Blog Juice for Educational Technology

The Georgia Tech Library is running the following notice

Because of recent problems with systematic downloading of IEEE and ASCE journal articles that resulted in the suspension of our access, the Library has implemented downloading limits. We will continue to monitor this situation. Please note that downloading entire collections of data or entire issues of a journal or conference is a violation of copyright law and a violation of Georgia Tech’s licenses with publishers.

Yet another reason why we need open content. Subscription prices are rising at a rapid pace. Every university I’ve been at has sent out “surveys” to find out which journals we “really” need because costs are outstripping budgets. Now we get “downloading limits” with no specifics about those limits. What if I’m interested in an entire special issue? Do these “downloading limits” mean I can only see one article per day? Per week? Per month? Soon to come, printing limits, time limits on how long one can read an article–already in use via NetLibrary, and perhaps even citation limits. Digital collections are great, but not when they come with high prices and restrictions. It appears the Georgia Tech Library is only borrowing the journals.

The Georgia Tech Library is running the following notice

Because of recent problems with systematic downloading of IEEE and ASCE journal articles that resulted in the suspension of our access, the Library has implemented downloading limits. We will continue to monitor this situation. Please note that downloading entire collections of data or entire issues of a journal or conference is a violation of copyright law and a violation of Georgia Tech’s licenses with publishers.

Yet another reason why we need open content. Subscription prices are rising at a rapid pace. Every university I’ve been at has sent out “surveys” to find out which journals we “really” need because costs are outstripping budgets. Now we get “downloading limits” with no specifics about those limits. What if I’m interested in an entire special issue? Do these “downloading limits” mean I can only see one article per day? Per week? Per month? Soon to come, printing limits, time limits on how long one can read an article–already in use via NetLibrary, and perhaps even citation limits. Digital collections are great, but not when they come with high prices and restrictions. It appears the Georgia Tech Library is only borrowing the journals.

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Good news for those of us supporting MIT’s OpenCourseWare project–it turns five today. It’s good to see the project doing so well, and even maddening to think how long it’s taking other universities to follow behind the trail MIT is blazing here. Of course, if you dig deeply into the site, you’ll notice that not all these “courses” are very informative. Some consist of merely a course description and some project assignments. Still, the groundwork has been laid for a major contribution to pub

There’s an interesting link on Boing Boing today to this Photoshopping Contest for remixing WWII propaganda posters. Some of the entries are funny, some profound, some offensive, and others just plain silly. At any rate, it’s grist for viz rhet. I can’t help but think how fun it’d be to give an assignment like this to a class. Only trouble is, I don’t know Photoshop. Hmm…

The Center for American Progress has a proposal for granting individuals a tax credit for work done on open source projects, up to “20 percent of [. . .] out-of-pocket costs.” Corporations and self-employed folks can already write off their expenses, but this proposal would allow the “hobbyist” to do the same. While the proposal does talk a bit about the cultural and social benefits of open source, the manin trust is on the economic benefits of open source.

[It] enhances the development and dissemination of knowledge and ideas more broadly. Since the benefits to the broader software development community and the economy as a whole go well beyond the users of an individual software product, a policy that subsidizes open source development would increase economic efficiency.

Kim White, my colleague at The Institute for the Future of the Book, just posted on our blog a small informal case study of the “collaboration of the month” textbook featured at Wikibooks — a spin-off project of Wikipedia developing open-content textbooks. Worth taking a look.

(We’re keeping Wikibooks in the corner of our eye as we continue developing our own digital textbook project next\text.)

1. Write a craptacular draft full of factual errors, incredible sources, and grammatical/mechanical mistakes.
2. Post it to Wikipedia.
3. Wait a few days and let the community clean it up for you.
4. Turn it in!

The open source development model at work, so the article says. Maybe something we can address in the Caucus come March.

Via Lifehacker.

http://news.com.com/Wikibooks+takes+on+textbook+industry/2100-1025_3-5884291.html?tag=sas.email leads to a CNET news article by Daniel Terdiman on the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects to create “a comprehensive, kindergarten-to-college curriculum of textbooks that are free and freely distributable, based on an open-source development model.”

