ICTlogy

ai-see-TEE-lo-gee

Conference by Stephen Downes at the First International Conference Free Knowledge, Free Technology - Education for a free information society in Barcelona (Spain), 17 July 2008, on the production and sharing of free educational and training materials about Free Software.

Stephen Downes, Institute for Information Technology’s Internet Logic Research Group
The Future of Education

The Public in Public Education

Stephen Downes
(Photo: César Córcoles)

Public education, education for everyone, is an important concept not for the “education” part, but for the “public” part, as its impact goes far beyond the acquisition of knowledge, but the shaping of the whole society.

Stephen Downes presents gRSShopper. Besides the most evident uses of the tool as a resource harvester, the main purpose being connecting the different resources amongst them, to link one to each other different pieces of content scattered around the Internet. This is a personal learning environment, more than a social software intended to build community; an personal environment but headed to openly being a part of the network of people and content.

Freedom

Freedom as a state of being: putting the stress on the personal capability and will to do something, more than e.g. on the formal or legal permission to.

Freedom is an attitude, a perspective of self-determination, of self-government, to be what you want to be. Education means realizing the degree of freedom you’re in and finding out the way to get more of that freedom. But being educated does not suffice, as practical constrains (fear, etc.) also apply.

Freedom is also about being able to reach one’s own potential.

Freedom as access: access to knowledge and learning, where these are public goods, created in a nonprofit way that expects no revenue from their creation and distribution.

The Future of Education

The concept of the “class” is an administrative one, not related with pedagogy, not related with a course. But the question is that, for several (socialization) reasons, the idea of the “class” sticks. But could the network substitute the group? Communication is central to our being, so our connections do shape ourselves and our actions.

So there’s pressures towards using our natural connections to engage in collective learning, more than to move into an artificially built classroom that, even if it might have been an efficient tool in the past, it only seems now to be perpetuating relationships of power between teachers and learners.

Competences

Competences are a dynamic concept, based on growth. And they require a constantly changing path that can be filled with different (ad hoc) educational recourses.

Nevertheless, there is learning hardly identifiable with competences.

So, competences should be one more way to identify learning opportunities, and the selection of learning resources just an add-on to a whole system of learning activities (traditional and new ones).

The selection of learning options should depend on our background and framework (former learning, actual legislation, etc.) and should be driven also by context, by actual needs.

Delivery systems

We have, hence, to build topic delivery systems, systems that deliver learning resources.

Delivery systems today are, basically, content delivery systems. The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is here to replace learning management/delivery systems. The PLE is more a concept than an application:

• Is based on the idea of personal access to resources from multiple sources
• Is based on a personal web presence
• Focuses on creation and communication rather than on content completion

Education should be no more as managing a system, but delivering in a network; no more something self-contained, closed, but something interacting with a larger environment. Thus, educational institutions have to reshape themselves to become entities that interact with the larger environment.

Connectivism and Freedom

Our ideas of concepts are created through “wholes” of information sets — the basis of Connectivism. So educational institutions have to make resources available to both contribute and be able to build these “wholes”. The resources have to be able to learn from the environment and the student, and communicate with their framework and environment. Among other things, this will make personalization more efficient.

Education should be a flat network, where both students and teachers are nodes communication one to each other. And the communications among these nodes should be free: if these communications are mediated (or just made possible) by digital resources, these resources need to be free to enable communication… and hence education.

Al Gore, The assault on reason: we’ve gone from a society that used to think by itself to a society that is being though for itself (e.g. media think for the society). We have to go back to the society that used to think for itself. And content needs to be free to be able to reach this state of freedom of communication and thought.

The market — and their firms — are putting barriers to these freedoms. And, indeed, non-commercial licenses (cc-sa, copyleft) allow bad practices against the free flow of content, as they do not prevent perverse uses of open resources.

The role of public education institutions should be, in the end, to promote this free flow of resources. To guarantee access to the public good that is digital content and media as the language of interaction today.

Update:
Audio of the conference (, 9.5 MB)

Recommended citation for bibliographical purposes:

Conference by Richard M. Stallman at the First International Conference Free Knowledge, Free Technology - Education for a free information society in Barcelona (Spain), 15 July 2008, on the production and sharing of free educational and training materials about Free Software.

Richard M. Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation
Free Software and Beyond

Free Software is about giving freedom to the user and respecting the work done by the community of programmers.

The analogy with cooking recipes is clearly the best way to help people understand the four freedoms of Free Software.

Electronic book readers are evil

The key to promote Free Software is not software in itself, the possibility to be able to “cook”, but: as long as software is needed to do more and more things because of the pervasiveness of the Digital Economy, then we’re talking not about the freedom to run some software, but the freedom to perform a lot of activities.

For instance, e-Books, DRM, etc. attempt against the possibility to lend books, or give them to your sons and grandsons, because electronic book readers are not made on free software, hence they subjugate the user to the retailers’ will. Buying such devices is like stating you don’t want to share your books so you should advice your friends that, if they buy these devices, you won’t be friends anymore, because they don’t want to share books in a community of readers.

