Why Open?

In the fourth week of the course (Aug. 31-Sept. 5) we will delve more deeply into the value of openness, as well as some issues that can emerge when doing work openly.

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 on Discourse, here: http://discourse.p2pu.org/t/week-4-what-might-openness-help-with/123 . 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.

Then reflect on what you've read, raising questions, giving comments, talking about what was surprising or new for you, or anything else you'd like to discuss, here: http://discourse.p2pu.org/t/week-4-benefits-and-issues-with-openness/124

*If you have suggestions for other stories/case studies of either benefits or potential issues with openness, please post them in the Discourse area, here: http://discourse.p2pu.org/t/week-4-benefits-and-issues-with-openness/124

1. Benefits of openness

• True Stories of Open Sharing, a set of video stories collected by Alan Levine (each year has a number of stories; just pick a year and watch one or more). Most recent stories: http://stories.cogdogblog.com/ Earlier stories can be found here (with links to even earlier ones): http://cogdogblog.com/stuff/etug11/

• Stalking the Mythical OER Reuse, a collection of stories of reuse of open educational resources, along with a presentation about these stories by Alan Levine. http://cogdogblog.com/2014/08/10/mythical-oer-reuse/

• Who needs access? You need access! This site has stories of why public access to scientific research is important. It's still in progress, but has some good stories already. http://whoneedsaccess.org/

• The Right to Research Coalition's video interview with Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the US National Institutes of Health, and Jack Andraka, the 16-year-old inventor of a breakthrough cancer diagnostic, discussing the importance of Open Access: http://youtu.be/G55hlnSD1Ys News story: http://www.righttoresearch.org/blog/open-access-empowers-16-year-old-to-create-breakth.shtml

• The Power of Open, a collection of stories of people who have chosen to use Creative Commons licenses for their work, and saying why. This publication from Creative Commons includes stories from artists, journalists, educators and more. http://thepowerofopen.org/

• Dispatches From the Commons: Creative Commons Annual Report, 2012: this site has numerous stories about open practices, content and methods. Pick one or more that sound interesting to you! http://dispatches.creativecommons.org/

• What does Creative Commons mean for science? http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-12/15/what-does-creative-commons-mean-for-science

• Share This Book, by Chris Sakkas of Living Libre: gives arguments for sharing work openly: http://www.livinglibre.com/ (click on "share this book" at the top of the page)

2. Arguments about benefits and drawbacks of specific Creative Commons licenses

• Problems with the CC-BY-NC (noncommercial) license: http://freedomdefined.org/NC and http://kefletcher.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/why-not-nc-non-commercial.html and http://openglam.org/files/2013/01/iRights_CC-NC_Guide_English.pdf

• Arguments for using CC-BY-NC: http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/debates/group:14358/viewstatement/251476/252288/252322 and http://halfanhour.blogspot.com.au/2008/12/open-content-enclosure-and-conversion.html

• Problems with "no derivatives" licenses: http://freedomdefined.org/ND

• Arguments for using "share alike" licenses: http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/open/climate-of-trust-in-commons-development.html

• The Open Knowledge Foundations arguments about "share alike" vs. "noncommercial": http://blog.okfn.org/2010/06/24/why-share-alike-licenses-are-open-but-non-commercial-ones-arent/

• David Wiley's rebuttal to the Open Knowledge Foundations arguments above, arguing for CC-BY over CC-BY-SA: http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1498

• Rob Myers' arguments about how CC-BY-NC-SA is not the same as "copyleft": http://robmyers.org/2008/02/24/noncommercial-sharealike-is-not-copyleft/ And more on copyleft here: https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/ and even more here, if you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

3. Stories of issues with openness, problems that people have run into when opening their work or practices

• Creative Commons Has Failed Me and My Heart is Breaking: http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2013/04/creative-commons-has-failed-me-and-my-heart-is-breaking/ And a response here: http://funnymonkey.com/blog/creative-commons-and-human-nature

• Further posts by Dr. Severance on this issue: http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2013/05/the-day-after-cc-by-fail-cc-infinity/ and http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/2013/05/one-more-day-of-thought-introducing-cc-one-formerly-cc-infinity/

• Problems with open data: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/06/25/seeing-like-a-geek/

• Bad experience with media reporting on research: http://ellenblogsresearch.blogspot.ca/2013/08/is-openness-always-best.html?spref=tw

• Article arguing that "free" and "open" movements, organizations and practices often perpetuate gender gaps, in part because a heavy focus on freedom and lack of formal structure can lead to perpetuating already-existing inequalities: http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381

• ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) letter attacking open culture - part 1 (https://twitpic.com/1zai6e ) part 2 (https://twitpic.com/1zai66 ); CC's response: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/22643 (The ASCAP Legislative Fund for the Arts is a "political action committee" in the United States, which uses donations to contribute to political campaigns of particular people, or to try to help get certain laws passed by talking to lawmakers, education campaigns, and more.) Mike Rugnetta posted these 2 parts of a letter (or email) he received from ASCAP, asking him to donate to this political action committee.

• Lawrence Lessig (Professor of Law at Harvard, previously Stanford) versus Jack Valenti (Pres. of Motion Picture Assoc. of America) debate from 2001 (a long one; you could just watch part of it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnbyRnZlLH0

• Rosie Redfield at the University of British Columbia published a series of blog posts in 2013 about some problems with using CC-BY for academic publishing (short story: it allows for predatory publishers to republish openly licensed work in edited collections and charge for it, even though the articles are openly available and free). See her blog posts here and here; she did a survey of open access authors and reports the findings here, and a final blog post in the series can be found here.

• Not really a problem with open exactly, but questioning whether it makes sense to say there's anything like an "open movement," or any single definition to the word "open," by Pat Lockley:

Lockley's presentation at a conference in 2013, found here: http://vimeo.com/62114530 If you want the short version, you could start around 12:40 and watch to the end, where the argument is sort of summarized I think.

 Lockley's video about "why open is over," partly because "open" is a term that is too vague and doesn't have a single definition: https://vimeo.com/95333897