e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

"Wal*Mart pulling the plug on their music DRM Server" (TechCrunch)

See people, this is why crap like DRM is important. Read this whole story over at TechCrunch but the upshot is that if you bought music from Wal-Mart with its DRM built-in, then you better get to your local Best Buy and pick up a stack of CD-Rs. Wal-mart is going DRM-free - good, right? - except that when it does, it will turn off those DRM servers and you won't be able to access your DRM-protected music files THAT YOU ALREADY PAID FOR!

Nice job huh? See, you didn't actually buy the songs - you bought a revocable license to those songs.

"Beginning October 9, we will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com. If you do not back up your files before this date, you will no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash. Your music and video collections will still play on the originally authorized computer."

Soapbox for the Day: Academic Journals like Field Methods, that don't support things like access to their content

Honest to goodness, someone please respond to me so we can have an open conversation about this. Here is what I see. There is a journal, Field Methods, with an editor -  H. Russell Bernard, and then you have this publisher. Now someone from the journal PLEASE explain to me, what benefits you and/or your customers derives from you having this relationship with this publisher?! Understand this - I am not against the publisher, I understand their business model and I understand their motivations - they are not evil, they're just capitalists and NO the two are not the same. (previous rants on this topic)

Until I get some explanations though, I'm pretty well amazed at the academics involved in this scheme. I've posted about it before, but to date have not received any kind of explanation as to what benefit derives to the side of this equation that supplies all the intellectual horsepower.

• Do the writers/authors get paid?
• Does the journal get a slice of the money that the publisher charges consumers without which the journal could not operate?
• Could the journal not operate a peer-reviewed, refereed publication without the enormous support it gets from the publisher?
• Have you researched Open Access Journals and found that model to be wanting?
• Have you explored using a Creative Commons license but found fatal flaws in that plan?
• have you looked at the model of the Public Library of Science journals and found insurmountable issues there?
• Why?
• Why?
• Why?

Faculty are paid by their schools. Usually research is part of their job description - so they aren't out of pocket in terms of the cost of the research. Usually the "peers" who review articles, aren't paid or they're paid very little. So then we take this paid for research, add some peer review and then add some editorial work and then what? Lock it up behind TWO walls  - one of price and one of copyright.

I'm feeling stupid here because I just don't freaking get it! Want to know where EduPunk can make a dent that'll matter in terms of budgets, openness of research and so on? Tell your institutions to start contacting the academics on the other end of these journals and asking why the hell they continue to participate in an outmoded channel of production that strangles library budgets and restricts already paid for research to those who can afford it and then refuses to allow that content to be freely shared. I swear, I 'm just sitting here shaking my head...I understand this behavior from the recording and movie industries but from institutions and individuals that purport in some way to be supportive of openess and academic freedom. Well I guess its true...freedom isn't free.

Hey! Editors of "Educational Researcher"...Get a FREAKING CLUE!!!!!

This post is going out to the following people in particular: Patricia B. Elmore, Gregory Camilli, Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie, Marla H. Mallette...and anybody else directly involved with the choice to publish the journal "Educational Researcher" through SAGE. Can you people PLEASE get a clue?! Its not about the money...I can afford the $50 for individual access...its the freaking copyright. Why? Why? Why?

Why would educators choose, in this day and age, to participate in a system that does nothing but enrich publishers and locks down information? Why not license this work under Creative Commons? Why not follow the model of the Public Library of Science Journals? Or Open Access Journals? Let me spell this out...the information I get from reading an article of yours is worth say "X" ...when I share that information with my network, the value of that article, insofar as it sparks conversation and dialog and thinking, is X to the Nth (N being some composite of the size and interest level of my network). Your authors' work is seen by more people, your hard work in editing this journal is seen by more people, the credibility of your peer reviewers is judged by more people.

I'm sorry but to my simple country mind the choice is clear...more, more, more or less, less,less.

Lots of great articles in SCIENCE...that you can't see...

I thought it might be fun to pause in our never-ending (albeit well-deserved) beatings of the music and movie industries' totally mystifying refusal to understand that the market is changing and that maybe they shouldn't do dumba$$ stuff like sue their customers and that maybe they need to think about changing their biz models.

This pause is only to ensure that addle-brained organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science get their due as well. These dopes publish the magazine SCIENCE and it has some great articles like:

Predicting Human Interactive Learning by Regret-Driven Neural Networks (Marchiori and Warglien, Science 22 February 2008: 1111-1113), The Demography of Educational Attainment and Economic Growth (Lutz et al., Science 22 February 2008: 1047-1048),  Harvard Faculty Votes to Make Open Access Its Default (Lawler, Science 22 February 2008: 1025a), The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning (Karpicke and Roediger, Science 15 February 2008: 966-968)

Unfortunately my choice is to pay about $40(U.S.) for individual access to those articles or pay $100 (U.S.) for a membership which would include access. Then of course that's just for me. I couldn't share those articles with you...or rather I could, but it would be wrong.

Is there any sense of irony in charging for access to an article about how Harvard faculty are voting for open access?

Of course what really points to the absurdity of this is that over on the Social Science Research Network, I can get papers like Worlds for Study: Invitation - Virtual Worlds for Studying Real-World Business (and Law, and Politics, and Sociology, and....) by ROBERT J. BLOOMFIELD, Cornell University - Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management January 22, 2008...FOR FREE.