So, the problem is not software in itself, but changing (to worse) the model of society we’re living in to another one more closed, selfish, commoditized, etc.

Free content for a free life

Practical, useful, functional works should be free

• Software should be free
• Recipes should be free
• Reference works, like encyclopedias, should be free
• Educational works
• Font types

You have to control the tools you use to live, to shape your life. If you don’t, you’re not free.

There’s some content that can perfectly not be free. Opinion works are one of those, as it is important not to be misrepresented. But, sharing should be made possible for each and every kind of work. And this includes music sharing.

Copyright should only cover commercial use, modification of originals.

When a work embodies practical knowledge you’re going to use for your life, it should be free and it should be free to be modified. It’s not the case of art. Art should be shareable, but not modifiable.

Teaching free software vs. teaching gratis software

We should teach values, not some specific software: (a) because it’s values schools are expected to be teaching, (b) to avoid dependency from specific companies.

Thus, schools should only bring free software to classes. And free textbooks.

[now RMS transforms himself into Saint IGNUcius and things become really weird: he disguises himself, he auctions a book from the stage for 120€...]

Q&A

Q: What’s exactly the definition of “practical”? RMS: Well, it’s not easy to define, and we should be working on it, but it’s the concept that matters.

RMS: You shouldn’t use anyone else’s (web)server to compute with your data, because you’re losing control of your data and what is done with it.

Q: about free hardware. RMS: let’s not mix physical things with their designs. So, objects cannot be free because they cannot be copied, literally copied. It’s their designs that can be copied, but this is again a matter of intellectual property rights, not ownership of physical things.

RMS: it’s good that medicines are produced under a controlled environment (i.e. patents and proprietary labs) because people can die if there are errors in them. My comment: wasn’t free software supposed to be better than proprietary one because given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow? (see answer below).

RMS: What we know about proprietary software is that it is a good way to concentrate wealth. So, it’s not that jobs will be lost, but some rich people will end being it: the question is whether we want to swap some billionaires for more jobs.

Stephen Downes: should we make it compulsory to share our software at classrooms? does this apply or extrapolate to educational resources? RMS: sharing should be a fundamental value to be taught at schools, so yes, sharing software should be compulsory, and same applies to content.

Stephen Downes: the problem is that the boundaries of what a classroom is are blurring, so where’s the redline? should, then, sharing software (and content) be made compulsory to everyone and everywhere in society and the world? If not, if we’re to keep some freedom not to share, where’s the line that separates classroom from the rest? Can we sell free works? Can schools sell free works when there’s an unbalance of power between the school and the student? RMS: no, the schools have no excuse to sell copies, because the works are free.

RMS: (back on the issue about some processes being controlled at closed labs) have nothing to do, it’s orthogonal, with the free software issue. Security is not about being free or not — Stallman stresses here the difference between Free Software and Open Source Software, between the ethics and philosophy of the former and the technicalities of the latter. Security and Linus’s Law are related to Open Source Software, not about it being free or not.

Recommended citation for bibliographical purposes:

Seminar by professor Jane C. Ginsburg, at UOC headquarters, 25 June 2008, about copyright liability of user generated content practices.

Copyright infringement actors

Who’s implicated?

• Users, for uploading copyrighted material, make copies, remix material, etc. If there is no fair use, downloading (and storing in one’s own computer) is a copyright infringement too. Users are directly engaged in copyright infringement.
• Websites, and their operators, for making available copyrighted material. Website operators are directly engaged in copyright infringement too. What happens with host service providers and access providers? Hosts too are directly implicated, as illegal copies are stored in their computers.
• Aggregators of links, though they do not actually have the content on their facilities, they are directly implicated too. But they are in practice making the content available (in a very broad sense) by linking to the one that put it online. A lighter interpretation of the Law would consider these agents as implied in an indirect (not direct) way to copyright liability.
• P2P software distributors and sites, as in the previous case, are indirectly implicated by enabling access to copyrighted content.

Jane C. Ginsburg

To be liable for copyright infringement, the sole existence of the digital file is considered a copy, and hence an illegal copy. On the other hand, technically the transmission of the file should be completed to imply copyright infringement, so not only making the file available but having accessed/copied it should be demonstrated (which is very difficult to) to imply such an infringement. Due to technical difficulties, normally the defendant is asked to demonstrate that actual access did not too place.

Host service providers and access providers, though directly (or indirectly, depending on interpretation) related with copyright infringement, usually have special regulation regimes to protect their economic activities.

Kinds of copyright infringement

Contributory infringement: you furnish the means, with knowledge, to enable copyright infringement. If these means are capable of substantial non infringement use, then the distribution (e.g. mp3 reproducers) is lawful, even if means can be used unlawfully. The problem is what substantial really stands for. So the usual defence is about providing evidence that no knowledge of criminal activities were taking place (e.g. Kazaa not having a central directory of files).

Inducement: what’s the intention behind a specific activity? There’s inducement if there is an explicit promotion for a certain (illegal) use. There’s inducement if there is no filtering (when possible), no intention to prevent illegal uses. And there’s inducement too if there is a business plan closely related to the illegal use. Failure to filter is usually related to a business plan based on this lack of filtering out illegal content.

