Social media for enriching collaborative open learning and collective knowledge

This paper demonstrates some pedagogical strategies for enriching collaborative open learning - “co-learning” and collective knowledge through social media. The study centres on the e-book Open Educational Resources and Social Networks (oer.kmi.open.ac.uk) developed by the open research network COLEARN during 2012. Its collaborative research question focused on how academic communities could make their work more accessible and reusable as Open Educational Resources using Social Media. A hundred and thirteen participants – researchers, lecturers, supervisors, postgraduates and undergraduates –, from thirty research groups of different universities and countries co-authored thirty-three chapters that draw upon their mainstream research and redesigned the content to make it more reusable and understandable for a broader target audience. The theoretical principles which our qualitative and quantitative analysis are grounded are: participatory media, Commons-Based Peer Production, Mass collaboration. Our outcomes show that through social knowledge media, co-learners can convey their views by sharing questions, information, tools, practices, methods, productions and reflections. They can also rate, tag, review, comment and share others’ collaborations. All of these contribute to the development of new thoughts, research and innovation towards open collective knowledge

Patents vs Trade Secrets: Knowledge Licensing and Spillover

We develop a model of two-stage cumulative research and development (R&D), in which one Research Unit (RU) with an innovative idea bargains to license her nonverifiable interim knowledge exclusively to one of two competing Development Units (DUs) via one of two alternative modes: an Open sale after patenting this knowledge, or a Closed sale in which precluding further disclosure to a competing DU requires the RU to hold a stake in the licensed DU’s post-invention revenues. Both modes lead to partial leakage of RU’s knowledge from its description, to the licensed DU alone in a closed sale, and to both DUs in an open sale. The open sale is socially optimal; yet the contracting parties choose the closed sale whenever the interim knowledge is more valuable and leakage is sufficiently high. If the extent of leakage is lower, more RUs choose open sales, generating a non-monotonic relationship between the strength of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and aggregate R&D expenditures and the overall likelihood of development by either DU.

Research Tool Patents and Free-Libre Biotechnology: A Unified Perspective.

This paper proposes a unified conceptual framework to analyse the multiple role and consequences of patents in the case of biotechnology research tools. We argue that the knowledge/information and independent/complementary nature of research tools define heterogeneous frameworks in which the patent system plays different roles. In particular, using the analogy with the free-libre open source movement in software, we show that patents can promote open innovation by ensuring the freedom of some pieces of knowledge. A strong conclusion of the paper is therefore that, against common belief, an adequate use of the patent system may contribute to preserving freedom of access to upstream research tools within a framework that we call free-libre biotechnology.Intellectual property rights, sequential innovation, open source, life science, collective invention.

The impact of open access initiative on knowledge sharing

The main focus of this paper is to look at the role of the open access initiative (OAI) as a channel for knowledge sharing that could be used for the disseminate knowledge and research funding. For this purpose OAI was selected for analytical as role communication among the research. To assess if the articles found in the OAI contents knowledge sharing a method called contextual analysis was used. The result showed that OAI can aptly serve as a tool for disseminate knowledge and sharing ideas. By analysis is these material, OAI might be able to drive benefits directly or indirectly and eventually become beneficial took for scholars in their

Different Aspects of the Emerging OER Discipline

The more recent interpretation of open education is related to open education resources (OER), open education practice (OEP), and open access publishing. Although related to the original, distance education based interpretation, there is a distinct community around these areas. The inception of the OER movement, which can be dated as 2001, can be viewed as the basis for the open education movement. Although still relatively recent, this provides a sufficient timeframe for different sub- communities to develop with a range of priorities and interests. Based upon a content analysis of the OER Knowledge Cloud repository, this article examines the emerging sub-cultures within open education practice. Ten types of research article are identified that represent different approaches and issues for the groups involved

Behind the Scenes with OpenLearn: the Challenges of Researching the Provision of Open Educational Resources

Open educational resources are defined as technology-enabled educational resources that are openly available for consultation, use and adaptation by users for non-commercial purposes (UNESCO, 2002). OpenLearn is one of the largest of such initiatives and is committed to the provision of open educational resources for all. It is being developed by The Open University and is primarily sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It provides users with over 4 200 hours of higher educational material drawn from Open University courses. Other learning tools such as discussion forums, video conferencing, and knowledge mapping software are also available to the user. In this paper we introduce OpenLearn and outline some of the main research issues surrounding such an initiative. We seek to explore theoretical and practical approaches that can provide suitable tools for analysis. Activity theory is seen as a suitable approach for macro analysis and its use is illustrated in terms of the complexity of large scale research. Activity theory, besides informing research perspectives, can be turned in upon the research process itself allowing us to consider the challenges and context of the research. By using activity theory in this way and illustrating from a range of practical approaches we demonstrate and illustrate a useful research approach

The Two Faces of Open Innovation: NetworkExternalities and Learning.

In this paper I differentiate between two types of benefits of open innova- tion. Network externalities e¤ect happens when open innovation increases the participation of one group of users which increases the value of adoption for another group of users. Learning e¤ect happens when economic actors increase their knowledge through access to external sources of knowledge. I investigate how each effect can be dominant depending on nature of products, by drawing upon previous research in product modularity. In addition I discuss the fac- tors which will strengthen or weaken the e¤ects of each dimension. The main variables which influence learning are, tacitness of knowledge, technological op- portunities, appropriability of knowledge and turbulence. Network externalities e¤ect can be strengthened by increased user innovation.

Open Bibliography

Poster presented at the VSMF Symposium held at the Unilever Centre on 2011-01-17.More research is published currently than can be understood or followed by a researcher without the aid of a computer. We need Open shareable information on research publications, an Open Bibliography, to build the services that enable researchers to explore their field and discover the research they need. Producers of bibliographic data such as libraries, publishers, universities, scholars or social reference management communities have an important role in supporting the advance of humanity's knowledge. For society to reap the full benefits from bibliographic endeavours, it is imperative that bibliographic data be made open - that is, available for anyone to use and re-use freely for any purpose