INTRODUCING COPYRIGHT: A PLAIN LANGUAGE GUIDE TO COPYRIGHT IN THE 21ST CENTURY
By Julien Hofman
As computers and the Internet transform how we produce and distribute information, copyright struggles to keep pace with these changes. While authors rely on copyright to protect what they have created, many authors and those who use their work are unclear about what copyright allows and what it prohibits.
Published by COL, this book explains copyright protection and what it means for copyright holders and copyright users. “Introducing Copyright” introduces readers to digital rights management, open licences, software patents and copyright protection for works of traditional knowledge. A final chapter predicts how technology will change the publishing and entertainment industries, which depend on copyright.
www.col.org/IntroducingCopyright
PERSPECTIVES ON DISTANCE EDUCATION: OPEN SCHOOLS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Edited by Dominique A.M.X. Abrioux and Frances Ferreira
The newest title in COL’s “Perspectives on Distance Education” series explores how open schooling can help solve the world’s most pressing educational challenge: expanding secondary education. Aimed at policy makers and educational planners, “Open Schools for the 21st Century” shows how open schooling can be adopted for a range of purposes and in different ways, using a variety of technologies and approaches. With contributions from educators with extensive first-hand experience in open schooling, the book confirms that open schools can provide good quality secondary education as long as senior policy-makers, bureaucrats and administrators are well informed about the key factors affecting success in open schooling, and that they use this knowledge to plan, implement and monitor their own open school initiatives.
www.col.org/perspectives/openschooling
OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING IN A CHANGING WORLD: SELECTED SPEECHES OF SIR JOHN DANIEL AND COLLEAGUES, 2007-2008
In addition to making speeches and presentations by Board members and staff available on its website, COL periodically publishes a selection of speeches in print format. This selection includes an open letter to the next US president and six speeches delivered in different countries at various events.
www.col.org/speeches
NEW COL SEARCH SERVICE FOR OPEN COURSEWARE
COL has introduced an online search tool for open courseware (OCW) and open educational resources (OERs). Anyone can use it to search for open learning materials from higher education institutions and OER repositories.
The new COL service uses two search engines: Yahoo Pipes and Google Custom search to access OCW and OERs from dozens of institutions throughout the globe. In the past, if somebody wanted to find a course or module on a particular subject, they would normally have to search individual websites. In addition to being very time consuming, this would rarely yield the best results. COL’s new search tool will do a combined search of a large number of websites and present all results at once.
In addition to being useful for course designers and teachers, the OCW/OER search engine will also help learners find appropriate learning materials. More information is available on the COL search page.
www.col.org/ocw
THE GLOBAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2008-2009: MOBILITY IN A NETWORKED WORLD
Soumitra Dutta, INSEAD
Irene Mia, World Economic Forum
Editors
The Global Information Technology Report 2008–2009, the eighth edition in the series, presents an updated picture of the state of networked readiness in the world. Under the general theme of mobility, the Report notably highlights the remarkable role of mobile telephony – possibly the most revolutionary information and communication technology (ICT) – in economic growth and offers success stories of countries able to leverage ICT for increased competitiveness.
www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2009/gitr09fullreport.pdf
OPEN LEARNING: SPECIAL ISSUE ON OERs
Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning has published a special issue focussed on open educational resources. This issue is guest edited by UNESCO’s Ms. Susan D’Antoni, who collaborates frequently with COL, and includes an article on The Virtual University for the Small States of the Commonwealth, by Mr. Paul West and Sir John Daniel of COL. In recognition of the nature of the subject and its importance, the publisher, Routledge, is providing open online access to this issue of Open Learning.
www.tandf.co.uk/journals/opl (click on: “Free access to Open Learning’s Special Issue: Open Educational Resources”)
NEW WIKIEDUCATOR TEACHER COLLABORATION PORTAL
WikiEducator has introduced a new online portal to enable collaboration among teachers. The platform will help teachers:
• share expertise and information,
• develop, share, adapt and reuse open educational content and lesson plans,
• collaborate on projects, and
• hold professional development workshops.
The WikiEducator community hopes the teacher collaboration portal will develop into an active, creative and international platform of teachers for teachers who can meet and learn from each other and create open educational resources for wide-spread use.
Within three weeks of the portal’s launch in April 2009, 770 educators from 26 countries had registered to be part of this collaborative effort. By June, there were 950 participants from 49 countries.
www.wikieducator.org/Teacher_Collaboration
WORLD DIGITAL LIBRARY LAUNCHED
The U.S. Library of Congress and UNESCO have launched a digital library of primary documents and authoritative explanations from the planet’s leading libraries. The World Digital Library includes many one-of-a-kind documents including a Japanese work that is considered the first novel in history, the Aztecs’ first mention of the Christ child in the New World and the works of ancient Arab scholars exploring the mysteries of algebra, each accompanied by learned commentary.
www.wdl.org