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Via Infocult, the kickoff of Academic Commons, which, as a combination discussion forum/quarterly journal, looks to be a very valuable resource. From the first edition page:
Academic Commons (http://www.academiccommons.org) offers a forum for investigating and defining the role that technology can play in liberal arts education. Sponsored by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College (http://liberalarts.wabash.edu), Academic Commons publishes essays, reviews, interviews, showcases of innovative uses of technology, and vignettes that critically examine technology uses in the classroom. Academic Commons aims to share knowledge, develop collaborations, and evaluate and disseminate digital tools and innovative practices for teaching and learning with technology. We want this site to advance opportunities for collaborative design, open development, and rigorous peer critique of such resources.
Academic Commons also provides a forum for academic technology projects and groups (the Developer's Kit) and a link to a new learning object referatory (LoLa). Our library archives all materials we have published and also provides links to allied organizations, mailing lists, blogs, and journals through a Professional Development Center.
The first issue of the quarterly looks very interesting. The pieces that pique my interest the most are these:
Technology & the Pseudo-Intimacy of the Classroom: an interview with University of Illinois-Chicago's Jerry Graff
http://academiccommons.org/commons/interview/graff
Graff's interest in "teaching the conflicts" as a way of rescuing higher education from itself has recently been replaced by a profound worry that higher ed is becoming increasingly irrelevant to American culture. We checked in to see what role Graff thinks technology might play in these unsettling times.
Copyright 101 by Richard Lanham, UCLA
http://academiccommons.org/commons/essay/lanham-copyright-101
The pervasiveness of digital media has so altered the nature of authorship and ownership that questions of intellectual property have become matters of core concern for our students and our contemporary culture. Lanham argues that these issues require an academic response, and that a basic course in copyright -- "Copyright 101" -- represents a first step in this process.
Cross-posted to Kairosnews and CultureCat.
I don't know how I missed this before, but in her discussion of Lessig's talk, Clancy notes that Janine Solberg has posted the audio from Lessig's presentation on remix culture at CCCC 2005, a presentation which asks the important question, "Will Writing Be Allowed?"
In his post at Kairosnews, Matt Barton explains how he has been trying to persuade Elsevier to let him put up online a CC-licensed copy of an article that he wrote which has been accepted into Computers and Composition. No surprise, Elsevier is balking:
I finally heard back from Elsevier regarding my question about CC. Here is their response:
The Creative Commons licence you have sent is unfortunately not acceptable to Elsevier mainly due to the fact it does not give Elsevier the rights it needs and makes no warranty which is something that we must have before we can publish.
They have, however, offered me an alternative licensing agreement. The main difference is that I get to retain the copyright to the article. I'm not sure about the realities of the legal situation, but I'm curious if this means I'll be able to release the article under CC at some point in the future. I've pasted the agreement below. Please read it and respond quickly, because I need to let them know something very soon. The point that worries me most is 2.2, which says the publisher does not recognize my right to post the document to a website or distribute it in any "systematic" way, which seems like a damnably vague term to me. However, I'm thinking that since they've let me retain the copyright, does it matter that the publisher doesn't recognize that right?? Boy, am I confused.
Be sure to check out his post on Kairosnews with the licensing contract agreement offered by Elsevier.
John Logie began the CCCC Intellectual Property Caucus with a tribute to Candace Spigelman, co-chair of the Caucus, who passed away last year. Candace never lost sight of students in the process of talking about rhetoric and intellectual property. Institutions are here for the benefit of students. He set up a Candace Spigelman Memorial Fund, which will benefit the Caucus. Directions on how to contribute to the fund will be on the web site soon. Then he reviewed the MGM v. Grokster case and explained why we, as rhetoricians, should take an interest in it. He held up two sheets of paper, one in each hand, that said, "THE INTERNET IS A PEER-TO-PEER NETWORK." The Grokster case, he argued, represents the threat of suppressing technologies that merely have the potential to be used for copyright infringement. Jeff Galin (I think) posed these questions: Can we engage our students to get active in this as well? Can we imagine ways that free use and fair use might intersect? What roles are we going to play to challenge Congress and the entertainment industry?
From an SF Gate article on Lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons project:
In a boon to the arts and the software industry, Creative Commons will make available flexible, customizable intellectual-property licenses that artists, writers, programmers and others can obtain free of charge to legally define what constitutes acceptable uses of their work. The new forms of licenses will provide an alternative to traditional copyrights by establishing a useful middle ground between full copyright control and the unprotected public domain.
It'll be in interesting move if they can pull it off. - goto