Mix & Mash: The New Storytelling

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013 | SIMON HART | No Comments

DigitalNZ have launched Mix & Mash 2013!  This is a competition that is about encouraging people to be creative with material that is free and legal to reuse, remix, mashup, to tell stories by re-purposing “open stuff” in compelling ways.

The programme for 2013 differs from the 2010 & 2011 competitions.  In 2013 there are three deadlines spread out across the year (May, August and November).  This means entrants can plan and pace their entries and learn from what others are doing. Prizes will be awarded throughout 2013 with special awards at the end of the year.

This years theme is “The New Storytelling” and entrants are challenged to weave openly licensed digital content and data into an original story.  The focus for the May competition window is “Stories about the past“.

You can sign up for Mix & Mash announcements and updates on the website www.mixandmash.org.nz

Openness around the world

Monday, January 21st, 2013 | Bill Anderson | No Comments

The current issue of the journal Open Praxis is devoted to the topic “Openness in higher education”. Have a read… http://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/issue/view/2/showToc

Several articles discuss the challenges of assessment – especially when learners want to credit their open learning to traditional/formal courses …

What would you do if a student asked for credit from a Udacity/Courseara/OpenLearn/OERu course?? Is there anything you could do at Otago?

 

Aus/NZ Open Research Conference, Auckland 6-7 February

Sunday, January 13th, 2013 | Richard White | No Comments

An Australasian Open Research Conference is to be held at the University of Auckland on 6-7 February. This will be an important event for researchers interested in openness to explore with like-minded people the rapidly-developing world of open research, publishing and data in the New Zealand and Australian contexts.

The line-up for Day 1 looks to be a fascinating blend of practical exemplars of those already working in the open space and discussion of high-level policy/strategy (non-profit and commercial). Sessions will be led by some of the movers and shakers in openness from both nations. Day 2 will be a barcamp-style, participant-led session looking to explore the themes of Day 1 and in more concrete terms examine how openness can be advanced in our research communities.

Read more on the conference web site.

(Otago people: please let me know if you are planning on attending – it’s important we have representation at this conference and have people who can report back to our community about what transpired).

UK Universities enter the MOOC-o-sphere

Sunday, December 16th, 2012 | Richard White | 7 Comments

Yes, the heading is somewhat facetious, but the first UK-based rival to the massive open on-line courses (MOOCs) Udacity, Coursera and EdX has been announced. Led by the Open University, 12 UK universities will offer on-line courses for free from 2013, though details are sketchy at this stage. Martin Bean, the OU’s Vice-Chancellor, says that MOOCs have the potential to revolutionise access to higher education and that “we want to be well positioned” (as quoted by the BBC report).

Given that the Open University has literally millions of people accessing its course materials each year, which are open to all and licensed with Creative Commons for re-use, the move makes sense in that they may be able draw more of those potential students into some more formal means of engagement. Early indications are that they will follow one of the models offered by the US MOOCs, where access is open but you pay for an optional certificate for a course or for an invigilated examination. One challenge for this consortium – as with the others – will be how to balance the cost to students for the on-line courses against that of on-campus students, who in the UK face a real cost of up to £100,000 for a degree, a government report has revealed, once interest payments are counted.

The other lingering question is whether students in on-line courses will be able to gain credit towards qualifications. This, as Mr Bean says, is the “big frontier” for on-line education in the MOOC era where the cost to students is driven down by their numbers and organisations see less tangible but no less significant value in the reputation and brand benefits ‘open access’ will bring.

Creative Commons in Dunedin, Friday 23 November

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012 | Richard White | No Comments

For those in Dunedin, Creative Commons Aotearoa NZ will be hosting a discussion session just prior to the opening of the NetHui South Conference (see this post). Anything CC-related can be raised, discussed or debated, though the focus will likely be on open access and Open Educational Resources.

The session is open to anyone, regardless of whether you’re attending NetHui.  Matt McGregor, CC ANZ’s Public Lead, will be down from Wellington to facilitate.

Creative Commons Meet-up, Kakapo Room, Otago Museum, 11am Friday 23 November

NetHui South Internet Conference, Dunedin, Thursday-Friday 23-24 Nov.

Sunday, November 18th, 2012 | MARK MCGUIRE | No Comments

InternetNZ’s first ever regional Internet conference – NetHui South – is being held at Dunedin’s Otago University and Otago Museum on 23rd and 24th November 2012. The cost of registration is only $40. There is an education session scheduled for 11:00AM-1:00PM on Saturday 24 Nov. Also check out the NethuiNZ Facebook page, Twitter stream, Youtube Channel, and Flickr images.

What is NetHui South?

