Badge System Design: Task 1

This is my work toward completing the first task of the badge system design challenge on P2Pu. This post is exactly the same as the comment I entered as completion of the task.

1. Please introduce yourself. And include information about your experience with badges (both traditional and digital) and what you are wanting to learn specifically about badge systems design.
   • My name is Peter Rawsthorne. I am creating this Badge System Design Challenge for P2Pu. The best way to get a sense of who I am is to view my blog and related links; http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.ca/ Particularly, the connect with me links top of the right column.
   • I have been involved with badges most of my life. I was a scout, I participated in a number of programs with the YMCA, I was a Canadian Sailing Association participant, and a number of other merit badge issuing organizations. The depth of my early experiences with badges is well described in my confessions of a badge addict post.
   • I have also been developing learning resources for the Open Badges project since Q2 of 2012. A summary of this work can be found in this post about agile learning and open badges.
   • My focus in creating this course and with badge system design in general is to deepen my understanding in how best to design a system of badges and to what granularity of criteria for each badge.
     
     
2. Describe your experience with course and curriculum design. Don't be shy, tell us about a small lesson you created for yourself or a complete degree program. Or any possible descriptions of works in between.
   • I have been creating courses and curriculum for over 20 years. I have worked in small computer stores providing digital literacy workshops for parents, I have worked for Universities and created faculty workshops, courses and curriculum for students. I have built many online courses and curriculum. I enjoy building learning materials and most recently have enjoyed creating Open Educational Resources (OER).
   • Most recently I created a two week seminar series about badge systems design. The seminars were a combination of directed online discussion and two 1 hour lunch-and-learn screencasts. The wiki containing the all the artifacts from this seminar series can be found on the SCoPE site; http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/wiki/view.php?id=9011
     
     
3. Tell a story about rubrics or learning outcomes. And if or how you have you used them? and within what context? Do you know what a rubric or learning outcome is? And how they would apply to learning. If you don't know what a rubric or learning outcome is, describe a badge (traditional or digital) you have earned or someone you know has earned. Describe the requirements to earn the badge.
   • I have created rubrics for many different courses and learning tasks. One of my favourite experiences in building rubrics was when teaching into a B.Ed program at Memorial University. All the students collaborated and built a rubric for evaluating other students educational blog posts and their strategy for using blogging as a learning tool with K7 students. I believe rubrics are an excellent way of focusing the tasks along a learning journey.
   • I have used learning outcomes only a few times, and they were a part of a course description. The idea was to describe what the student would know or what they would accomplish through the course. It was a description of the outcomes of the course.
   • I believe rubrics and learning outcomes fit well, as a proven educational approach, when creating the criteria for an open badge.
     
     
4. Consider your commitment to this challenge. Do you want to just complete each task within the challenge or do you want to contribute to creating each task within the challenge. Building this challenge as collaborative effort will make it way better. Either way, engage, contribute, enjoy...
   • I am committed to creating this challenge end-to-end. I will create a few tasks within the challenge and then complete each task as if I am also a learner taking the task.
   • I'd like to encourage others assist in creating this challenge and would enjoy working with other badge system designers in building this challenge. I believe we would all learn more, and create a better product, if we worked together.
   • I am wanting to implement a flipped assessment approach within this challenge. I see flipped assessment as an experiment. And P2Pu is the right place to conduct this experiment.
     

An Introduction to Badge Systems Design

I believe there are two ways to explore badge systems design;

1. what already exists in badging (and related) systems
2. what innovations could be for awarding badges

Existing badge systems fall into two areas;
1. traditional badge systems
There are a number of proven badge systems. People often refer back to scouting as a solid and proven badge system. The martial arts belts also have much to offer.

• scouting (and similar organizations)

• martial arts (Taekwondo, Karate, Judo, Juijitsu, Etc.)
• university degree, diplomas, etc. (I know, many would not consider this a traditional badge system. For the sake of design, consider the course (with grades and completion) a badge and a collection of courses (degree or diploma) and patch or super-badge.

2. digital badge systems
There are also a number of existing badge systems and these exist in a number of different contexts. A thorough evaluation and a compare and contrast to these different digital badge systems can offer some interesting insights into what is possible with digital badge systems design.

