open source in education

There is currently a trend in education and research for open source content. But navigating these waters can be tricky. For example, I was pleased to come across the Directory of Open Access Journals but I was surprised to see the Journal of Educational Technology and Society listed. Having published there previously, I didn't think it was fully open source.

The DOAJ defines "open access" as "the right of users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles as mandatory for a journal to be included in the directory. The journal should offer open access to their content without delay." However, JETS's copyright policy does not allow distribution of content, which is a problem for instructors who wish to incorporate outside content in their open course materials.

The appearance of the Yahoo Creative Commons Search is very encouraging for making it much easier to find re-usable open content.

OurMedia may prove to be an important source for open content as it grows. The site offers free file hosting, enabling an easy mechanism to share content and allow others to use it.