2009 Faculty Academy at University of Mary Washington
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Keynote James Boyle
Excellent speaker --> No slides and exceptionally engaging
Previous Chair of Creative Commons
Hypothetical Situation #1
If you were asked to design two different systems:
Imagine 1992 --> Terminal --> Designed to restrict access to the network --> You are a consumer, consuming from a predefined list of functions (print, send)
Imagine 1992 --> WWW --> The network will carry anything --> The Internet treats blocking as a malfunction and routes the user around it --> Recipients can also be producers (they can put stuff up that we've not attached a value to it)
Thoughts --> Network #2 will be a disaster --> Porn, SPAM, Idiots, Ranting, Stupid Rumors will be spread, and Piracy --> No one will do commerce on a public network --> It will be a disaster --> Let's go with a nice safe network where control lives
Who would have imagined that 17 years ago?
Hypothetical Situation #2
If you were asked to design two different encyclopedias:
Imagine 1992 --> "I want you to design the world's greatest encyclopedia" --> Build a large corporation who can execute top down control --> It is going to cost a lot (writers, review, editors, etc) --> Trademark and Copyright would be critical
Imagine 1992 --> "I want you to design the world's greatest encyclopedia" --> We would just put up a website and let people do it themselves --> We'd have that is crazy
Hypothetical Situation #3
If you were asked to design two different methods for creating software:
Imagine 1992 --> Closed source license --> Built around tight control with a model for generating revisions and updates --> Money
Imagine 1992 --> Open Source Software --> Open, free access --> Changes move back into the commons
Which would flourish? Both.
IBM makes twice as much on OSS as they do from patent enforcement. IBM is the world's largest patent holder.
"if you want a secure system it has to be open"
Each of these choices is between open and closed. At the time most (if not all) would have chosen closed.
Open is not always better, but we have a cultural bias against openness.
Teaching should be about open --> How do we learn to teach? --> We take others peoples work and remix it --> Raises a set of really interesting observations --> Surely textbooks have been crowd sourced, open educational resources, and other ideas have not come into focus.
It is not just the freedom to copy, it is the freedom to remix.
We have a flourishing global encyclopedia and OSS movements, but not an active approach to openness in education.
Search engines are failing us not b/c of their algorithms, but b/c of the closed nature of our information -- the Science web is trapped in 1993 search results --> terms, not context and value --> Content is too closed
Right now we are being more cautious with our content than Viacomm --> That is pathetic
Everyone is an edge case in someone else's discipline
Conclusion:
The norm should be open --> Common sense must win --> SSN --> No --> Course materials, Scholarly Presses, Technical Systems --> Yes
Mock Debate: Is the CMS Dead?
Jim Groom and John St. Clair
This was perhaps the most fun I've had at a conference. Jim went first and claimed that it wasn't that the CMS was simply dead, that it is undead -- like a zombie. It cannot be killed. He clearly has a negative impression of the notion of the CMS as a Institutionally driven, top down system. I think one of the best assertions is that too many people think the CMS/LMS itself is that it isn't about teaching and learning, it is about managing course rosters, uploads, etc.
The real wonderful thing that happened occurred when John St. Clair (Distance and Blended Education) started by saying Jim misunderstood the challenge -- that he wanted to debate if the "Conventional Midsize Car" was dead. All I can say is that it was brilliant on so many levels.