• Khan Academy - http://www.khanacademy.org/badges  
• FourSquare - http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/ 
• Stackoverflow - http://stackoverflow.com/badges 
• OERu - http://ask.oeruniversity.org/badges/
• Wikipedia Barnstars - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars

Innovations for badge systems design

I believe this falls into two main areas, and where much investigation, innovation and research remains to be done with the emerging badge paradigm. Ah, the journey of a thousand steps...

1. badge systems

• digital badges for the self-directed and life-long learners
• digital badges for peer learning and communities of practice

Badge Clusters

2. meta-badge systems

The systems that form between and among badging systems that allow a person to create their own credential map (or badge clusters) of their accomplishments. Essentially allowing them to create their own credential(s) of proven mastery of their chosen area(s) of expertise. Mapping their own Personal Curriculum!

The essential tasks for understanding digital badges

Over the next two weeks I will be facilitating a seminar series and two lunch-and-learns focused on understanding digital badges and how they can be deployed and issued to learners of all kinds. The seminar series will take place in SCoPE and begins on December 1st. Feel free to join in...

http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=9010

Over the first week I will be working through a number of tasks to help build understanding of digital badges and the resources available and required to be able to issue badges to learners (institutional and otherwise).  For an idea of the tasks feel free to review the six described here;

Task 1: The merit badge
1. Identify a merit badge you earned during your lifetime.
What did you have to do to earn it? Did you earn more than one badge? And were they awarded by the same organization?
2. Describe how you displayed the merit badge(s).
If you earned more than one badge, did you display them together? Did you display badges from different organizations together?

Task 2: The digital badge
3. Identify the digital and internet technologies best suited to create a digital merit badge.
How would you create the digital file (image) of the badge? Is it possible to keep people from copying the badge without having earned it?
4. Describe the technologies that could be used to attach (or reference) the learning to the badge.
Is there more than one way of "attaching" learning criteria to a badge? Would this criteria attribute differ from a learners evidence of fulfilling the criteria? Could a badge criteria change through time?

Blooms Rose

Task 3: Identifying the curriculum
5. Identify the completion criteria for any badge you have earned (traditional or digital).
Did you have to complete a series of tasks? Did you have to prove mastery of a skill? How was the mastery described? Was the badge knowledge based, how was the knowledge domain described as a learning criteria?
6. Describe a hierarchy or network of badges.
Does a single badges stand on its own or is it best associated with other badges? Do badges cluster in and around knowledge domains? Do badges exists in hierarchies or networks or both? What other patterns can an collection of badges exist?

Task 4: Go earn some badges already!
7. Identify a variety of sites that issue badges.
Spend some time to find two or more sites that issue badges. Are these event based badges or learning based badges? Do the badges exist on their own or are they a part of a hierarchy or network? Earn some badges and figure out how they are displayed. Were the badges easy to earn? How easily can they be displayed outside of the site where you earned the badges? Display your badges or send the link to a friend.
8. Describe the skills, knowledge and curriculum the badges represent.
Can you easily describe the criteria for earning the badges you just completed? Were they part of a bigger curriculum? Were the badges more commercially oriented? Would displaying the badges attract other to earn the badges or participate in related learning?


Task 5: Building the digital badge(s)
9. Identify the visual elements that best describe the learning represented by a specific badge. 
Does the learning represented by the badge have a de facto standard image. Are there elements of your group, team, organization or institution that also need to be part of the badge? Are there visual elements that are well suited to the badges target learners?
10. Describe the skills and knowledge required to design and create the digital badge(s).
Does your team or organization have resources familiar with creating graphics? Are the resources familiar with the design, branding and layering of images? If your badges start showing up all over the internet do they promote a strong organizational brand? Why does this matter?

Task 6: Defending the digital badge
11. Identify as many objections to digital badges your organization or group may offer that keeps them from further exploring digital badges.
Are the objections focused on current accreditation approaches and why badges shouldn't to be integrated into existing courses, programs, etc? or are they focused on areas of opportunity? Do the objections include new and emerging technologies and pedagogical approaches? or are they focused on the traditional? Where do most objections come from?
12. Describe the different ways badges can be used for the institutional learner, peer-based learner and the self-directed life-long learner.
How do the three learner types described differ when it comes to accreditation. Does each different context / environment offer different opportunities for the issue of badges? What activities outside of courses and programs offer the opportunity to issue badges? Do badges offer things other than just accreditation? How can these be leveraged? Could peer evaluations be represented by badges? Could an independent learner prove competency with a collection of related badges from different sources?

