The United Nations University, an official member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, has just launched their web learning portal. Joining more than 100 other institutions of higher education, UNU is providing open access to an initial dozen training courses, spanning from subjects like Integrated Water Resources Management to the Social Construction of Technology in Development.  The courses are aimed towards educators, students,…

Bayanihan is a Tagalog term originating from the root word Bayani, or hero.  Today, Bayanihan represents an heroic effort on the part of the community, or the actions of a group of people that result in a common good.  Greg Moreno’s new initiative, Bayanihan Books, is aptly named.    With 17.5 million public school students in the Philippines, affordable…

Secondary Sound, a book of poems and short stories by Justin Sirois, was recently released simultaneously through BlazeVOX [books] as well as online via afree PDF. Much of Secondary Sound, which is released under a CC BY-NC-SA license, addresses copyright reform and freedom of information, making for interesting parallels and diversions between content and distribution.…

In one of the more unconventional uses of CC-licenses we have seen, Lysse Smith Wylle’s The Art of Magic Words, a book focused on spell poetry and magickal prose, is published with an instructional spell section licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. From GroundMarkPress: While the first four chapters of the book are published under…

Superblogger Rober Scoble recently took a ton of photos of famous people at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and released the photos into the public domain, along with all of his other photos posted on Flickr. (Note that Flickr’s most liberal license option is CC Attribution, so that’s what he’s chosen there.) Of…

A proposal to create three documentaries related to the movement Ekta Parishad. One interesting thing about the proposal is the funding and licensing model, which the image below explains well. This model has been discussed many times but little tried.

eSchools News reports that the state of Florida has recently added the open content reading website Free-Reading.net to its list of approved curriculum resources. Officials said Free-Reading.net is the first open instructional program granted bona fide state approval, and OER supporters see momentum building in the idea that a “public, collaborative, continuously modified online curriculum…

Over the holidays, we caught up with acclaimed writer (and podcaster) James Patrick Kelly and asked him some questions regarding the interesting and unique ways he has embraced CC licenses for his work. Read on to find out what positives Kelly has seen in using CC as well as which CC evangelist (hint: he also…

I wouldn’t steal is a new and cute one minute video making the case that sharing is fair and people who would never steal a handbag, car, or television nevertheless download film and music. Whatever you think of that, there’s no ambiguity around downloading and remixing I wouldn’t steal — it is licensed under CC…

From February 8 – 10, the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California will be holding a phenomenal series of panels and screenings focused on DIY video in the digital age, tittled “24/7: A DIY Video Summit“. Topics of discussion range from the artistry and aesthetics involved in this new form of…