Comments on week 6 hangout

[Ida Brandão]

I have made some comments on the discussion held in last hangout (Week 6) in the cloud - http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/8084 - that I decided to replicate here:

 

I usually watch OLDS MOOC hangouts asynchronously, since they occur in working hours, and the technical conditions are better at home in the evening.

The discussions about OER, openly licenced material and copyright issues are never conclusive. As was refered by Marion there's much ambiguity about rights and a grey area where we can find materials in the Internet that have no licence but were meant to be shared and used.

Prof. Reeves himself stated that he's been made available materials for his students since 1993, without expressing any licence because the assumption is that students and other users may use and profit from them.

David Wiley says that the concept «open» translates «generosity». In the context of teaching learning relationships, I see no reason to be so eager about property rights. For each learning object  we produce how much have we borrowed from others?

I quite agree with David White when he says that for centuries teachers have been teaching without worrying with licences, rather on the quality of contents and tools and that the Internet was created for sharing and distributing- That's the original spirit of Internet, not to sue people for using things.

I also agree that the benefits of using good material available on the Internet are greater than the risks, I'd rather focus on ethical terms of use and acknowledgment of source. But the context is also important -  personal use versus institutional use.

That doesn't mean we should be naive and not be aware of certains risks.

I remember many years ago we've promoted the awarding of educational software (Ministry) and gave some incentives to publishers to distribute these products, in an attempt to open up this «niche market». We had awarded an interactive application with pedagogical exercises that were based on a school manual of portuguese language subject. It turned out that the author of the book didn't allow the publication of the software.

This was my first confrontation with copyright issues. From a legal point of view there was no solution, but I still find today this attitude morally reproachable  because the teachers that programmed the software added value to the original work and were promoting it as well. However, you can find endless arguments for each side.

Copyright law is a very complex issue and it's better to stay away from law enforcement. Discussions are going on in Europe with Authors Guilds and Associations pushing for more control.

When giants are involved we don't want to be in the middle, like the recent legal discussions of Google and contents producers, and so on. Whenever commercial interests and money are involved things get uglier. 

 I'm hopeful in the future that an open mind and sensible view about «opening up education and resources» shall prevail for the benefit of the world and us all.

[Apostolos Koutropoulos]

I enjoyed reading you summary, and it comes up with a few things that I've said over the years regarding openness and OER.

One thing that comes to mind, and I wanted to point out deals with educators asserting copyright (and not opening up) their intellectual contributions. I've met a lot of adjunct faculty (faculty with no long term contracts and no tenure. They are generally hired on a per-course basis and have little or no job security) that have created some really amazing materials, but they guard it like Coca Cola guards their recipe :) In all honesty I think they should open source their materials - HOWEVER - I do see their point.  They have generally created these materials on their own time, and because they love what they do.  Students do say good things about the materials these instructors create, so in a sense instructors view this as their competitive advantage. In addition to their great teaching skills, they have also created materials that are not available elsewhere.  If they release it as OER they don't benefit, and the fear is that they might lose that competitive advantage they have.  Since these people don't have job security, idealism isn't always at the top of their list.

I would say that we (as organizations) need to address this issue as well. I know that this is the case in the US, but I don't know what happens elsewhere :)

AK

2013/2/20 Ida Brandão <ida.m....@gmail.com>

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