Archive for the ‘Public policy’ Category

I’ve just finished Charles Vest’s The American Research University from World War II to World Wide Web. Vest was president of MIT when OpenCourseWare was proposed, and has been one of the strongest proponents of the project and the concept. The American Research University (published under full copyright by the U of C Press) is based on speeches given by Vest as the 2005 Clark Kerr Lecturer on the Role of Higher Education in Society.

Vest was president of MIT for thirteen years, an extraordinarily long tenure during which he witnessed extraordinary changes in how universities do business, and this book is filled with observations that can help emerging leaders of open education projects understand the pressures faced by senior leadership at universities. The book contains four chapters covering the relationship between universities and government, universities and philanthropies, universities and terrorism, and finally universities and openness. While the last is the most directly on the topic of openness (it recounts the development of MIT OCW), the others are probably as relevant, especially given that nearly all open education projects have sustainability issues, and because opening knowledge is both more challenging and important in a post 9/11 world. Very much worth the read.

IPKat gives its take on the new WIPO Guide on Managing Intellectual Property For Museums.  WIPO, as you can learn more about in this report, is the UN body that coordinates international IP agreements (although much of the real action is in WTO trade negotiations).  WIPO is viewed by many as representing the interests of major western copyright-dependent industries.  Don’t miss links at the end of the IPKat post.

On Friday, August 10th, Open Access News carried another in their series of posts on a proposed Open Access mandate for the National Institutes of Health. OAN has been tracking a measure that’s made its way through the House supporting this concept, and this post is an editorial supporting the measure.

The numbers in the Honolulu Advertiser editorial are compelling. $28 billion a year in tax money supports research at NIH, which generates some 60,000 published studies, the vast majority of which end up in subscription-based journals for which universities pay top dollar to access.

This report by Eldis is one of the best primers I’ve read recently on the World Summit on the Information Society and the major players in world ICT policy. It has, I’m sure, its own biases but it provides good background on the summit, UNESCO, WIPO, UNDP and many of the other players in this space. If you have an open education project and you are seeking to develop a better understanding of how OER might play a role in global development, this is worth the time to read. I am interested to see that there are at least 10 WSIS activities discussed in the Tunis Agenda for which OER might play an important role:

• Building ICT capacity for all and confidence in the use of ICTs by all – including youth, older persons, women, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and remote and rural communities – through the improvement and delivery of relevant education
  and training programmes and systems including lifelong and distance learning.
• Implementing effective training and education, particularly in ICT science and technology, that motivate and promote participation
  and active involvement of girls and women in the decision-making process of building the information society.
• Improving access to the world’s health knowledge and telemedicine services, in particular in areas such as global cooperation in
  emergency response, access to and networking among health professionals to help improve quality of life and environmental conditions.
• Using ICTs to improve access to agricultural knowledge, combat poverty, and support production of and access to locally relevant agriculture-related content.
• Supporting educational, scientific, and cultural institutions, including libraries, archives and museums, in their role of developing, providing equitable, open and affordable access to, and preserving diverse and varied content, including in digital form, to support informal and formal education, research and innovation; and in particular supporting libraries in their public service role of providing free and equitable access to information and of improving ICT literacy and community connectivity, particularly in underserved communities.
• Enhancing the capacity of communities in all regions to develop content in local and/or indigenous languages.
• Strengthening the creation of quality e-content, on national, regional and international levels.
• Promoting the use of traditional and new media in order to foster universal access to information, culture and knowledge for all people, especially vulnerable populations and populations in developing countries and using, inter alia, radio and television as educational and learning tools.
• Promoting the development of advanced research networks, at national, regional and international levels, in order to improve collaboration in science, technology and higher education.
• Digitising our historical data and cultural heritage for the benefit of future generations.

(via Information Policy)

An encouraging sign o’ the times. Open education is being considered by an advisory committee of the Virginia Joint Commission on Technology and Science (JCOTS). Here’s their description of what they do:

Welcome to the Virginia Joint Commission on Technology and Science (JCOTS) Open Education Resources Advisory Committee Blog. JCOTS is a permanent legislative commission within the legislative branch of state government. JCOTS is charged with developing appropriate public policy relating to all aspects of science and technology within the Commonwealth. Although created to allow continued discussions among our advisory committee members, this blog is a new step in engaging the public in the policy making process.The Open Education Resources Advisory Committee is currently studying the use of open education resources in Virginia’s public schools. Please feel free to leave comments related to the postings of our committee. For more information please visit http://jcots.state.va.us/.

It’s great to see open education making the leap from project to policy.