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.

This is the 1,000,000th image to appear on the Geograph website.

© 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!

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!!)

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.