Nov 05, 2009

Committee for Economic Development; Committee for Economic Development Digital Connections Council;

Colleges and universities should embrace the concept of increased openness in the use and sharing of information to improve higher education. That is the core recommendation of this report. The report was produced by CED's Digital Connections Council (DCC), a group of information technology experts that advises CED's business leaders on cutting-edge technologies.

Oct 05, 2009

Creative Commons; ccLearn;

Open Educational Resources (OER) are defined by the use of a Creative Commons license and are generally created by those who would like to share their work globally. However, some creators find the need to consider the costs and benefits of incorporating third-party materials with incompatible licenses into their "otherwise open" OER. This document recommends ways of managing or avoiding the problems that will arise.

Oct 05, 2009

Creative Commons; ccLearn;

This document gives a brief overview of Creative Commons license compatibility for the purposes of remixing OER.

Sep 01, 2009

Creative Commons; ccLearn;

This paper seeks to provide an overview of the problem posed by the incorporation of materials protected by all-rights-reserved copyright, or that are not legally compatible with the copyright terms of materials offered to users, into otherwise open educational resources. This paper also describes a number of approaches to resolving this issue, including the reliance on jurisdictional copyright exceptions and limitations, and explores the trade-offs involved in adopting any one of these approaches. This paper also suggests areas for further empirical research into these issues.

Jul 17, 2009

Creative Commons;

Users of search tools who seek educational materials on the Internet are typically presented with either a web-scale search (e.g., Google or Yahoo) or a specialized, site-specific tool. The specialized search tools often rely upon custom data fields, such as user-entered ratings, to provide additional value. As currently designed, these systems are generally too labor intensive to manage and scale up beyond a single site or set of resources. However, custom (or structured) data of some form is necessary if search outcomes for educational materials are to be improved. For example, design criteria and evaluative metrics are crucial attributes for educational resources, and these currently require human labeling and verification. Thus, one challenge is to design a search tool that capitalizes on available structured data (also called metadata) but is not crippled if the data are missing. This information should be amenable to repurposing by anyone, which means that it must be archived in a manner that can be discovered and leveraged easily. In this paper, we describe the extent to which DiscoverEd, a prototype developed by ccLearn, meets the design challenge of a scalable, enhanced search platform for educational resources. We then explore some of the key challenges regarding enhanced search for topic-specific Internet resources generally. We conclude by illustrating some possible future developments and third-party enhancements to the DiscoverEd prototype.

Mar 09, 2009

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO);

Education systems today face two major challenges: expanding the reach of education and improving its quality. Traditional solutions will not suffice, especially in the context of today's knowledge-intensive societies. The goal of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement is to equalize access to knowledge worldwide through openly and freely available online high quality content. UNESCO has contributed to building awareness about this movement by facilitating an extended conversation in cyberspace. Over a two-year period, a large and diverse international community discussed the concept and potential of OER in a series of online forums. The background papers and reports are now available in print. Open Educational Resources: Conversations in Cyberspace provides an overview of the first steps of this exciting new development: it captures the conversations between leaders of some of the first OER projects, and documents early debates on the issues that continue to challenge the movement. The publication will provide food for thought for all those intrigued by OER -its promise and its progress. Open Educational Resources: Conversations in Cyberspace is UNESCO's first openly licensed publication - an indication of the commitment of the Organization to the sharing of knowledge and the free flow of ideas.

Dec 18, 2008

Creative Commons; ccLearn;

What makes an educational resource "open"? Is it enough that resources are available on the World Wide Web free of charge, or does openness require something more?" These questions have become more urgent as the open education movement has gained momentum and as potential users of open educational resources (OERs) increasingly face uncertainty about whether permission is required when they translate, reuse, adapt, or simply republish the resources they find. With the support of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, ccLearn surveyed the copyright licensing policies of several hundred educational projects or organizations on the Internet to assess whether these legal conditions limit the usefulness of self-designated open resources from the user's perspective. The study reveals three principal findings: The copyright licenses or terms of use associated with some OERs are difficult to find or to understand;The majority of OER projects or organizations have adopted a standardized license created by an independent license provider, and of these, the large majority have adopted one or more of the six Creative Commons copyright licenses ("CC licenses") to define the terms of openness. But, a sizable minority of OER providers have chosen to craft their own license -- often borrowing terms from one of the standardized licenses. Thus, as a group, OER providers have adopted a diverse, and often customized, set of license conditions that in some cases require significant work by users to understand;The usefulness of OERs as a group is limited by incompatible license conditions that functionally prohibit combination or adaptation of OERs provided by different sources. This report concludes with a recommendation that creators of open educational resources consider using CC licenses to provide users with readily found, standardized terms of use. It recommends further that OER creators consider adopting the most open of CC licenses, the Attribution-only License (CC BY), to nourish the creativity of educators and learners alike by allowing the adaptation, combination, and republication of OERs from multiple sources.

Oct 01, 2008

Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education;

Through interviews with the Curriki management team, analysis of internal documents, observations of internal user data collection practices, and a survey and interviews with Curriki users, the Curriki case study explored use patterns and user perceptions of the site, its resources and tools. The specific questions addressed include: 1) how often and why users are coming to Curriki; 2) how they use and engage around the Curriki site, its tools and its resources; and 3) what factors help or hinder engagement and use. The goal of this case study has been to develop an understanding of the mechanisms and processes that can help to attract and sustain users over time, and to facilitate and enhance their use, reuse and content contribution experiences.