Students for Free Culture plays a big part of the CC community and we frequently look to them for new hires and volunteers. That’s why we’re always excited to highlight the projects they’re working on. Kevin Donovan just posted on the SFC blog about their ongoing Open University Campaign, which is seeking to evaluate universities based on their openness in the following ways:
An open university is one in which:
- The research produced is open access;
- The course materials are open educational resources;
- The university embraces free software and open standards;
- The university’s patents are readily licensed for free software, essential medicine, and the public good;
- The university’s network reflects the open nature of the Internet,
where “university” includes all parts of the community: students, faculty and administration.”
The ultimate goal is to generate a report card for universities in order to help prospective students make informed decisions about the university’s copyright, patent, and technology policies.
SFC needs you to get involved if you fit into any of the following categories:
- Are you a student who can research official university open access policies?
- Are you passionate about FOSS and can develop a questionnaire for IT administrators about FOSS policy?
- Are you statistically-inclined and can handle data on universities?
- Are you a web developer who could create a public website for the Open University Report Cards?
- Are you a graphic designer who could create posters to raise awareness on campuses?
You can join up by participating on the wiki, signing up for the Open University mailing list, or emailing board (at) freeculture (dot) org with suggestions or questions!
This campaign makes a lot of sense. Frequently NGOs come on campus to recruit activists for campaigns that have little to do with what’s going on campus. Imagine the change that’s possible if students channeled that energy into reforming Universities. And it’s totally shareable that those who can go to college work to make university knowledge open to those who can’t.
Hi I am a senior student majoring English and Polici at Korea University here in Seoul, South Korea. But somehow since the year 2006 when I firstly encountered the free culture I became more interested in IT and law and social transformation in general. The project you launched is awesome with regard to the aspect that Neal already commented above. I agreed that many movements and campaigns happening on the campus right are not related to do much with the real students and learning and maturing experience. So I hope this open learning and free culture movement can enhance students creativity that’s beyond their own use but more of the great social benefits.
Thanks.