Task 7: Deploying the digital badge(s)
13. Identify the internet technologies required to deploy the digital badge(s).
Think of this in non-technical terms; do you need a location to store descriptions and images? Where / how would you store the association of a badge to each earner? Are there security or information privacy issues you need to consider? Try and describe each of these in non-technical language with as much detail as you can.
14. Describe the skills and knowledge required to develop and administer the software and technical environment required to host digital badges.
Could you be non-technical and successfully deploy digital badges? Can you find any of the self-service digital badge issuing sites? Do any of these free digital badge systems insulate the non-technical person from the technology required to issue digital badges? If technology skills and knowledge are required can they be identified?

Looking for data

This is the first time I have done this. I am making a request for data... I know its got to be out there. I've looked at gapminder and I can get some of it there, I've queried Google scholar and have found a couple of documents where I can harvest some data. The question I am trying to answer is;

From a global perspective (and as percentages) how many adults go to university, how many go to college, how many develop trade skills, how many are unskilled labour, and how many have no known level of education?

The three graphs I am wanting to complete are found below. The data I have so far is from my readings from the previously mentioned sources. If you know of a document or data set that can provide me this information it would be most appreciated.

Open Badges, LRMI and OER

Over the last few months I have immersed myself in Open Badges. As I explore this technology I can't help but reflect upon my past experiences as an educational technologist, software developer, OER content creator, project lead and solutions architect. And yes, all these apply as I fold LRMI into the mix. My reflection points include;

• Open Badges as educational resources
I believe that the criteria and evidence attributes of an open badge can also be learning resources. I see the badge as the destination, where the criteria and evidence are the learning journey. Exploring a badges criteria and, many earners, evidence can provide valuable learning resources.
• Everything online is an OER for the independent learner
I've spoken about this for years... the Internet is the platform and as an independent self directed learner all Internet resources should be considered educational resources. Particularly, when you consider fair-dealing / fair-use.


• LRMI is an important standard for educational resources
Great search results increase access to learning resources. The faster you can get to the resource, the better. Particularly, if the resource is close to within the learning context you are working. LRMI is going to help greatly with increasing access to educational resources, especially when search facets allow for resource exploration clustered around a search term (or context).
• The vocabulary is as important as the schema
The vocabulary populates some of the fields of the LRMI schema. These fields describe the resources user role, type, etc. Take a look at the LRMI specification if you want more. Having a consistent and well thought-out vocabulary will help greatly in putting learning resources into context. It is the vocabulary that will classify resources and allow the building of search facets.

So how do I see Open Badges, LRMI and OER working together?

• The OER should include metadata to increase searchability (LRMI works well here). OER should also be referenced within a course outline, learning challenge, book, course material, badge criteria, etc, etc...
• OER search results should provide a listing of learning resources, assessment resources, and accreditation resources (open badges works here). The search facets should cluster around subject domains, themes, keywords, available taxonomies, etc. The facets should also include assessment and accreditation resources related to the keywords / subject domain of the search.
• The criteria and evidence resources found within the json attributes of the open badges specification should point to educational resources and it should become a best practice to embed LRMI within these resources. 
• The LRMI vocabulary should include "badge" as a learningResourceType. This would also assist in building the search facets. The badge, and its criteria and evidence, also needs to expose this attribute to be picked up by search indexing.

wrapping screencasts in popcorn.js to enhance learning

My work over the last month has been to create screencasts for the Mozilla open badges initiative. I am building screencasts to provide online tutorials describing the different technical aspects of the Open Badges Infrastructure (OBI). There are many scholarly articles discussing the effectiveness of screencasts on learning; a google scholar search on "screencast learning" provides a good listing if you would like further reading. One aspect of the screencasts I have been working on for a while is how to deepen the learning around the screencast. In a number of my previous projects, including CLEBC and AIM language learning, we enhanced screencast learning by including; chat, discussion, in-lined formative questions, and links to related resources. All of these enhancements helped in creating a more complete learning module by providing multi-modalities to learning.