So tell me AAAS, why the charges? Let me offer an explanation...you (AAAS) have a biz model that supports a lot of salaries. You have fixed costs for office space and infrastructure. Your charging for access to articles supports that infrastructure. It doesn't support the people who did the research. It doesn't support the community that is denied access to this knowledge.  So let's just be clear, your business model  supports your own organization's advancement and survival...not science.

This is Where Digital Rights Management is Headed (XKCD)

(link to XKCD)

Optimal Length of Copyright Term Solved: Now Watch the RIAA, MPAA, Disney, et al Squirm as they confront real numbers

As I post yet again on the insanity that is the current status of copyright law in the U.S., let me turn, once again, to the birth of copyright in this country - a discussion between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The former argued brilliantly against any sort of 'monopoly' in 1813:

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me . . . .Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody."

Jefferson was eventually convinced by Madison to agree to a term of copyright but then tied it to an actuarial-like formula that  looked at the lifespan of a generation  and eventually ended up with a term of 19 years.

Now Rufus Pollock follows in Jefferson's footsteps and argues for a more restricted definition of copyright (14 years to be precise)  - using weird, magical stuff like data and formulas instead of the tried and true methodology of the BIG CONTENT machine - hyperbolic statements about how a restricted copyright term of anything less than life of the creator plus 70 or 100 or 200 years will just wreck them. This Ars Techncia article has links to both the new paper and an older one as well.

Google and MSFT to Clash Over Copyrights

I know that this may not be dead-on the edupatents topic - i.e. it doesn't talk about how evil bb is - but, anytime that Google and Microsoft go at each other, our communities will be affected. This CNN article lays out the basics, including the most important point for me, which is that MSFT is allied with the American Association of Publishers...not casting stones, just saying that the AAP is clearly the side interested in maintaining and growing systems of control.

You ever get that feeling that sometimes you are one of those ancient Greeks or Romans, watching thunder and lightning happen on Mt Olympus and wondering what the gods are fighting about?

EduPatent Alerts - A New Way To Keep Track of the March of the Draconians

If you are at all interested in following the attempts to patent everything involved in e-learning, then check out the new service/capability that Michael Feldstein has been nice enough to organize.

Michael's post here explains how he has created an RSS Feed Aggregator here that will display all blog posts that have been tagged with the "edupatents" tag. So go to Michael's site and grab the feed and then be sure to add the "edupatents" tag to any blog post you make or may find that has to do with this important battle. Michael does include a really interesting piece on how he created this tool. Thanks for this valuable service!

HEY!! PEOPLE!! Blackboard is Coming to Patent You!

Epic picks up on this thread that I have seen little coverage on (please correct me if I am wrong). I know that we are all excited that the USPTO has agreed to review all 44 claims of the bb patent BUT  I was surprised at how little coverage the REST of the bb patent portfolio has received.

Check out this list people....assessment within a multi-level organization, curriculum planning and curriculum mapping, importing and exporting assessment project related data, Content and portal systems and associated methods...and it goes on. Are you serious!!?? Are we all just so burned out on the evil of their original patent that they are just going to walk through unscathed with all these? Anybody doing the math and figuring out that while bb weakly pledges that they aren't coming after open source, they are still filing this bucket load of patent apps? These claims above were FILED in 2006..not granted, FILED...that means at the same time that all of this stuff is breaking and bb is getting hit with all the bad pub, they plunge ahead with more and more filings....Lets turn up the heat here and not let them skate just because were all still a little staggered from the first round.

Shocking (hardly): blackboard is pursuing a slew of additional patents

Their limp handshake of a patent pledge notwithstanding, turns out that bb is pursuing a raft of other patents that at least on their face, seem a bit overly broad. Anonymously posted over at slashdot is this list of patents pending (as an additional bonus, a spreadsheet with abstracts of the patents below is available here Download blackboard_patent_applications.xls - the spreadsheet's  author's name has been removed  - psst, thx Anonymous!):

• 20060259351 "Method and system for assessment within a multi-level organization" (Filed November 16, 2006)
• 20060242004 "Method and system for curriculum planning and curriculum mapping" (Filed October 26, 2006)
• 20060242003 "Method and system for selective deployment of instruments within an assessment management system" (Filed October 26, 2006)
• 20060241993 "Method and system for importing and exporting assessment project related data" (Filed October 26, 2006)
• 20060241992 "Method and system for flexible modeling of a multi-level organization for purposes of assessment" (Filed October 26, 2006)
• 20060241988 "Method and system for generating an assignment binder within an assessment management system" (Filed October 26, 2006)
• 20060168233 "Internet-based education support system and methods" (Filed July 27, 2006)
• 20060026213 "Content and portal systems and associated methods" (Filed February 2, 2006)
• 20050086296 "Content system and associated methods" (Filed April 21, 2005)
• 20040167822 "Method and system for conducting online transactions" (Filed August 26, 2004)
• 20040153509 "Internet-based education support system, method and medium with modular text-editing component for use in a web-based application" (Filed August 5, 2004)
• 20040030781 "Internet-based education support system and method with multi-language capability" (Filed February 12, 2004)

Boy....It's just a pain to have all these patent databases like FreshPatents and Google's Patent Search online....was so much easier when all this was hidden....