Talk:Open Educational Resources/Historical

This page is just a start. The savanna is vast. This is just one blade of grass, called green. --Rogerhc 01:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Comments

• I've started to add in 3rd party definitions from respectable sources. The definition of OER is a rather dangerous topic, as the movement is split.
• The Hewlett foundation definition makes it clear that public domain licences are OK, contrary to the previous wording of this article.
• The most famous OER's are MIT OpenCourseware, which use CC-BY-SA-NC, and this licence was previously also omitted.
• The previous wording of the article also suggested that the SA clause must be used, but this is not correct - e.g. CC-BY is also fine. OER permits a wide range of licences.

McCormack 14:44, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure that the OER movement is really "split" - I rather perceive a range of understandings and misunderstandings about individual licences and what they mean. "NC" (along with "ND") materials are recognised as overly restrictive by many movements (including Wikimedia), but they still fit within the broad spectrum of "Open Education Resources", in my opinion. I think a pragmatic approach to take would be to define broadly initially and then to discuss the debate (here or in related subpages) in terms of specific freedoms or lack of freedoms. (It might be good to use the Definition of "Free Cultural Works", which is becoming an influential document, or at least which I find useful.) You're absolutely right about SA - and I hadn't spotted the PD reference. I'll pitch in with this as soon as I have the time - it's an extremely timely subject to be dealing with in Wikiversity. :-) Cormaggio ^talk 15:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, by split perhaps I should mean that one can get one's head split if one doesn't walk carefully among these definitions. As you say, OER is usually recognized as broad, but there are those who campaign vigorously to narrow the definition to something like Free Cultural Works. I agree absolutely with you that a pragmatic approach is the start. For example, like Atwell, one could give a list of some of the most famous OER collections. Possibly one should keep away from the specifics of the debate and simply refer to external sources. If this page is allowed to become a stamping ground for campaigners, I can see some edit wars looming (and I definitely won't be going near them!). I think the page needs to steer a very wide course around these things. McCormack 15:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

External links

I've put the OECD and UNESCO links at the top. I have some reservations about the other 4 links, but I'll leave it up to someone else to think about removing them. The Wikipedia link is to the previous author's own article at Wikipedia, which might need improving - and isn't an external link ;-) Another link is to the previous author's own site on OER and perhaps reduplicates the UNESCO lists - but it's harmless. Two further links are to very specific views about OER. I don't see that these links are especially harmful, but there is a lot of much more important stuff out there which needs listing. McCormack 15:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC) (by"reduplicate" you probably mean" replicate" sorry about thatNight-Timer 04:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Reworking

I'm working at La Trobe University, where there is an emerging interest in OER. Our brief is to prepare a simple but extendable handout as an introduction to OER. I see that this page has had limited activity on it, and may benefit from our involvement. We aim to complete our edits by December. Leighblackall (talk) 06:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

spurious closing square bracket.

The article has a spurious closing square bracket before the beginning of the fist paragraph. I tried a few things to remove it, but was unsuccessful. If someone can take a look and fix this it will be good. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 20:11, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Y Done -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 20:56, 19 May 2016 (UTC)