What I believe is the most important is the clustering of resources into a succinct module. The idea being that the screencast is "surrounded" by many resources specific to the subject and contents of the screencast. Another technology currently being released by Mozilla is popcorn.js. This technology allows screencasts to be greatly enhanced by adding resources and screen elements as the video progresses. Popcorn is well described on the related Mozilla site;

"Popcorn.js is an HTML5 media framework written in JavaScript for filmmakers, web developers, and anyone who wants to create time-based interactive media on the web. Popcorn.js is part of Mozilla's Popcorn project."

What popcorn.js provides is the ability create a comprehensive learning module where a screencast is clustered with other related resources. These additional resources can be explored while the video is in progress or referenced after the video is complete. The main point being the resources are available through links and are presented within the context of the progressing video.

To view the use of popcorn.js to enhance learning visit this growing repository of popcorn wrapped screencasts; http://badges.bit.bc.ca/guides/step01.html

Related readings:

• Farley, S., Breck, J,. (n.d.). Finding Knowledge in the Global Golden Age of Learning. Retrieved from http://globalknowledgeinitiative.org/news/judy-breck.html
• Mestrea, L. (2010). Matching Up Learning Styles with Learning Objects: What's Effective? Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01930826.2010.488975
• Oehrli, J.A., Piacentine, J., Peters, A., & Nanamaker, B. (2011). Do screencasts really work? Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/national/2011/papers/do_screencasts_work.pdf

Mozilla Ignite + WebGL: Introduction

Over the last two weeks I have invested considerable time reading about, talking with people, and watching the occasional youtube video on WebGL. I've been doing this to create some learning resources for the Mozilla Ignite challenge. I won't be creating the technical resources myself; I will be facilitating the discussions and thinking around the WebGL technology and how Mozilla can best support the ignite candidates to onboard themselves. In otherwords, what aspects of OpenGL ES, WebGL (and related libraries) does a software developer need to understand to implement their ignite challenge idea. And what learning resources can Mozilla create to assist these developers.

A concept map can go a long way toward developing an understanding of any subject domain. This simple concept map is my first stab at WebGL and will be added to as I deepen my understanding.

An introductory concept map for WebGL. What is WebGL?

To start learning about WebGL there are many resources and tutorials to assist with learning. These resources can be found with internet searches and will take you to many step-by-step guides and youtube videos. I strongly suggest you spend time searching for, and completing WebGL tutorials if you are wanting to deepen your understanding of the coding to WebGL. An excellent YouTube video that covered an introduction to WebGL with a whole lot of coding examples is from Erik Möller...

Screencasting guildelines

I've always though the strength of screencasts was in their storytelling qualities. And a few searches on the keywords "screencast + storytelling" do take you to some sites and articles supporting storytelling using technology, in particular, using screencasting. In one paper titled, "Does screencast teaching software applications need narration for effective learning?" found that "the findings provide evidence that screencast with narration can be used for online self-paced learning that is not only effective but also efficient."

When I combine my belief in screencasting with my experience in creating Open Educational Resources (OER) I look to a larger picture where the preparation and artifacts created in the lead up to recording a screencast are also important artifacts for learning and reuse. And when you also consider the reuse possibilities and the localization needs that may occur, creating treatments for the screencasts and storing the raw multimedia files also become important.

For my current project work with Mozilla I have decided to create an Open Resources Wiki within the larger Mozilla Wiki. This open resources wiki will store guidelines, resources and artifacts for creating open resources. I believe these resources could be very useful as Mozilla deepens its commitment to digital literacy and webmaking. I believe that the resources I create will have the ability to be reused and localized and I need to be mindful of this possibility as I create new learning resources.

Preparing multimedia resources of reuse and localization takes additional work, but it is work that makes a better initial product. This occurs because greater thought needs to go into the resource before it is created. My recent set of screencasts have focused on the onboarding of open badges implementers where I have created screencast treatments and stored the related media in RAW format encouraging reuse and easing localization efforts.

• The step by step guide I am creating resources; https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/StepxStep
• The scaffolding and treatment guidelines for screancasts; https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Prawsthorne/Scaffolding/Webinars
• The actual treatment for step 0 of the resource; https://wiki.mozilla.org/Education/OpenResources/Badges/0-Reading

OER Assessment

I believe new approaches to open assessment need to be built to handle the growing global demand for education and learning. I am not alone in my thinking. I believe there is no shortage of great OER and a growing number of approaches toward open accreditation. These approaches to accreditation follow both traditional models and those more innovative. The point I am wanting to make is; there is no shortage of good open educational materials and there are some solid open accreditation services emerging. What I believe is missing is open assessment, for assessment closes the gap between studying educational materials and receiving accreditation for that study.

Inaugural ICT4D event participants.

This post is about open assessment and the approaches that I believe will work toward creating open assessment for the masses. I also think some background on myself and why I have developed my way of perceiving open assessment is important. I haven't taken the traditional route in obtaining an education; yet, in the end I have received a Bachelors of Technology from the Open Learning Agency of BC (OLA) and a Masters of Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). But to think it was a straight line toward these credentials would be wrong. My OLA B.Tech degree was by cobbling together a couple of technology diplomas, with University credits from three different institutions. My MUN M.Ed IT was all online, even though I spent a year on campus, all my coursework was done online. Needless to say I have often taken alternate routes toward a traditional destination.

I know one of the biggest influences in my adult life was my participation at the inaugural ICT4D event at Royal Holloway in 2006. Ever since then I have been focusing a large part of my working and volunteer efforts in blending technology and education for the greater good. The paper I presented was about what I called a "critical technologist". It is really about the role someone could take in assisting to develop capacity with ICT in developing countries. The "critical technologist" is a play on Paulo Friere's Critical Pedagogy. I am strong believer in Paulo Friere's work. The three areas of work I have done within this capacity since 2006 have been;

• WikiEducator (2007 - 2010) - I will always look fondly upon my work with WikiEducator. I was a large  contributor at its early stages and wrote a few key pieces that are still in use today. To see my participation, review my profile; http://wikieducator.org/User:Prawstho. I was honoured and fortunate to be nominated to WikiEducator council, and in 2010 we parted ways. On occasion I still contribute to WikiEducator, though my focus is more in Wikiversity.
• Continuing Legal Education of BC (2008 - 2011) - I was Senior Project Manager / Lead Technical Architect for a large grant to increase access to education for the lawyers of British Columbia. We used a lot of open source software and open approaches to provide a services orientation for building learning communities; This 2011 post titled "Increasing access to education", does good job describing what we did.
• Progressive Video Assessment - I came up with this learning systems architecture in 2008 and had the opportunity to implement it in a couple of projects; AIM Language Professional and CLE Engagements Questions.

How does my educational and work experience influence how I believe OER assessment should be built? I believe it can be distilled into eight important points;

1. It should be peer-based
2. It should be scalable
3. It should be fun and enjoyable
4. It should provide many reusable instruments
5. It should play well with others
6. It should be reference-able
7. It should support open data
8. It should feed into open credentialing

I believe open assessment should be easily integrated with other approaches of assessment and credentialing. It should assist learners who are attending traditional institutions as well as alternative approaches like OERu and P2Pu. It should also support those who want to learn independently without ever stepping foot in a traditional institution (online, virtual or otherwise) or those independent learners who dont seek credentials. I really like the parallel universe approach being offered by OERu; yet, I am also concerned about the need for fees and my internal critical pedagogue is tingling. I have extended the parallel universe approach being proposed by OERu.

OERu parallel learning universe with an additional dimension.

Approaches to Open Assessment:

• In the immediate term we should build peer-assessment to utilize and promote the use of badges (see wikieducator: http://wikieducator.org/User:Prawstho or Mozilla badges for example). This will get us going quickly and then build upon this with greater automation and other assessment approaches.
• In the near term we should build rubrics to allow people to perform self-assessments and then submit portfolio for a peer-review. Peer reviewers should also be given badges for executing N peer reviews. This does not require a lot of automation, can be implemented quite quickly.
• In the close term we should build formative and summative assessment instruments that can be baked into websites, apps and tools. People should be able to edit / improve on instruments in a community kind of way.
• Beginning immediately and through the next year we should start building apps and experimenting with mass collaboration for assessment.
• In the medium term we should build a repository of guidelines, templates, assessment instruments and approaches.
• In the long term we should build a fun community around assessment and broadening peoples skills and knowledge regarding assessment and accreditation.
• As an ongoing initiative we should encourage research and centers of excellence around open assessment and its relationship with open accreditation.

Thanks to WSIS for hosting this OER debate

I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this oxford-style debate, both invited contributors and commentors. I also want to thank WSIS for creating the space for this event. Thank-you.

I have listened and read David Wiley and Stephen Downes go "head-to-head" on this and similar topics in the past. And thanks to both of them for their boldness and thoroughness. After years of struggling with the issue of copyright and educational resources I believe it has never been so clear to me as it is now. Lurking upon and commenting within this debate has been an excellent personal learning experience. And is very well aligned with some of my current writings on the subject; http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.com/search/label/fair-dealing.

What has emerged for me is as follows;

1. There are two distinct views within this debate and I believe they have different and opposing interests.
• Independent Learner (adult or otherwise): I consider this collective of individuals as the largest block of OER consumers and creators. In my opinion, from an educational resource consumer perspective, they can almost completely ignore copyright due to fair-dealing / fair-use (All they need to do is honour the BY). And > 70% want to contribute with a NC license. I appreciate Stephens reference to flickr on this. The independent learner (whether self-directed or institutionalized) is the target group for OER creation and consumption. All mass collaboration projects are examples of this, and its success. - I feel this group was under represented in this debate.
• Institutional Faculty, Staff and Employees: This group is restrained by their being associated with large institutions (whether public, private, commercial, academic, govt; they are NOT independent learners) And they have to work within the guidelines (and legalities) of their institutions and cannot claim fair-use / fair-dealing. And cannot publicly encourage their students to claim fair-dealing / fair-use.
2. both institutions and individuals should be left to decide the licensing scheme they would like to use by choosing one that would best support their values and mission. Dictating the licensing scheme keeps people from contributing to OER.
3. we still need to be very weary of commercial interests impacting access to educational resources, cause they will come at it from many different directions. This Michael Geist post titled, "Q.Do Digital Locks Trump Educational Fair Dealing? A. Yes." pretty much sums it up for me. And is why I voted NO for OER to favour commercial use. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5479/125/

Suggestion: Next time a similar debate is run please invite a few copyright lawyers with differing views (include fair dealing / fair use perspectives) and invite a selection of independent learners from different age groups.

Ignore copyright, its research and private study

With the fair-use and fair-dealing exceptions to copyright the independent learner can simplify their perspective when considering using copyrighted material for their research and private study. Other than attribution an independent learner can ignore copyright and use all available materials to learn with reckless abandon. These rather bold statements are based on common sense and not being able to find any case law that would lead me to a different conclusion. In Canada (and many other commonwealth countries) we have fair-dealing. Fair dealing allows limited and non-commercial copying for the purposes of research or private study, criticism, review, and news reporting.

With extensive searches for case law on fair dealing I was unable to find any legal challenges where a self-directed independent learner was being sued because they used copyrighted material for their research, private study or review. To support my position I believe it is important to answer three questions and make four important observations;

Questions:

1. What is research?
I particularly like this description of research for it includes the importance of communicating to others as being a part of research.

Research is the systematic process of collecting and analyzing information to increase our understanding of the phenomenon under study. It is the function of the researcher to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon and to communicate that understanding to others. - Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2005). Practical research: Planning and design (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

I also like the definition from the intellectual property office in the UK for it also stresses the importance of providing sufficient acknowledgment. And aligns well with my previous statement about attribution.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-other/c-exception/c-exception-research.htm

2. What is private study?
After review of a number of definitions of private study I found them mostly to be very similar. It is quite clear that private study is an independent activity that includes reading, reviewing materials, writing and reflection. 

...in private study during term (not counting time in lectures, classes or supervisions). You should try to work out a regular plan for your week which leaves you several periods free for concentrated reading and writing. Work out in advance what you can reasonably expect to read in the time available, and when you need to stop reading and begin to organise your thoughts and write. - selected text from the definition of Private Study, Department of ASNC Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge.

3. What is review?
There are many forms of review and they are all well described in the following Wikipedia article. What I particularly like about this Wikipedia article is that it includes many different forms of materials that can be reviewed. 

