them all by helping you find images based on what you have to do to use them, whether licensed under Creative Commons, GNU, a site-specific agreement, or something else. PicFindr can even find free images you can use commercially without requiring permission or credit of any kind!

During the past decade, rapid developments in information and communications technology have transformed key social, commercial, and political realities. Within that same time period, working at something less than Internet speed, much of the academic and policy debate arising from these new and emerging technologies has been fragmented. There have been few examples of interdisciplinary dialogue about the importance and impact of anonymity and privacy in a networked society. Lessons from the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society fills that gap, and examines key questions about anonymity, privacy, and identity in an environment that increasingly automates the collection of personal information and relies upon surveillance to promote private and public sector goals.

Commercial video for class tool.

Feldstein on the commerce and sustainability of open source LMS.

Part of the debate on removing NC & ND licenses from the upcoming v4.0 Creative Commons. This argues strongly that these versions should be removed.

Part of the debate on removing NC & ND licenses from the upcoming v4.0 Creative Commons.