4. Openness: Benefits and Issues (Aug 26-Sept. 1)

In the fourth week of the course (Aug. 26-Sept. 1) we will delve more deeply into the value of openness, as well as some issues that can emerge when doing work openly. We'll be doing parts 4 and 5 of the course during this third week (see menu at left for part 5 of the course).

Please try to complete the activities under this section by Thursday, August 29 (time zones in the Americas). We'll do section 5 of the course during the rest of that week.

Our course pad is acting up (actually, all etherpads at P2PU, I think), and we can't make changes at the moment. You can still see what's there (http://pad.p2pu.org/p/Why_open_course_pad), but changing it isn't working. Christina has created a new document where updates are being recorded, on Google docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xPaQHiZTj61xxQf-9uBHt9LRHWN8oSSEO53ZuLY3l3o/edit# Please see there for updates since the beginning of Sept.!

There will be a synchronous Google Hangout this week, on Thursday, Aug. 29, 19:00 UTC (12:00 Pacific Daylight Time, 15:00 Eastern Daylight Time, 22:00 East Africa Time, 21:00 Central European Summer time, 7am Aug. 30 New Zealand Time). Please sign up on the course pad to be invited to this hangout: http://pad.p2pu.org/p/Why_open_course_pad. Due to only course facilitators signing up for this hangout, we decided to cancel it.

We will also have a Twitter chat this week (hashtag: #whyopen)--it was Tuesday, Aug. 27, 18:00 UTC (11:00am Pacific Daylight Time, 14:00 Eastern Daylight Time, 21:00 East Africa Time, 20:00 Central European Summer time, 6am Aug. 30 New Zealand Time). Here is the archive of our Week 4 Twitter chat: http://storify.com/clhendricksbc/whyopen-twitter-chat-for-week-4-aug-27-2013

At our first Google Hangout session, we decided to create a couple of collaborative documents. Please contribute to them if you'd like!

A couple of us are also working on a mind map started by one of the course participants, that discusses the various definitions of "openness" we've seen in the course, from the survey discussed in week 1 to participants' blog posts. The mind map will also have links to resources on the ideas raised in these different meanings of "open." We'd love collaborators! See more here: http://pad.p2pu.org/p/Why_open_meaning_of_open (you can also let us know if you do NOT want your blog post put into this mind map, after looking at the map and the document about it).

A. Brainstorm barriers or problems that open content or practices could help with

Given what we've done so far in the course, and thinking beyond the course as well, try to come up with one or two things you would like to do, but experience barriers to that openness could help with. What sorts of open tools, resources or methods might help to overcome these barriers?

Share your thoughts in the discussion area, below, and feel free to comment on what others have written as well.

B. Case Studies and stories of openness

Read at least two stories from one or more of the following, which describe benefits of openness, issues with openness, and barriers from closed content, practices and methods. You can discuss these in your final blog post if you wish (see section 5 at left).

If you have suggestions for other stories/case studies of either benefits or potential issues with openness, please put them in the discussion area, below!


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