I’m really excited by this. As one who works in publishing, what this is really about isn’t replacing publishers, but changing how we use our core skill sets. Textbook publishing has always been about providing pedagogical tools. Wikibooks won’t replace entirely the pedagogical tool known as a textbook, but they can offer new ways to think about pedagogical tools.

Yippee! It’s about time:

The state of Massachusetts Friday made it official: It will use only nonproprietary document formats in state-affiliated offices effective Jan. 1, 2007. . . . As part of this new policy, the state will support the newly ratified Open Document Format for Office Applications, or OpenDocument, and PDFs (portable document format) as the standards for its office documents.

Yes. Only a techie writing teacher could get excited by government adoption of an open document format. But this is a big deal

Dear Kairos Readers,

The Institute for the Future of the Book is pleased to announce the launch of next\text, a new project designed to encourage the creation of born-digital learning materials that will enhance, expand, and ultimately replace the printed textbook.

There are two stages to the next\text project. The first is a curated website showcasing significant projects currently in the field. The aim is to draw attention to a broad range of experiments that identify ways in which digital media and networks are expanding the potential of textbooks, redefining the role of teacher and student, and converging to create new ecologies for educational institutions. These areas include, but are in no way limited to: “expanded” multimedia textbooks; “open-source” textbooks continually improved by teachers and students; dynamic, networked textbooks with live or regularly updating components; collaborative work spaces; and multi-user games.

Open Access News notes this story from Google Blog about a father who was able to prevent an unnecessary, extremely dangerous medical procedure on his two week old newborn son. The boy had been brought to an ER with extremely low hemoglobin. When the doctor recommended the emergency procedure, the father quickly searched using Google via his mobile phone and found an OA article which indicated that the low hemoglobin, while rare, would likely reverse itself.

While it is unlikely that OA in the field of Computers and Writing would ever have this life saving result, this story well represents why OA is more than just a publishing practice; it’s an example of the importance of making scholarly knowledge publicly available. OA is just the right thing to do. Why do academics continue to do the wrong thing?

Adrian K. Ho and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. have made available online a pre-print of their article“Open Access Webliography” (Reference Services Review 33.3 (2005): 346-364).

From the abstract:

The paper aims to present a wide range of useful freely available internet resources (e.g. directories, e-journals, FAQs, mailing lists, and weblogs) that allow the reader to investigate the major aspects of the important open access (OA) movement. Design/methodology/approach - The internet resources included in this webliography were identified during the course of one of the authors writing the Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-prints and Open Access Journals. The authors evaluated, selected, categorized, and annotated these resources to construct this webliography, which complements the bibliography. Findings - The most useful resources have been annotated and organized into webliography sections. For example, the “Starting Points”, “Debates”, and “General Information” sections list resources that orient the reader to OA and the issues involved. The different “Directories (and Guides)” sections alert the reader to useful finding aids on relevant subjects. Originality/value - This webliography provides easy access to the most relevant internet resources for understanding and practicing OA. It affirms the significance of OA in scholarly communication, and it identifies the key parties involved in and/or contributing to the OA movement.

Wikipedia, like the Los Angeles Times “Open Ed”, New York Review of Books “User Notes”, and other “open” editorial forums meant for peer editing and corrections, is now a frequent victim of vandals. The end result of this is a move to end, close, or limit user interactions.

This same thing is happening with some Open Source projects, after some “contributions” turned out to include intentional buffer errors or other security issues. In any open society…

From Reuters, 5-Aug-2005:

Wikipedia plans to impose stricter editorial rules to prevent vandalism of its content, founder Jimmy Wales was quoted as saying Friday.

In an interview with German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, Wales, who launched Wikipedia with partner Larry Sanger in 2001, said it needed to find a balance between protecting information from abuse and providing open access to improve entries.

Citing a recent example of vandalism, Wales recalled how following the election of the new Pope Benedict in April, a user substituted the pontiff’s photo on the Wikipedia site with that of the evil emperor from the “Star Wars” film series.