Keep On Reclaimin’ Open Learning
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, October 3, 2013

Summary of an event hosted by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub (DML) to Reclaim Open Learning. Author Alan Levine represented ds106, one of five projects honoured at the symposium as "organizations that are transforming higher education toward connected and creative learning, open in content and access, participatory, and building on a growing range of experiments and innovations in networked learning." Levine writes, "This recognition by DML suggests this distributed, non superstar professorial, less than giantly massive open model has legs. It is after all, based on something that has scaled well, the internet itself." Here's the list of projects:

• DigiLit Leicester, Josie Fraser and Lucy Atkins (Leicester City Council), Richard Hall (De Montfort University)
• DS106, Jim Groom, Martha Buris, Alan Levine, University of Mary Washington, United States
• FemTechNet, Susanna Ferrell, Jade Ulrich Scripps College, United States
• Jaaga Study, Archana Prasad, Freeman Murray, India
• Phonar-Ed, Jonathan Worth, Matt Johnston, Shaun Hides, Jonathan Shaw, Coventry University, UK; David Kernohan, JISC, UK

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Copyright Challenges in a MOOC Environment
Unattributed, EDUCAUSE, October 3, 2013

This is an analysis of copyright issues in MOOCs written from the university perspective. It is focused entirely on the use of one of the new MOOC platforms - it doesn't name them, but it's clear the article means Coursera, Udacity, EdX, and the like. Concerns raised include the provider's assertion of perpetual rights to use university content, the impact on fair use provisions, the case of student copyright, and the university's position should professors - who typically own the content they create - leave the instition (coyly called "acadedmic swirl"). I would add than most of these are not issues in a cMOOC, which employs content in situ from different sites, which encourgaes professors and students to use their own space to contribute to courses, and which are not based on a central body of curricular content.

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Canada needs an online education strategy
Jenni Hayman, Globe, Mail, October 3, 2013

This is one of five articles Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper devoted to MOOCs and online learning yesterday. The overall thrust is that while MOOCs have potential, they will not address the needs of education and development by themselves. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. In this lead article, Jenni Hayman calls for a national e-learning strategy. She writes, In Canada, we have unique languages, social values, and past and present cultural stories to tell. I believe that our educational expertise and cultural identities should be celebrated and shared on our own terms, within our control." Hard to disagree with that, either. Here are the other articles in the series:

• A promise of education for all
• Before you jump on the MOOC bandwagon, some questions
• The best technology is the one you already have
• Move along, little is new about what MOOCs have to offer

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