Vicarious liability: direct financial benefit from the infringement, with right to control it (e.g. hire a band that performs copyrighted music; advertising in sites that illegally distribute copyrighted content).

User Generated Content and copyright liability

A paradox (in legal terms): even if the amount of illegal content on YouTube is a minor part of the whole, the share of visited illegal content is the majority of it. And even if illegal content can be taken down, it comes up within few minutes. [a detailed analysis of YouTube's liability ensues, too dense to track here].

More info

• Separating the Sony Sheep from the Grokster Goats: Reckoning the Future Business Plans of Copyright-Dependent Technology Entrepreneurs by Jane Ginsburg
• Limitations on liability relating to material online (Digital Millennium Copyright Act / Copyright Law of the United States of America)
• European e-Commerce Directive (Official Journal L 178 , 17/07/2000)
• Principles for User Generated Content Services
• Fair Use Principles for User Generated Video Content
• Projet de loi « Création et Internet »

Recommended citation for bibliographical purposes:

On Friday June 13th, 2008, I’ve been invited to chair a session about Virtual citizen networks at the Jornades de la Penedesfera, a meeting about blogs and local citizen engagement.

The session will be shared with very interesting people such as Ramon Roca / Joan Llopart (Font-rubí), Cristina Barbacil, Manel Brinquis, Ismael Miñano, Daniel García Peris and Marc Vidal.

As there’s quite a lot of people for the short time we have, I will be really focused on few main lines, all of them extracted from my article entitled Blogs for e-Government: sufficient condition, but not necessary.

• The development of the Information Society seems to be related with how citizens can exercise their political rights and citizen liberties, especially those related with freedom of speech and liberty of thought.
• This general statement seems to still apply in a second level of application: the capability to express one’s identity — such as gender, a part of the afore mentioned rights — seems also to be related with the part of the development of the Information Society related with the Government: e-Government. We can see a relationship between the development of e-Government and Gender Freedom.
• e-Government also requires and/or demands some level of digital literacy. This digital literacy is, at its turn, a need to self-expression on the net beyond the basic needs in infrastructures.
• On the other hand, we can see that the more time people have spent on the Internet — the more expert web users are — the more they focus on short run, civic oriented activism (and not party oriented politics).

Keeping these things in mind, the question is whether blogs can be, at the same time, an indicator for a high level of digital literacy, a proxy for the health of political rights and citizen liberties, and a signal for politicians that citizen participation and engagement will shift towards civic oriented activism.

More info

• Full reference and PDF downloadable here
• Photos
• Podcast (all Friday sessions)
• Press clipping for the whole Penedesfera conference (photos, podcasts, posts, etc.)

Recommended citation for bibliographical purposes:

I’m pleased to announce an event of which I’m part of the organizing committee, the course Network Society: Social changes, organizations and citizens, to take place in Barcelona, Spain, from 15 to 17 October de 2008.

Some info about the course:

• Website of the course, with more information about the speakers, fees, registration, etc.
• Facebook Event
• There will be translation to and from Spanish and English

PROGRAMME: NETWORK SOCIETY: SOCIAL CHANGES, ORGANIZATIONS AND CITIZENS

Day 1 - Wednesday 15 October

Introduction
09h00 - 09h30 : Opening
09h30 - 10h30 : Juan Freire - Presentation of the course
10h30 - 11h00 : Café

Citizenship in the Network Society
Chairs: Marc López
11h00 - 12h30 : Carol Darr
12h30 - 14h00 : Tom Steinberg
14h00 - 16h00 : Lunch

Organizations in the Network Society
Chairs: Genís Roca
16h00 - 17h30 : Miguel Cereceda
17h30 - 19h00 : David Weinberger

Day 2 - Thursday 16 October

09h00 - 09h30 : Juan Freire - Presentation of the day

Communication in the Network Society
Chairs: Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí
09h30 - 11h00 : Andrew Rasiej
11h00 - 11h30 : Café
11h30 - 13h30 : Diálogo Josu Jon Imaz & Miquel Iceta
13h30 - 16h00 : Lunch
16h00 - 17h30 : Enrique Dans
17h30 - 19h00 : Gumersindo Lafuente

Day 3 - Viernes 17 October

Innovation in the Network Society
Chairs: Ismael Peña-López
09h00 - 10h30 : Carlos Domingo
10h30 - 12h00 : Ethan Zuckerman
12h00 - 12h30 : Coffee break

Closing
12h30 - 14h30 : Round Table: Freire, Darr, Steinberg, Weinberger, Lafuente, Domingo, Zuckerman, Dans
14h30 - 15h00 : Closing

Recommended citation for bibliographical purposes:

I have been invited by the Spanish Center of Judicial Documentation (Centro de Documentacion Judicial, CENDOJ) to impart a conference at the III Encuentro de Información y Documentación Judicial de la Red IberIUS [III Meeting about Judicial Information and Documentation of the IberIUS Network].

The idea was to give an overview of what the Network Society is and what are the concepts besides collective creation. Here come my slides (in Spanish):

Full reference and PDF downloadable here.

Recommended citation for bibliographical purposes: