Dear Wayne,

Thanks with your patience. This is the last long rave from me. The
next ones will be about scoping a (sustainable) proof-of-concept
project for funding, to address "some challenges". Call them "Grand
Challenges". See slide 7 of Jan Bakker's  presentation at this
European Network manager's meeting. 
http://www.terena.org/activities/tf-msp/meetings/20110301/

Jan works for a subsidiary of the surffoundation. It seems to be, on a
National basis, what you will be aiming for on a Global one with the
OER foundation. I need to clarify my thinking a bit more, so bear with
me.

I'm a little lost as to why you might feel, after recording an event
or blogging a conference, there would be any reason to "assert
copyright". If, as one example, Sir John were simply to open a blog
with a cc license, as many lecturers do, and attach all his
presentation materials, there would no reason for us to even be having
this conversation. You'd just point, directly, after and before
events, to the horse's mouth.

Admittedly, I am no lawyer, although I have worked in most positions
of the "professional media". OERers are trying to encourage "Creative
Commons by default". Surely this is a governmental exercise, not one
for universities. All they can do is hope that, as an instrument of A
government, the laws may be changed in their jurisdiction.

I'm just looking through the list of governments who have enabled this
legislation (after Googling "creative common by default"). It's a nice
evolution to watch. But Governments just confirm (eventually) what
their institutional members are thinking or/and doing. Policy (change)
follows Practice; not vice versa. No?

In practical terms, policy won't change the habits of (E.g.)
Institutional librarians to pay hundreds of millions of dollars per
year to buy back the aggregations of their (research) authors from
third party publishers. Nor does it stop Institutional librarians
taking money from their National governments, at different times, to
try and aggregate "their" author's materials on the same basis as "the
third party" publishers. Most countries can boast this kind of
stillborn attempt at progress = http://www.arrow.edu.au/ They die
because the projects are National.

In "the learning part of the equation", the problem unis have is they
are Nationally-centric/funded institutions in a Globalizing world. We
also know the progressives within them, like P2P, OCWC, WE, etc, are
pushing their National envelopes into the Global space and searching
for a sustainable business model. So surely, if "professional
educators" are attempting to "add value" in this global space, we
could encourage more progress by helping our old National institutions
learn how to solve their (own) aggregation/dissemination problem. (As
Jan Bakker suggests).

The talk in the uni's network managers' space is reaching towards a
new networking model - we can call it Federated Sign On (to a) Cloud.
This means that the WE's of the world will log on to their country's
institutional networks (NREN) as members of various global groups;
whose member institutions share reciprocal rights and apps (which are
called "common services" by their techs). It is to "common services"
what the wiki model is to "common content".

The two developments are now beginning to focus on the need for a
"common directory". And just reading through this thread,
http://groups.google.com/group/oer-university/browse_thread/thread/ce0658f1954e59fa#,
it's pretty clear that this directory will be pointing to online
environments which have global groups of "subject-matter experts" at
their core.

The economics of OER are obvious. As you say "If ten institutions
collaborate on this course development using existing OER and filling
the gaps, it is cheaper than doing this alone". So you can imagine how
surprised I was to see Sarah Stewart trying to come to terms with a
"sustainability model". She hasn't a global team to work with that can
support development of the "whole program". I would have thought that,
after the Dunedin meeting, Sarah would have been introduced to her
peers at the "anchor institutions", so they could figure out on what
basis they would share the load, in growing an online community,
developing/sharing the courseware & recognizing institutional
credentials. (or issuing consortia credentials).

OK. Enough. I have a meeting next week with aarnet's technical and
apps manager. We'll be talking through how global NREN groups can
share this tool for no cost. http://vivu.tv/vivuweb/products/vucast/
Aarnet have a development relationship with vivu, which has legs as
long as we can get a few other NRENs involved. So if you could list
the countries in the OERU camp, on this thread (or point to it), at
the moment that would be great. India would be an important one as
vivu has an Indian node, and the developing world has different
needs.

Hopefully, we'll find out how the informal (Global) and formal
(National) institutions come together and coalesce.
My best, simon







