[Oer-community] Introduction to the discussion

Theo Lynn theo.lynn at dcu.ie
Thu Oct 7 13:17:20 MDT 2010


For what its worth, I agree that there is no point in reinventing the  
wheel if an acceptable solution i.e. Creative Commons exists.

I think peer review also has difficulties as if the content is truly  
open, it may be adapted and reversioned over and over again - peer  
review may cause all kinds of unanticipated outcomes and may act as a  
barrier for people to contribute. A more appropriate response may be  
an agreed technology-managed user rating system similar to tripadvisor  
etc. Over time cream may rise to the top, but rating systems do help...



________________
Dr. Theo Lynn
Director, Industry Engagement, DCU Business School
Director, DCU Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre

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On 7 Oct 2010, at 00:10, Tim Cook wrote:

> On Mon, 2010-10-04 at 07:20 -0400, Susan D'Antoni wrote:
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> Welcome to the first interaction in our OER Community from Athabasca
>> University.
>
> Hi All,
>
> I am new to this group but not to open content / open source.
>
> I have been watching the email traffic the past few days and it is  
> very
> interesting.  I hope I can contribute some of my experience that may
> help with the issues being raised. Since there are so many good  
> ideas in
> this thread.  I have decided to just comment in general and to not  
> reply
> directly to any individual email.
>
> My comments are from and information systems point of view.  So they  
> are
> not directly inline with "teaching" but I see many similarities as far
> as open content is concerned.
>
> Sustainability:
> This is a crucial issue.  If the program is not sustainable then there
> is no point; correct?
>
> One writer has contributed links to and requested more information  
> about
> case studies on the value of openness.  The world of software has a
> plethora of examples.  Probably the most recognizable is the operating
> system, Linux. However, there is an enormous number of applications  
> that
> exist for the common good, that are created by a global community in
> self organizing groups.  I  will write up a short white paper on  
> this if
> you wish.
>
> Away from software and closer to the goals of OER; is Wikipedia.  I am
> not recommending the exact model of Wikipedia as one for OER.  But
> collaboration in a controlled environment reduces costs on individuals
> and organizations by spreading that cost around. Again, there are many
> examples of self organizing groups with moderate control that come
> together to create and share valuable content.
>
> Licensing:
> Protecting and promoting original authors of all content should be of
> the utmost importance.  The most extreme way is to not share it at  
> all.
> This is not very helpful in a promotional sense nor in a value sense.
>
> The next best way is to use a license structure that is  
> internationally
> recognized and offers re-use as well as original author protections.
> The various Creative Commons licenses are designed for this purpose.
> Specifically, an author can elect to share content with everyone.
> Permitting re-use, additions, etc.  as well as maybe preventing
> commercial gain by others and requiring additions to be submitted back
> for inclusion in newer editions. Since these licenses are well
> established it should not be difficult to get approval through legal
> departments where some academics may be required as part of their
> contracts.
>
> Interoperability/shareability:
> Common standards or specifications should be used where available in
> order to promote ease of use. For example; when creating content the
> Scholarly Works Application Profile
> http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/SWAP provides for
> consistent meta-data formats in order to increase discover-ability. In
> turn, SWAP is based on the commonly used Dublin Core Meta-data
> Initiative.
>
> In cases of meta-data exchanges there is the Statistical Data Meta- 
> data
> eXchange specification (SDMX) http://www.sdmx.org  There are a  
> number of
> subsets being developed specifically for aggregating purposes.  My
> research group is working with the World Health Organization on the  
> SDMX
> Health Domain (SDMX-HD) http://sdmx-hd.org/ implementation.
>
> Well, I started this email this morning and just now returned to  
> find 26
> new emails.  That is great activity even if many were about properly
> using mailing lists. Email is easy, lightweight, easy to sort and view
> in different ways and used everywhere.  If your inbox is overflowing  
> you
> should learn how to use mail filtering on your client. If you want to
> unsubscribe  read the footer.  It is there for a reason. Just my 2
> cents :)
>
> Now back to the issues before us.  While following these  
> specifications
> may seem to be a lot of extra work.  The reality is that if we ever  
> plan
> to get beyond a flat WWW, we have to do the work.  The work that this
> group is proposing will yield artifacts that will likely last for
> centuries. While we do not have a real crystal ball to see the future.
> We do know the errors of our recent past.  Meta-data is one answer.
> More are coming. It appears to me that there has been a hardworking  
> core
> group at this for quite some time.  The time is likely ripe for
> expansion for a number of reasons; technological and social.  Do the
> best we can from the start and it is easier to establish norms than
> after several hundred or thousands are participating.
>
> Stephen Carson pointed out and identified visions for OER in his email
> dated 10/06/2010 09:37:16 AM
>
> Those different visions are actually fully compatible.  Again we can
> look at how software is being developed globally by an adhoc group.   
> The
> first issue is trust.  The software groups have various methods in  
> place
> in order to judge the trust level of an individual.  They generally
> consist of a history of contributions via mailing lists that allow the
> community to judge the persons subject knowledge and their desire to
> participate.  Versioning software is used to house the artifacts.   
> This
> software provides a means to allow those with permission to update
> certain files. Non-repudiation is maintained by virtue of a public key
> pair where only the author knows the passphrase. Even at this level  
> you
> could have a person become malicious.  In that event it is easy enough
> to roll back the changes to a known point.  The most popular open  
> source
> version control systems are BZR, GIT and SVN.  BZR and GIT are  
> probably
> most appropriate in this context.
>
> This comes down to the matter once again of specifications.  IMHO,  
> each
> primary author becomes a defacto project manager for their document.
> They of course can choose which format they wish to use.  However I
> would recommend something that is an ISO standard.  This could be the
> OpenOffice Document format (ISO Standard) which is open source and  
> cross
> platform software and is very similar to MS Office from a user
> perspective.  But for better long term flexibility using LaTex format
> may be best.  The LyX editor is also open source and cross  
> platform.  It
> does take a bit of getting used to but it takes the stance that once  
> you
> have a template.  The content creators only need to select the type of
> content they are entering; e.g. header, chapter title, regular text...
> They never have to worry about any formatting.  If you have ever
> exchanged MS Word documents between a large group you have experienced
> the constant reformatting issues as well as not everyone having the  
> same
> fonts, etc.
>
> I'll close with something I have already seen on this list. Remember
> that the goal is to be as inclusive as possible.  This sometimes means
> that you or I need to step slightly out of our comfort zone.  But we
> will usually learn something in the process; and that is always a good
> thing.
>
> Cheers,
> Tim
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> ***************************************************************
> Timothy Cook, MSc
> Project Lead - Multi-Level Healthcare Information Modeling
> http://www.mlhim.org
>
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> Skype ID == timothy.cook
> Academic.Edu Profile: http://uff.academia.edu/TimothyCook
>
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>
>
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