[Oer-community] Introduction to the discussion

Tue Oct 5 13:02:12 MDT 2010

Hello to all,

Stealing from other ideas still goes on, just have a look at recent
information about Facebook.com and its origins. However, Mark Zuckerburg,
like Mozart, was able to put his "borrowed" ideas down on paper, or
internet, first and in Mark's case file a patent. Similar situations arose
with the instance of Bill Gates and Microsoft versus Steve Jobs and Apple.

Working on finishing Non-Profit status on educational development; putting
together an erector set of established practices. Forever, optimistic and
moving forward.

The danger is inaction ... Taking Action is gratitude in the making ..

Thank you for your comments and insight,

Jennie
http://the3rdgoal.org
skype: jennie.lou.lawrence
email: jennie at the3rdgoal.org
phone: +1 703 666 8381

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 1:35 PM, Chris Yapp <chris_yapp at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

>  The danger is to get into precise detail before having an agreed
> narrative. Let me explain.
>
>
>
> I have long believed that if Mozart was alive today he would spend most of
> his life in court on plagiarism charges for stealing IPR from salieri et al.
>
>
>
> In mediaeval times in Europe there were no defined tunes or lyrics for most
> folk music. Troubadours built their reputation and skill by building on and
> extending familiar works. They generated reputation and income by
> performance. It was a world in which there were no defined  “texts”
>
>
>
> It seems to me that we are living in that world again with educational
> resources.
>
>
>
> My belief is that i want educational troubadours in the e-world who will
> acknowledge, value and build on others efforts to the mutual economic,
> social and educational benefits of the many.
>
>
>
> Too often the debate ends up as sterile bits and pieces around minority
> languages, IPR, institutional goals etc.
>
>
>
> All of these are important. The devil as always is in the detail. Can i ask
> us to lift our head from the sand for a while and share what the world looks
> like in which OER is central to the goal.
>
> I’m waiting for that Martin luther king moment  “i have a dream” that will
> sustain a movement to tackle what might feel like insuperable barriers.
>
>
>
> This is too important a debate to get bogged down in technical niceties
> without clear communicable goals.
>
>
>
> Be brave...
>
>
>
> Chris Yapp
>
>
>
> 90 High Street
>
> Wheatley
>
> Oxfordshire
>
> OX33 1XP
>
>
>
> Mob 07777 667786
>
> Home: 01865 874866
>
> Skype: cgyapp
>
> Blog: http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConBlog.20
>
> Twitter:  @chris_yapp
>
>
>
> *From:* oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca [mailto:
> oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca] *On Behalf Of *rory
> *Sent:* 05 October 2010 4:55 PM
>
> *To:* oer-community at athabascau.ca
> *Subject:* Re: [Oer-community] Introduction to the discussion
>
>
>
> Paul, et al.
>
> I did not see this in the same way as you. I saw "in the place of current
> expenditures" more about external spending than internal. We can replace the
> payments to publishers and licensing fees of our libraries by using OERs.
> Then it is no longer zero sum. Internally, I would support (in our context)
> diverting internal money also from printing and mailing to online access to
> resources. Of course robbing Peter to pay Paul does not always work as you
> note below and we should be careful not to penalize  other productive areas
> of the institution, so I do not disagree there.
>
> I also would like to respectfully suggest a change in your statement:
> "Think of sustainability not in terms of money, but rather in terms of
> impact that is wholly positive"
> To
> "Think of sustainability not JUST in terms of money, but rather in terms of
> impact that is wholly positive"
> I would suggest that anyone who is not looking at the financial
> implications of sustainability(as well as other factors) is not being
> systematic. Financial considerations need not rule everything, but that does
> not mean that they are unimportant and should not be considered.
>
> All the best.
> Rory
>
>  Rory McGreal
>
> Associate VP Research
>
> Athabasca University
>
>
>
>
>  Dear Susan, all
>
>
>
> It's great to see this discussion starting. Thank you for circulating the
> briefing document (10 10 OER Community-OCWC.doc), which mention three
> sub-themes:
>
>
>
> 1. Building OpenCourseWare
>
> 2. Using OpenCourseWare
>
> 3. Sustaining OpenCourseWare
>
>
>
> Sub-theme 3 states the importance of strategies for long-term
> sustainability of OCW/OER projects. It says "...think of sustainability not
> in terms of money, but rather in terms of impact." Fine. Then I begin to
> worry, because it says "...investments will come IN THE PLACE OF other
> current expenditures." (my emphasis). "In the place of" sounds like
> diverting funding from one area to another area. To me, that seems like a
> zero-sum game. In my view we don't need to make the assumption that our
> options are limited to what we can do within overall institutional budgets,
> and we don't have to decide on what to allocate to OCW/OER at the expense of
> other activities. Diverting funding is potentially very divisive: imagine
> for example that the "current expenditures" at risk of being diverted to
> OCW/OER are for social justice programs that have lower impact than OCW/OER
> on impact measure A, but higher impact than OCW/OER on impact measure B, and
> that we pay attention only to measure A and use that to justify shifting
> funds. Sounds fine? Not for me. I'd want to know how to protect people
> affected by the cuts. They might include people who are surely important to
> any caring institution, such as the disabled, minority groups, and
> historically-disadvantaged groups such as women.
>
>
>
> There is a better way, in my view: create wealth in socially-desirable ways
> (= benefits to society as a whole, rather than the few), using OCW/OER where
> appropriate, and direct a proportion of the new wealth to augment the total
> budget available for social justice interventions including OCW/OER.
>
>
>
> This is not fanciful. It requires liaison with people in other communities,
> likely to be well-disposed to OCW/OER. An example is the Open Science
> community, see eg an open-access book from the National Academies Press,
> "Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest" [acronym:
> MUIPPI], http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13001<http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=1300>
>
>
>
> The MUIPPI book is representative of a body of well-informed work on how
> society as a whole, as well as individual public institutions, can benefit
> from a systemic (and systematic) approach to sharing and using innovations.
> I shall be contributing to that process in various multi-partner
> international projects, one of which has just begun. Our commitment to our
> funders (public bodies) includes interoperability with other programs, eg
> OCW/OER, and sharing our findings, insights, contacts etc in open ways that
> have the potential to create societal wealth at a significant level without
> harming weak groups in society, and, as part of that, can help individual
> learners and their communities to get lasting benefits, valued by them, from
> the knowledge created and shared in joint work such as OCW/OER.
>
>
>
> My conclusion: I would be delighted to collaborate with anyone who wants to
> explore projects that implicitly assume a subtext to sub-theme 3 in the
> following direction:
>
>
>
> Think of sustainability not in terms of money, but rather in terms of
> impact that is wholly positive (eg, new forms of wealth creation, compatible
> with the public-interest). Take action in an integrated way: link OER and
> OCW to forms of Open Innovation and Open Knowledge Sharing that benefit
> society as a whole (eg, socially-focused exploitation of publicly-funded
> intellectual property, to create new sources of wealth for the world) and
> that can lead to socially-desirable outcomes (eg, creating new types of job,
> and making students more employable by helping them to apply what they learn
> via OER and OCW, to bridge the "knowledge-action gap").
>
>
>
> Best wishes
>
>
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
> --
> The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt
> charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
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>
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>
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>
>
>
>  --
>
> Rory McGreal
>
> Associate VP Research
>
> Athabasca University
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>

-- 
Jennie
founding manager
http://the3rdgoal.org
Skype ID: jennie.lou.lawrence
Phone No: +1 703 666 8381
Email: jennie at the3rdgoal.org
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