The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya is hosting a seminar on “open social learning” Nov. 30 – Dec. 1. Participants will include George Siemens and Stephen Downes. The seminar can be followed on Twitter. From the announcement:

At the seminar, research and practices related to OSL based on the application of new technologies in the field of online education will be presented.

Thanks to Edubeat on Twitter for the link.

Julie Hail Flory at Notre Dame is announcing that their OCW is now available on iTunes U. From the announcement:

Notre Dame on iTunes U contains more than 600 free, downloadable audio and video files representing academics, research, campus life, faith and service, as well as a variety of offerings from Notre Dame OpenCourseWare, a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world.

Note that OEN recently covered Jim Groom’s post on his dissatisfaction with iTunes U.

TechAggregator.com is reporting that the company Benetech has received $100,000 from the U.S. Federal government to create open textbooks for persons with disabilities. From the post:

The math and science textbooks are freely distributable under a Creative Commons license. The textbooks, which have been approved for California high school students, will be converted to accessible formats by Benetech’s Bookshare (http://www.bookshare.org) library for people with print disabilities (disabilities like blindness, dyslexia and physical inability to hold books that prevent them from reading standard books.)

Glyn Moody has written on Tim Berner’s Lee new organization, the World Wide Web Foundation and how it relates to openness. From the article:

Open content, too, would be a natural choice for sharing materials, although the World Wide Web Foundation won’t be forcing this on creators, who will be free to choose their own licences.

Tim Kastell has posted a 22-minute presentation on open education at the Univesity of Queensland.

Kelvin Seifert has posted on places to find open educational resources relating to psychology.

Last week OEN reported on a post by David Wiley defining openness. Stephen Downes now has a post in response. From Downes’ post:

My perspective is that each of these, and large swaths of Wiley’s own position, represent efforts by corporations to own what we might call free and/or open content, and to make it not free.

Meena Hwang has a new post listing upcoming OCW webinars.

Stian Haklev has posted a recording of his presentation on “innovative” OER projects. From the post:

…I decided to focus more on why these different projects were set up, what their purpose is, who runs them, and how they are sustained financially.

Note: YouTube is listed among the repositories, though it is only free, not open.

Jim Groom has a new post giving five reasons he dislikes iTunes U. From the post:

…ITunesU is not a place for community, context, or collaboration. What is interesting about the web is not that you can get something, but that you can participate and dialogue around something.

Jane Park has posted, on the blog “Opinions of Open,” a recap of a Peer-to-Peer University meeting in Berlin. From the post:

I think in the end that is the crux of P2PU, that it’s made up of and run by volunteers–people who are willing to risk their time and effort to realize a vision that may not be realizable.

Gavin Baker at Open Access News is reporting on a survey on the use of digital repositories and open access. Unfortunately, the PDF is not open access, so Baker’s summary will have to suffice. From the post:

About 28% said that they sympathize and try to help out by providing open access to their research materials as much as they possibly can.

Die Vorbereitungen auf den alljährlichen Steuererklärungswahn, der Deutschland warscheinlich so viel Energie kostet, wie es eigentlich für ein sinnvolles Bruttosozialprodukt, hatte gebrauchen können, nehmen auch mich momentan etwas in ANSPRUCH.

Aber sei es drum, mit vereinten Kräften geht unsere Arbeit weiter, so auch bei KEIN-NICHTS

So haben wir letzte Woche im Königsblut gedreht. Die Menge der Schauspieler, Helfer und Experten von Bühnenbau bis hin zum Licht werden auch immer mehr und so war diesmal immer geschäftiges Gewusel am Set. Für mich eindeutig ein Beweis, dass meine Vorstellungen von Community und kollektiver Kraft funktionieren. Anyway, wir hatten irre viel Spaß und ich denke, die Bilder sprechen Bände:

“laurapasquini” has tweeted about a wiki page on mashing up OER. The wiki provides a workflow, list of tools and relevant URLs.

“Linda” has posted a list of the top 50 OpenCourseWare collections. The rankings are apparently not in order of quality, but to type and geographic location.

Vicky Woollaston is reporting that the Open University has reached 10 million downloads on iTunes.

Wayne Mackintosh has announced, via mailing list, that WikiEducator and Connexions will be collaborating for greater interoperability. From the e-mail:

Gee — you gotta love open philanthropy! Let’s make OER remix and interoperability futures happen for education.

Thanks to Brian Lamb for the link.

Josh Levy has announced the open video contest. The contest is to create a 60-second or less video that explains why open video is important. The top winner will receive a free trip to SXSW 2010. From the post:

Our panel of judges (including web luminaries like Mitchell Baker, Jimmy Wales, and Jesse Dylan) will pick the best and most creative entries.

Antonio Fini has published an article in the most recent issue of The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL). The article reports on survey results from the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) course. From the abstract:

Findings from a survey of CCK08 participants show that the course attracted mainly adult, informal learners, who were unconcerned about course completion and who cited a lack of time as the main reason for incompletion. Time constraints, language barriers, and ICT skills affected the participants’ choice of tools; for example, learners favoured the passive, filtered mailing list over interactive but time-consuming discussion forums and blogs.

David Wiley has a new post attempting to define open. Wiley argues that openness is a continuum, not a binary concept. From the post:

A door can be wide open, completely shut, or open part way. So can a window. So can a faucet. So can your eyes. Our commonsense, every day experience teaches us that “open” is continuous. Anyone who will argue that “open” is a binary construct is forced to admit that a door cracked open one centimeter is just as open as a door standing wide open, because their conception of the term is overly simplified and has no nuance.

David Porter has posted a diagram done by Lisa Rogers showing an “agile” OER workflow. From Porter’s post:

While searching using “simple, easy, agile” and other adjectives to describe “OER workflow,” I finally got a hit that made sense.

Thanks to Stephen Downes for the link.

Julia Angwin and Geoffrey A. Fowler are reporting in the Wall Street Journal that many Wikipedia volunteers are leaving in record number. Increasing layers of bureaucracy and fatigue over fighting are cited as possible reasons. From the article:

“People generally have this idea that the wisdom of crowds is a pixie dust that you sprinkle on a system and magical things happen,” says Aniket Kittur, an assistant professor of human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied Wikipedia and other large online community projects.

Additional coverage on Slashdot. Thanks to Brian Lamb for the link.

Dave Cormier has posted on OER and educational development. Cormier questions the usefulness of OER repositories. From the article:

Being open need not be complicated, it doesn’t need to be organized, nor does it even need to be funded. It has to respond to a need that exists. Simple solutions may require a 10% concession from the educator, but a small concession to sustainability can be important.

Jane Park is announcing the first in a series of “advanced topics” relating to Creative Commons. The document explains the relationship between rights, trademark and OER. From the post:

For OER organizations with a strong trademark, or with the plans and capacity to build and sustain one, this primer is a guide to understanding the relationship between your organization’s rights as a copyright owner using CC licenses (particularly CC BY) and your organization’s trademark rights within the context of open educational resources (OER). This primer is not relevant for OER creators generally, as trademark law only pertains to those entities with the capacity to build and sustain a brand.

Steve Kaufmann has a new post criticizing Canada for its lack of OER relating to foreign languages. From the post:

Then I returned to Vancouver, back to earth, back to Canada, where a language “cosa nostra” decides what learners are allowed to do.