http://diyubook.com/2011/10/diy-u-at-educause/ Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the coming transformation of higher education Thu, 18 Jul 2013 18:44:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://diyubook.com/2011/10/diy-u-at-educause/comment-page-1/#comment-5604 Luke Fernandez Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:33:44 +0000 http://diyubook.com/?p=531#comment-5604 I came to this post through one on Michael Feldstein's (e.g. http://mfeldstein.com/perhaps-open-is-a-flag-of-my-disposition/ ). His post is helpful in delineating various measures of openness including whether an LMS promotes interperability, whether its free (gratis), and whether it has a robust API. Those are all important aspects of openness and Michael (and the subsequent comments) cover them well. But the measure that is left out (and which I think you are alluding to) is the type of openness that insures that if you contribute your labours to improving a piece of software or some other educational resource, it is still yours, or, if it isn't still yours at least it's not expropriated from you. That I think is what Cable Green is getting at in encouraging grant making agencies to include open clauses in their descriptions and what Wiley is promoting in the notion of "Buy one, get one." I see this all dating back to John Locke who in many ways gives foundation to the idea of modern property. If you mix your labour with something, that something becomes your property ( http://www.politicalphilosophy.info/labourmixing.html ). As a software developer I want the same Lockian rights: when I fix a bug in a piece of software the results of that labour should be mine or at least left in the public domain. Those rights are promoted when I work with something that is open like Sakai. Conversely those rights are more attenuated when working with software that is built by organizations who ascribe to these other forms of openness. Making clear distinctions between these different forms of openness and highlighting the ones that are more fundamental can help combat the more nefarious forms of this openwashing. I came to this post through one on Michael Feldstein’s (e.g. http://mfeldstein.com/perhaps-open-is-a-flag-of-my-disposition/ ). His post is helpful in delineating various measures of openness including whether an LMS promotes interperability, whether its free (gratis), and whether it has a robust API. Those are all important aspects of openness and Michael (and the subsequent comments) cover them well. But the measure that is left out (and which I think you are alluding to) is the type of openness that insures that if you contribute your labours to improving a piece of software or some other educational resource, it is still yours, or, if it isn’t still yours at least it’s not expropriated from you. That I think is what Cable Green is getting at in encouraging grant making agencies to include open clauses in their descriptions and what Wiley is promoting in the notion of “Buy one, get one.” I see this all dating back to John Locke who in many ways gives foundation to the idea of modern property. If you mix your labour with something, that something becomes your property ( http://www.politicalphilosophy.info/labourmixing.html ). As a software developer I want the same Lockian rights: when I fix a bug in a piece of software the results of that labour should be mine or at least left in the public domain. Those rights are promoted when I work with something that is open like Sakai. Conversely those rights are more attenuated when working with software that is built by organizations who ascribe to these other forms of openness. Making clear distinctions between these different forms of openness and highlighting the ones that are more fundamental can help combat the more nefarious forms of this openwashing.

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