From the NetHui South Website:

This is an Internet conference with a distinctly South Island flavour. In common with its parent (national) NetHui conference, the defining feature of NetHui South is its community-led and participatory nature.

The overarching theme of NetHui South is ‘Shaping Our Future Together,’ a subject that addresses the varied and complex challenges arising from the Internet. In connecting local Internet issues to the international context, NetHui South provides a platform for involving and engaging local communities.

 

Impact of making learning materials available openly

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012 | Bill Anderson | 1 Comment

Published today, an interesting article in IRRODL looking at the impact of OpenCourseWare (or more broadly Open Educational Resources) involvement on some of the OCW institutions and on learners.

Broadly speaking, OCW publication has helped learners decide on and prepare for courses prior to enrolment, and has had some positive impacts on recruitment and outcomes for institutions.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1238/2336

Open Access Week, 22-28 October 2012 | Everywhere

Monday, October 22nd, 2012 | Richard White | No Comments

It’s Open Access Week across the world – and here at Otago, with our third and final seminar in our Open Minds series on Thursday 25 October, this time focusing on Open Data. Otago staff who have not registered but would like to attend please do so ASAP. See the relevant blog post for the programme and the contact details for registration.

And with a broader national focus, Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand is hosting a series of posts on the theme of Open Access. Featuring contributions from academics, publishers and librarians (and humble Copyright Officers), Open Access in Aotearoa discusses the future of free and open access to New Zealand’s publicly funded scholarly research. My own post discusses the reality of open access here at Otago but within the broader context of international trends, looking at the attitudes and understanding I see from our staff and students as Copyright Officer on a day-to-day basis.

Australian Research Council shift position on open access

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012 | SIMON HART | 1 Comment

Australia’s biggest research funding body the ARC is preparing to change its funding rules to mandate open access publishing for the research it funds.  The intention is to align with the new National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) policy which now requires that all researchers that it funds must add their outputs to an open-access repository within 12 months of publication.

This move is consistent with the broader Australian Government agendas of promoting digital economy and of supporting open government; as well as the direction happening in New Zealand, refer: http://ict.govt.nz/programme/opening-government-data-and-information.  The benefits of this open access approach include an increased visibility of research, together with increased usage and impact, alongside an improved community awareness of research and its relevance.

Commenting on this Cathrine Harboe-Ree, (President, Council of Australian University Librarians, (CAUL) has said “it is critical that the ARC does align with the NHMRC policy in one very important way.  Unlike the approach taken recently by the Research Councils in the UK, the NHMRC has been careful not to insist that research publish in open access journals using the so called “gold” pay-to-publish approach or to pay extra to publishers to reduce embargo periods.  The repository infrastructure in Australian Universities allows us to support all forms of open access, including the deposit of peer reviewed final manuscripts (“green” open access).  There is no need for Australian funding agencies to mandate or fund the “gold” approach and indeed it may be detrimental to scholarly publication patterns and the cost of research to do so.”

It is worth noting that the repository infrastructure Cathrine mentions has also been established in New Zealand – all NZ Universities run a DSpace repository for research outputs.

 

Open minds: open data

Thursday, September 27th, 2012 | Richard White | No Comments

Data is perhaps the trickiest type of ‘open.’ It is often seen as the precious jewel that must kept locked away as the source of all power — and that’s before you even start thinking about privacy or intellectual property issues. Where, for example, is the line between pure facts (which you can’t own) and datasets that are the product of a particular researcher’s brain? And who owns data that is the product of such a brain if that person’s salary comes out of the public purse?

Nevertheless, the voices of those calling for the opening up our data are getting louder. Governments are doing it, as the NZ Government has done with the NZ Government Open Access and Licensing Framework (NZ GOAL) and the Declaration on Open & Transparent Government to actively release data of value to the public. BioMed Central is one publisher consulting the scientific community about how they might “put the open in open data and open bibliography” by proposing to establish CC0 (i.e. public domain) as their default for data published alongside academic papers.  And a provocative piece by Peter C Gøtzsche (Why we need easy access to all data from all clinical trials and how to accomplish it) appeared recently in Trials, suggesting that it is not only advantageous to publish your data “it is a moral imperative to render all results from all trials involving humans…publicly available” in the interests of patients, the progress of science and heath systems around the world. He even proposes legislative changes that could facilitate such a quantum shift.

We’ll be discussing these things and more in the third of our Open Minds seminar series, to be held in the Arana College Main Common Room, 9.30 – 1.00pm on October 25. Check out the full programme for details of our keynotes and panel members. This is a University of Otago staff only session for us to consider what strategies we might pursue in this area but we plan to release some video footage later under CC BY-SA. Otago staff should email library@otago.ac.nz to register your interest by 12 October.

 
 
 

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