3rd Free Culture Research Conference, Oct 8-9 Berlin
September 1, 2010
Registration has opened for the 2010 Free Culture Research Conference to be held October 8-9, Berlin. The theme is “Free Culture between Commons and Markets: Approaching the Hybrid Economy.”
The Free Culture Research Conference presents a unique opportunity for scholars whose work contributes to the promotion, study or criticism of a Free Culture, to engage with a multidisciplinary group of academic peers and practitioners, identify the most important research opportunities and challenges, and attempt to chart the future of Free Culture.
The first conference was held in Sapporo, Japan, in 2008, in conjunction with the 4th iCommons Summit. This year’s event is larger in ambition and scope, to provide more time for interaction in joint as well as break-out sessions. It is hosted jointly by the Free University of Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in collaboration with COMMUNIA and Wikimedia Germany. Funding and support is also provided by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
Please visit the conference wiki to register and learn more.
P2PU offers Copyright for Educators course
The Peer 2 Peer University opened registration for a number of new courses including Copyright for Educators. This course has separate tracks that are customized for Australia, South Africa and the US.
P2PU is simultaneously launching its School of Webcraft, which is a collaboration with the Mozilla Foundation and “is a powerful new way to learn open, standards based web development in a collaborative environment. School of Webcraft courses include Beginning Python Webservices and HTML5.”
Sign-ups for all other courses are available at http://p2pu.org/course/list. The deadline to sign up is September 8, and courses will run until October 27th. All courses are free to take and openly licensed under CC BY-SA.
New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework
August 11, 2010
The New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL) was approved by the Cabinet on 5 July 2010 as government guidance for State Services agencies to follow when releasing copyright works and non-copyright material for re-use by third parties. The framework standardises the licensing of government copyright works for re-use using Creative Commons licences and recommends the use of ‘no-known rights’ statements for non-copyright material.
See the NZ e-government website for details of the framework.
US Gov proposing OER as priority in DOE grants
August 6, 2010
The U.S. Department of Education has released a notice of proposed priorities (NPP) that includes Open Educational Resources.
Proposed Priority 13–Improving Productivity:
Projects that are designed to significantly increase efficiency in the use of time, staff, money, or other resources. Such projects may include innovative and sustainable uses of technology, modification of school schedules, use of open educational resources (as defined in this notice), or other strategies that improve results and increase productivity.
If adopted, grant seeks who include OER in their applications to the Department of Education could receive priority.
Interested parties may submit comments to the notice of proposed priorities until September 7, 2010. Information about how to submit a comment is described in the notice.
Study of Obama administration transparency launched
July 30, 2010
Open Source for America has announced a study to measure openness at a number of U.S. federal government agencies. This survey is being carried out in close cooperation with all the major federal agencies.
In 2009, President Obama established the Open Government Directive which directed executive departments and agencies to take specific actions to implement principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.
The study, scheduled to be released in Q3FY2010, will gauge openness and transparency across federal agencies and will culminate in a report card assigning a grade to each federal agency based on its public transparency, participation and collaboration.
Chinese government report on Internet policy
July 14, 2010
The Chinese government has just released a white paper on its Internet policy. The report, produced by the State Council Information Office, presents user statistics and asserts guarantees of free speech and a commitment to citizen use of the Internet.
Full text of white paper: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-06/08/c_13339232.htm
Story: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-06/08/c_13339058.htm