A review is an evaluation of a publication, such as a movie (a movie review), video game, musical composition (music review of a composition or recording), book (book review); a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show. - Review. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 25, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review

Observations:

1. Learning is a social activity, and there is no shortage of research and evidence in support of this. Learning with reflection, particularly public reflection deepens learning beyond similar activities without the public reflection.
2. A well learned and skilled population gives a nation competitive advantage in the global economy. Therefore, I cannot see a court challenge finding against a person using any / all available material (copyrighted or otherwise) when they are learning. Particularly, when they are open about their use and are mindful of the six principal criteria for evaluating fair dealing.
3. Within a personal learning context and given fair-dealings / fair-use, licensing then becomes about protecting the institutions. And no institution (online or otherwise), or its employees or faculty, are going to suggest to its learner community (students) to ignore copyright and claim fair-use / fair-dealing. This suggestion, made broadly, would be a violation of fair-use / fair-dealing. It is also why the institutions advocate so strongly in favour of copyright (I'll hedge because their lawyers have advised them as such).
4. We really need some case law on this! Given none exists I'll hedge this falls in favour of the independent personal learner, and all copyright holders who have considered legal action against an independent personal learner and sought legal advice have been advised against taking action due to fair-dealings / fair-use.

Please keep in mind this is my position on this issue. I am a self-directed adult learner who believes learning is a social activity and by sharing publicly my learning I am deepening my learning, engaging in progressive inquiry and focusing my deliberate practice. I do not feel I am pushing the boundaries of copyright for I am consuming, reusing, referencing and mashing resources within the fair-dealings exception and we need some case law to provide guidance to this important issue of open educational resources, personal online learning and fair-use / fair dealings.


Request for information:

1. If you are an intellectual property or copyright lawyer I would appreciate your commenting on this post from the legal perspective.
2. If you know of an intellectual property or copyright lawyer, please forward this post and request they make comment.
3. If you know of any case law regarding an individual self-directed learner within a fair-dealing or fair-use suit please forward it along.

Ignore copyright and blissfully create OER

One of the themes coming from SXSW was comments that 4chan founder Christopher "moot" Poole made in how Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder) doesn't get it. And how anonymity isn't cowardice but allows a greater freedom to create. I agree.

"totally wrong on anonymity being total cowardice. Anonymity is authenticity. It allows you to share in a completely unvarnished, raw way. The cost of failure is really high when you’re contributing as yourself.” - Poole

I believe this also applies to the creation of Open Educational Resources (OER). I Increasingly believe that people are not contributing to OER projects in any significant way due to having to assign copyright to the works they create or not being encouraged to contribute anonymously. Other than Wikiversity, as far as I know, there are no OER efforts where people can contribute in any depth with complete anonymity. I believe having to login to a system to create OER and having to assign a copyright is hindering the success of OER and its widespread adoption. Here is why I believe this;

1. In the OER context, copyright is there to protect the institution. fair-use and fair-dealings allows anyone to use copyrighted materials for research and  private study. And the interpretation of these should be liberal and ask whether the dealing with the content was genuinely fair. Any materials you create are yours regardless if you assign a copyright (unless you gave this away via professional or contract obligations). And due to fair use / fair dealings anyone can use the materials you have created. Given you are creating and learning within an OER context openly sharing is a part of the journey. So why be burdened with having to decide upon, think about the issues around assigning a copyright to your work? Just create, participate, use, reuse, and enjoy your learning! Leave the copyright issues to the institutions, not the learners.
2. I also believe having to assign a copyright (creative commons, gpl or other) can be a barrier to contribution. Its intimidating for the newbie. I know I've been considering the issue for a number of years and I have switched between CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-NC-SA, copyright rejection and a complete abstinence. And I distinctly remember wading into the copyright arena with hesitation, at first brush it can be pretty heady stuff. And if a graduate level technology person hesitates (me) what do other adult learners think when confronted with the copyright issue. If one of the main ideas behind OER is to encourage contribution why put a barrier in the way. Just encourage people to create, use and re-use and don't think about copyright; for what they are doing falls under fair-use / fair-dealings.
3. Anonymity would allow you to create OER with reckless abandon (in an unvarnished, raw way), without fear of some kind of academic scrutiny. If the OER is referenced, used, and reused that proves its worth, regardless of who created it. In the end it is about your own personal learning, if what you have created has a value to others that is a bonus, but not the purpose. And I will hedge that the deeper the personal learning in creating the resource, the more valuable the resource is to others.