On Mar 17, 1:07 pm, Wayne Mackintosh <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Hi Simon,
>
>
> However, the matter is not as simple as filming a conference presentation
> and asserting copyright on the recording. In many civil law countries, there
> is not necessarily a requirement for the creative work to be in a fixed
> format. In these countries, copyright protection will take place from the
> moment the performance is given, defaults to all rights reserved and
> therefore legally cannot filmed in a way where the person pointing the
> camera gets copyright. Typically the professional media are afforded certain
> privileges when reporting live events in their respective national copyright
> legislations.
>
> The problem we have in a digital age is that there is no requirement to
> assert copyright and it defaults to all rights reserved. In a digital age,
> the scenario should be reversed - -eg the default should be public domain,
> but if you want to assert copyright, you would be required to do so. We
> don't have this -- hence the work of projects like WE, OERu etc.
>
> I'm not sure that many universities would necessarily agree with your
> assertions that they are all about teaching. Many institutions invest
> considerable time, energy and dollars into the learning part of the
> equation. While there are many opportunities to learn on the open web -- a
> university credential still carries token value by society and the economy.
> It gets people real jobs in the real world.
>
> That's not to say the folk don't learn in "informal" settings. For example,
> the best free software coders out there have earned their stripes through a
> system of meritocracy in their respective communities. There are many
> exciting learning projects like the DIY U and P2PU projects which are
> pushing the envelope. This must be encouraged because it adds considerable
> value to the OER ecosystem.
>
> However the focus of WE, the OER Foundation, the OERu is to see how we in
> the formal sector can add value to this evolving ecosystem. WE must
> recognise our limitations and core competencies. WE are predominantly a
> formal education sector initiative  working in the OER space. That's what we
> do well and where we focus our energies.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:13 PM, simonfj <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Thanks Wayne,
>
> > You know I'm not sure if you realize that you keep pointing at the
> > obvious problem every uni has; "sorry we don't control the IP of
> > external  publishers". It's not "external publishers" IP of course. It
> > belongs to the people who (in this case, are trying to encourage) unis
> > to "open their minds".
>
> > Uni researchers (in particular) must pay, via their institutional
> > librarians, to access the aggregations of publishers, which are, after
> > all, simply convenient databases of different unis' authors put
> > together on some global basis by a publisher. It's not as though (with
> > all the technology inside NRENs) they are necessary. Even the peer
> > review is usually done by an author's global mates. Publishers simply
> > take advantage of the unis' lack of imagination.
>
> > Anyone these days can open up any closed situation by taking a
> > handycam and computer (with wireless access) along, or even just blog
> > a conference. So WE know there's simply no need to have a reporter
> > between "the live" and "the report". That's why the commercial media
> > news comes to us via five global gateways these days. (AAP, Reuters,
> > Thomson, etc). It's the only profitable way of wrapping advertising
> > around "the content". (which is there to separate the ads) Publicly
> > funded media is just having a hard time reinventing itself.
>
> > Ultimately, WE all just want a place in fixed cyberspace (a url) where
> > we know "our disciplinary/subject specific mates get together for a
> > natter or a conference; where anything which is covered by a
> > particular global group can be streamed live as well as preserved for
> > the long term. And if WE do it sociably, the "space" is bound to
> > attract a global community of interest. QED = WE.  The need for a
> > directory is obvious. But professional curators and professional
> > network managers are simply too busy to actually concentrate "their"
> > users.
>
> > So let's admit to ourselves that this has nothing to do with  "unis
> > being open minded". Even if such a stupid comment could be understood
> > - unis don't think, the people inside them do - we already know that
> > they are open minded. WE prove that. The problem is simply that WE
> > don't aggregate "our content" on the basis of "our" global group. It's
> > still about trying to gain credibility by saying. "I come from xxx
> > institution." And new institution never begins like that.
> > N.B Where institution has this meaning.
> >http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/002154.html
>
> > WE should also keep in mind that many uni students, after they have
> > been handed a piece of paper by their uni, go back to their video
> > games and employment queue. The number is 40% in south europe, and
> > rising. Few have curricula which can keep up with the demand for new
> > skills and techniques. E.g. No uni runs a course for employment
> > network design. That's done by companies like Cisco who are
> > reinventing technology daily. So the old .edu institutions are
> > becoming less relevant.
>
> > From what I can see, very few edu institutions focus on "the
> > learning". It's all about "teaching" - and the two are opposite poles.
> > One's done in classroom, the other in a library. No guesses for which
> > one is (done in) which.
>
> > On Mar 15, 8:53 am, Wayne Mackintosh <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> > > Hi Everyone,
>
> > > More international coverage on the OER university.
>
> > > Following Sir John's keynote address in Sydney on 8 March where he
> > referred
> > > to the OER university <http://wikieducator.org/OER_university/Home> as
> > > making the original "examination only" concept look extremely modern and
> > a
> > > system that would reduce the cost of higher education dramatically (see:
> >http://www.col.org/resources/speeches/2011presentation/Pages/2011-03-...),
> > > the Campus Review, Australia has published the following article:
>
> > > Universities need to open minds on digital learning and
> > > teaching<
> >http://www.campusreview.com.au/pages/section/article.php?s=News&idArt...>
> > > .
>
> > > (Unfortunately to read the article -- you will need to register for a
> > free
> > > online trial of Campus Review -- sorry we don't control the IP of
> > external
> > > publishers.)
>
> > > Cheers
> > > Wayne
> > > --
> > > Wayne Mackintosh <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg>, Ph.D.
> > > Director OER Foundation <http://www.oerfoundation.org>
> > > Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> > > Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> > > Founder and elected Community Council Member,
> > > WikiEducator<http://www.wikieducator.org>
> > > Mobile+64 21 2436 380begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +64 21
> > 2436 380      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
> > > Skype: WGMNZ1
> > > Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/Mackiwg> |
> > > identi.ca<http://identi.ca/waynemackintosh>
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg>, Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation <http://www.oerfoundation.org>
> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Founder and elected Community Council Member,
> WikiEducator<http://www.wikieducator.org>
> Mobile+64 21 2436 380begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +64 21 2436 
> 380      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/Mackiwg> |
> identi.ca<http://identi.ca/waynemackintosh>

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