Saul Fisher, The Open Source Movement and Higher Education: Consequences for the Humanities, a presentation at the Modern Languages Association Convention, December 30, 2004. Excerpt: 'Aside from such general expected consequences for higher education and its institutions, what, then, are specific ways in which 'open' tools and resources may shape the humanities? Here I mention two possibilities. First, one probable impact that may be traced to the character of developing 'open' structures (and the primary inspiration is the development of OS applications) is an intensification of collaborative processes. And one particular instance where this may be of fantastic potential is the promotion of a culture of collaborative development for given, highly specific domains of study, across institutions (and so independent of their contingent strengths or weaknesses in the domain) and as informed by discipline-wise needs (as for example, in joining few and dispersed forces to promote the study of early Provençal literature). Another way 'open' resources and tools may affect the humanities is by helping to encourage a greater collaborative culture at the core of practices in the humanities disciplines. This might take several forms: [1] Research habits may become less isolated....[2] Authoring may acquire more diffuse agency....[3] Teaching habits may become less individualistic....[4] Publishing may be more of a collective enterprise.' (Thanks to Ross Scaife.) (PS: See my analysis of why OA in the humanities isn't moving as quickly as OA in the sciences.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/08/2005 01:27:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