Why is the OER movement so adamant upon the learner / creator having to create public profiles and assign some form of copyright? When the reciprocal of no license and anonymity could increase contribution. And could even leave the community of OER creators, users and re-users to identify the quality OER through their referencing, using and reusing.

Challenging the copyright status quo in OER

A couple of days ago I commented on a post titled "Paul Stacey from BCcampus: Open Education and Policy" on the creative commons blog (funny thing, it never was accepted as a comment). Now I really think that Paul has made a great post because it is increasing the dialogue around the issue of copyright and OER... All Good! My comment was questioning the use of copyright by the adult learner within the OER context, this is what I posted;

This post is fantastic! Having the chart is a great addition to see who is doing what... One of the items around copyright that I don't see discussed is how fair-use and fair-dealings has an impact. Given fair-use is a looser approach, lets consider the tighter of fair-dealings where copyright materials used for private study isn't governed by any copyright. I agree with this, using materials for learning regardless of copyright should never put you in violation of copyright. I've looked for case law on this issue and to date I have found none. I'd like to see an individual lose a copyright suit when they used the material for their personal learning. I don't think it is going to happen. So essentially copyright / GPL / CC / copyleft is irrelevant for the learner. So the application of the copyright (or other) is about protecting the institution from copyright violations not the learner. So why is the learner burdened by these issues around copyright? If I create some OER (as long as I haven't given my rights away due to a contract or other) it's mine, regardless if I attach some form of copyright to it. I'd like the discussion to be around refusing copyright. If I create OER, my choice then becomes; do I want attribution or do I want to put into the public domain without attribution. All other forms of copyright don't matter to the learner given fair dealings / fair use. Cause no matter what license I attach to something, every other learner can ignore it due to fair dealings / fair use... if OER is about education being an attainable goal for everyone, why are we burdening everyone with copyrights that are there to protect the institutions? Or have I missed something?

So, I believe every adult learner should ignore the burdens of copyright during their research and private study and learn, create, use, re-use open educational materials with reckless abandon. And during that time I will continue to look for case law challenging fair-use and fair-dealings.

What do the teens think of OER

This project is in the idea formation stage for me. I need to get it out into the open so I can discuss it further and have people critique my beliefs / ideas. If you come across this blog post please make comments, give feedback. It will improve my view and deepen my understanding. Thank-you.

Background:

I believe some emerging efforts around Open Educational Resources (OER) and related copyright and accreditation issues are born out of a traditional view of the educational world. I believe some influential groups within the OER movement is taking something that is currently open and free and wanting to pull it back into the restraints (and business model) of the institution. The institutions need to "control" the content and accreditation process or they will increasingly lose relevance. The OER movement is currently active around issues of copyright and accreditation under the guise of making a better "educational" future. What they seem to be doing is taking continued control of the "educational" future, whether consciously or not is IMHO irrelevant. The people who are going to be most impacted by these changes are the current K12 students and younger (in all corners of the world). Their voice isn't included in many of these OER and related issue discussions. I believe we need to include their voice by gaining greater understanding of their thoughts around OER, copyright issues, accreditation and how they want to learn, and how they are learning. I believe this is a critical pedagogical issue, and we need to engage those who will be most impacted.

Another important piece of background information is I am parent to three children; Ana Rose (15), Lucas (5) and Kai (4). I have expressed concerns about public education, in particular higher education. I see OER as an amazing opportunity and I want it to remain free, open and focused on the needs of students, regardless of ethnicity and socio-economic position. I don't want my children restrained by an old paradigm.

Thesis:
Teens don't care about OER, copyright issues and accreditation (particularly, when it comes to learning). Learning should be free and with the internet they have access to all they need. Given fair-use and fair-dealings all content is already open for educational use. Accreditation will be replaced by good reputation management and success doesn't require a credential.

Approach:

I'd like to begin a movement of smart mobs that discuss this and related topics. The data gathering would occur using a world cafe and / or open space approach with the use of video capture of (and by) the participants, participant blogging, wikis and related discussion tools, photographs of drawings and a good tagging strategy. I'd like to find a way where the teens are doing this data gathering on their own, asking themselves the right questions and making these results available to those making decisions / recommendations.

Big question for me here is approach... is this best researched via an ethnographic or action research approach? Or is my approach described above, adequate? How could I best gather some data on this or initiate a movement where teens voices from around the world are being recognized?