The banner of punk has been claimed by a motley bunch – some great, some gross. For some it was a method of maintaining an ideological purity, for others it was a way to make a buck. The term ‘edupunk’ to me is like its snowclones: ‘cyberpunk’ ‘steampunk’ ‘whateverpunk’ – these evoke rebellion without necessarily entailing it, or maybe they simply evoke the semiotics of rebellion: ripped clothes, wild energy, fear of and violence toward the established order.

My largest concern with the book from the parts I’ve read is that it seems to mistake learning for education. Learning is wonderful, and I’m glad the author has endorsed it so enthusiastically. But compare the “DIY learning plan” on page 10 to a syllabus or course plan, and the cracks begin to show.

Part of the value of an education vs. DIY learning is that education is not all “things I admire” and reading a book every week, as much as it is confronting uncomfortable ideas & concepts, being challenged by the things outside of your current sphere of knowledge, and most importantly the constant rebuttal of “well that may be one way to look at it, but…” from people who have spent their life studying what you want to know and who are responsible for helping you learn it.

We are also in the OER university and are steaming ahead will all sorts of open projects that capitalize on the ubiquity of the web. Standby later this year for the launch of Open SUNY which will take all this to warp speed.

Check out our website and let me know if I can be of any help. Love your work.

Alan Davis, President

This stuff doesn’t cut costs for institutions – unless you mean that if we use social media and collaboration we can have less academic staff, or pay them less. The latest technology costs $$, as do talented, engaging and experimenting staff who “get it” enough to make real use of it. Improving learning (etc) yes, maybe.

I may well write something about your use of “Edupunk” in the title later – I’ve been following the arguments but I’ve not settled my mind yet. Does strike me that it may not have been worth the aggro though, in as much as it constitutes a brand it is inextricably linked to Jim and his work. But, hell, you’re the journalist

One thing. From the quotes, I don’t think the contract you signed gives you the right to relicense the work as CC:BY-SA. I am not a lawyer, but my day job is answering these questions for faculty at a large university.

This work appears to be a work for hire. Thus, the default status is B&G Foundation holds all of the copyrights to the work. Because they chose to, they are granting you back certain specific rights. Those being the ones you listed. However, a right they did not list was the right to grant a license for the work to others.

I would go back to them and ask explicitly if they give you permission to license the guide as CC:BY-SA because from the quotes you posted, you don’t have that right. A better solution would be to ask them to release their version of the guide as CC:BY-SA. The B&G foundation is hip to CC licenses in general and they may be up for it.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to this guide!