(I'm submitting this as an idea to FC-discuss to see what everybody thinks about it, if we decide to move forward, we can discuss the implementation details on FC-Hackers).
With the conference in New York rapidly approaching, I think it would be really cool if we made something that we could show off to everybody by the end of the conference. If we get the ball rolling now, I'm sure we can have something cool by the end if we have a hackathon during the conf. So while I was in school I remember noticing that damn near everybody in most of my classes had a laptop to take notes on. I think it'd be really sweet and super handy if we set up a website where we could all easily share our notes and the other course materials we make. There are some companies doing something similar, but none that are free and use creative commons licensing. I think this a cool opportunity to experiment with the free culture philosophy in education, and we could actually end up making a difference in the way people learn. I found that in school I learned just as much from my peers as I did from my professors, and this could be a good tool for facilitating and enhancing that aspect of peer to peer learning. There are some pros and cons to this idea: Pros: - Utility! People would be able to come to class more prepared and be able to learn from the notes of others as well as their own. - Display scholarship! Our handsome friend Parker has suggested that perhaps it could be used to highlight good scholarship, to display papers we are proud of. It would be cool to share them with each other and comment on their content. - Novelty! I'd love to be able to see the coursework and notes that people in other majors take, simply for my own curiosity. - Promote SFC! I can't think of anything that would bring in more members than a useful, public service. - $$$ for SFC: If it became popular enough, perhaps we could slap up some ads and bring in a little cash to the organization. Potential Cons: - Plagiarism/Cheating: This is going to be a difficult issue. Some people may abuse the service to simply copy and paste other people's work. While I think that outright plagarism is a really bad bad thing, I don't think there's anything wrong with remixing somebody else's ideas and learning about what makes a good paper and what makes a bad paper. In fact, this is really the whole heart of our organization, right? - Copyright: Some teachers may object to having their courses 'notesified' and uploaded public consumption. IANAL, but I believe I remember the supreme court (or perhaps is was the supreme court of Florida (??)) ruling that a students' notes are their own property. This could be a good way to test that ruling. (Legally, I think we'd be okay thanks to the DMCA safe harbor). - Damaging our relationship with professors: Parker has been having success promoting OpenCourseware at Dartmouth and affords much of the success to friendliness, handsomeness and cooperation with professors. This idea may be too subversive and could damage rapport for members who want to establish these ties. What do you guys think? Would you use this service? Would you be willing to upload your own notes to it? I've learned Django recently and I'm pretty sure we could whip up a prototype in a couple of days. (Also!: Please join fc-hackers ( http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fc-hackers ) if you are interested in developing this or any other FC ideas.) Thanks! Rich
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