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Welcome to the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #143
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/03-02-10.htm
As Grants Run Out, Universities Pony Up Cash for OpenCourseWare
,----[ Quote ]
| First, a Brigham Young University study
| found that offering free online access to
| distance-education course materials doesn't
| hurt paid enrollment, giving a boost to
| those who think the best business model for
| publishing free content is one that dangles
| it as bait to draw in students for paid
| courses.
|
| Now many leaders in the world of open
| education -- a movement whose original
| projects were largely financed by
| foundation grants -- are ponying up their
| own cash to keep free courses thriving.
`----
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/As-Grants-Run-Out/21568/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Knol: The State of Play
,----[ Quote ]
| Less than six months later, Google proudly
| announced that the 100,000th knol had been
| published. The announcement was met with
| cries of âSo What?â. The media has a short
| attention span, and those who remembered
| the launch of Knol didnât think much of
| where it hand ended up. Slate magazine
| hadnât even waited that long before writing
| off Knol.
`----
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-03-03-n10.html
Swedish Museum Historiska Museet Adopts CC Licenses
,----[ Quote ]
| Earlier this week Swedish museum Historiska
| Museet announced the adoption of CC
| licenses for their digital catalog (Google
| translation here). Roughly 63,500 item
| photographs, 1200 illustrations, and
| 264,500 scanned catalog cards are now
| released, depending upon the medium, under
| our Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative
| Works license or Attribution-Noncommercial-
| Share Alike license.
`----
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/20922
Open Source Earth
,----[ Quote ]
| One of the main impulses behind this blog
| is looking at the ways the ideas behind
| free software are being applied in other
| areas. Another major focus is that of the
| commons in all its forms - all the way up
| to the ultimate commons, the environment.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/03/open-source-earth.html
Popular Science Puts Entire Scanned Archive Online, Free
,----[ Quote ]
| Gadget nerds: Prepare to lose the rest of
| your day to awesomeness. PopSci, the web-
| wing of Popular Science magazine, has
| scanned its entire 137-year archive and put
| it online for you to read, absolutely free.
| The archive, made available in partnership
| with Google Books, even has the original
| period advertisements.
`----
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/popular-science-puts-entire-scanned-archive-online-free/
Free ebooks correlated with increased print-book sales
,----[ Quote ]
| A new study from two academics at BYU
| tracking the sales of printed books
| following free ebook releases found that
| generally, a free ebook release is
| correlated with increased sales.
| Interestingly, the exception is for a group
| of ebooks that were released for a week and
| then withdrawn -- part of Tor.com's launch
| strategy, and a success in getting large
| number of people signed up to the site.
| Very nice to see some crunchy data in the
| mix.
`----
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/04/free-ebooks-correlat.html
5 open source and free software books that are worth your time
,----[ Quote ]
| Against Intellectual Monopoly
|
| It is common to argue that intellectual
| property in the form of copyright and patent
| is necessary for the innovation and creation
| of ideas and inventions such as machines,
| drugs, computer software, books, music,
| literature and movies. In fact intellectual
| property is a government grant of a costly and
| dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show
| through theory and example that intellectual
| monopoly is not necessary for innovation and
| as a practical matter is damaging to growth,
| prosperity and liberty.
`----
http://www.ghabuntu.com/2010/03/5-open-source-and-free-software-books.html
Moodle: open source, closed doors.
,----[ Quote ]
| The Moodle community should be taking steps
| to open the content now; on current sites,
| with current versions with the content
| available. A library of available (and
| organized) content, ready to view, ready to
| download and use would be a boon to
| educators world wide. To students it would
| open an encyclopedia of learning materials
| and possibilities to engage content
| otherwise unavailable. The availability of
| tools to share easily will certainly be
| great for versions of Moodle in the future,
| but in the meantime, there's work to be
| done.
`----
http://opensource.com/education/10/2/moodle-open-source-closed-doors
Social production as a new source of economic value creation
,----[ Quote ]
| Before the cost of communication dropped
| precipitously, Benlker suggests that it was
| too expensive to have a decentralized
| social production exchange system. Today
| however, citing open source projects such
| as SETI@home and Apache, he makes the claim
| that social sharing and exchange is
| emerging as a significant and sustained
| factor of production.
`----
http://opensource.com/business/10/2/social-production-new-source-economic-value-creation
Recent:
The open society
,----[ Quote ]
| America is in the lead on data access. On
| his first full day in office Barack Obama
| issued a presidential memorandum ordering
| the heads of federal agencies to make
| available as much information as possible,
| urging them to act âwith a clear
| presumption: in the face of doubt, openness
| prevailsâ. This was all the more remarkable
| since the Bush administration had explicitly
| instructed agencies to do the opposite.
`----
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15557477&fsrc=rss
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