Thursday, 14 May 2009
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Playing with LibraryThing
Might give this a go to add the odd new title to our blog. Could sign up as Amazon associate and get the revenue too!
Sunday, 19 October 2008
1 million CC images
The excellent Geograph website has reached an amazing one million images of Great Britain and Ireland, all licensed for reuse under Creative Commons. A fantastic effort by thousands of volunteers contributing to a permanent, free and educational resource. 
Coincidentally I was taking pictures on the same day near Blairgowrie, and could almost have seen that far from the minor road near Forneth. My pictures were about 400 short of the million mark, which shows the rate at which images are being posted!
This is the 1,000,000th image to appear on the Geograph website.
![Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]](http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gif){kind=small}
© Copyright Dr Richard Murray and
licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Coincidentally I was taking pictures on the same day near Blairgowrie, and could almost have seen that far from the minor road near Forneth. My pictures were about 400 short of the million mark, which shows the rate at which images are being posted!
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Fringe events: Audience participation
Attended a few events this week where audience participation was the key to success. Only to be expected at Edinburgh Fringe preview shows (more on that later) but the newest repository 'unconference' on 31 July and 1 Aug was designed to encourage this too.
The Repository Fringe was a timely and inspiring event. We kicked off with a declaration from Dorothea Salo that the IR is dead, provoking two days of lively debate on how it can be revived! It was refreshing to hear tales of mistakes, missed opportunities - misjudging the needs of researchers, as Salo noted - and this openness enabled us to question how we might 'clothe and bring up' the reborn child repository. The metaphors were plentiful but there were real nuggets of knowledge that suggest there is genuine value in developing repository services - provided we listen to our 'audience'. So as I reflect on the event and look forward to the joys of fostering our yet-to-be-born Abertay repository I hope to keep in mind some useful lessons - maybe our new child won't even have 'repository' in its name??
... and as for audience participation in comedy/magic shows, that'll teach me to sit in the front row! (If anyone sees Pete Firman: Flim Flam, I had to shuffle the maggots!!)
The Repository Fringe was a timely and inspiring event. We kicked off with a declaration from Dorothea Salo that the IR is dead, provoking two days of lively debate on how it can be revived! It was refreshing to hear tales of mistakes, missed opportunities - misjudging the needs of researchers, as Salo noted - and this openness enabled us to question how we might 'clothe and bring up' the reborn child repository. The metaphors were plentiful but there were real nuggets of knowledge that suggest there is genuine value in developing repository services - provided we listen to our 'audience'. So as I reflect on the event and look forward to the joys of fostering our yet-to-be-born Abertay repository I hope to keep in mind some useful lessons - maybe our new child won't even have 'repository' in its name??
... and as for audience participation in comedy/magic shows, that'll teach me to sit in the front row! (If anyone sees Pete Firman: Flim Flam, I had to shuffle the maggots!!)
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
JISC report on sharing e-learning content
Charlesworth, A and Ferguson, N and Schmoller, S and Smith, N and Tice, R Sharing eLearning Content: a synthesis and commentary
A major review and synthesis of the work of various specified projects and programmes engaged in the development, use and sharing of elearning content.
This report highlights the cultural, legal and organisational issues that need to be addressed, and comments on the institutional commitment that is needed to share content effectively and reap the benefits offered. The themes from TrustDR are discussed and our outputs recommended as one of the useful resources in driving change.
A major review and synthesis of the work of various specified projects and programmes engaged in the development, use and sharing of elearning content.
This report highlights the cultural, legal and organisational issues that need to be addressed, and comments on the institutional commitment that is needed to share content effectively and reap the benefits offered. The themes from TrustDR are discussed and our outputs recommended as one of the useful resources in driving change.
Friday, 21 December 2007
TrustDR dissemination
Full scale dissemination of TrustDR development pack onto lists and blogs has already happened, with the release below:
>The final outputs of the JISC TrustDR project are now available.
Managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Digital Learning Materials: A Development Pack for Institutional Repositories
Authors: John Casey, Jackie Proven & David Dripps
Distributed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland
Download from:
http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/outputs.php
The pack is aimed at those who are setting up or running digital collections of learning materials that are managed at an institutional level. It is written in a clear and straightforward style that sets out to persuade the reader of the benefits of engaging with the issues associated with IPR in e-learning. The approach taken is based on the idea that the organisation of an IPR policy in e-learning should reflect and support the educational activity instead of hinder it – and that means understanding ‘the business of e-learning’. To do this it paints a compelling picture of an educational sector in the process of changing from traditional ad-hoc models of teaching to a more sustainable, team-based model – driven by increased student numbers, a greater focus on learners needs, and increased requirements for flexible delivery with the increasing use of digital media and technologies.
The pack is useful and unusual in that it situates its analysis and advice specifically in the highly relevant context of the professional and institutional process change that is required to introduce and extend flexible learning opportunities in our education systems – a common scenario that raises many IPR challenges. It surveys the current confused and contradictory practises in UK education and suggests that these practices reflect a situation where e-learning is not yet effectively integrated into our institutions. It also highlights a lack of involvement and leadership by senior management.
The authors argue strongly that sorting out the IPR policy for e-learning can be a way of getting senior management to engage more effectively with the educational and organisational changes that are needed to make e-learning work. Clarifying IPR policy therefore becomes an enabler for best practice. Looked at in this light - to be able to account for the provenance of content in e-learning materials is really a matter of individual academic integrity and for institutional quality control. Another central argument deals with the relative values of teaching activity by humans and the role of learning materials content, and again the pack promotes the development of policies that properly reflect these values.
>The final outputs of the JISC TrustDR project are now available.
Managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Digital Learning Materials: A Development Pack for Institutional Repositories
Authors: John Casey, Jackie Proven & David Dripps
Distributed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland
Download from:
http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/outputs.php
The pack is aimed at those who are setting up or running digital collections of learning materials that are managed at an institutional level. It is written in a clear and straightforward style that sets out to persuade the reader of the benefits of engaging with the issues associated with IPR in e-learning. The approach taken is based on the idea that the organisation of an IPR policy in e-learning should reflect and support the educational activity instead of hinder it – and that means understanding ‘the business of e-learning’. To do this it paints a compelling picture of an educational sector in the process of changing from traditional ad-hoc models of teaching to a more sustainable, team-based model – driven by increased student numbers, a greater focus on learners needs, and increased requirements for flexible delivery with the increasing use of digital media and technologies.
The pack is useful and unusual in that it situates its analysis and advice specifically in the highly relevant context of the professional and institutional process change that is required to introduce and extend flexible learning opportunities in our education systems – a common scenario that raises many IPR challenges. It surveys the current confused and contradictory practises in UK education and suggests that these practices reflect a situation where e-learning is not yet effectively integrated into our institutions. It also highlights a lack of involvement and leadership by senior management.
The authors argue strongly that sorting out the IPR policy for e-learning can be a way of getting senior management to engage more effectively with the educational and organisational changes that are needed to make e-learning work. Clarifying IPR policy therefore becomes an enabler for best practice. Looked at in this light - to be able to account for the provenance of content in e-learning materials is really a matter of individual academic integrity and for institutional quality control. Another central argument deals with the relative values of teaching activity by humans and the role of learning materials content, and again the pack promotes the development of policies that properly reflect these values.
The format of the development pack is a central document of about 70 pages linked to other resources; it is designed to allow the reader to dip in and out or to explore themes in greater depth. The pack functions both as a personal training manual and as an organisational development tool, it includes:
- A Beginners guide to IPR in e-learning
- Discussion of the pros and cons of using Creative Commons licences
- Useful set of tools to help analyse your situation and development needs
- A collection of common IPR mistakes made by institutions
- Overview of the relevant technical factors
- An introduction and guide to Risk Management
- Discussion of the kinds of business models associated with the use of creative commons licences
- Understanding and assessing the value of learning materials
- A practical guide to implementing flexible learning (published by the QAA)
- Tools for understanding and modelling organisational and professional change
- Policy discussion and development documents for use at institutional and national levels
- Scenarios/ case studies
The TrustDR (Trust in Digital Repositories) project was charged with developing practical solutions to the problem of managing IPR in collections of digital learning materials. The work was carried out between 2005 and 2007 and was led by Ulster University, Northern Ireland, in collaboration with the UHI Millennium Institute, Scotland. The project website can be found at:
http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Jackie Pix
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