The recent provincial premiers meeting in Banff, Alberta brought welcome news of a commitment to focus greater attention on higher education in Canada....[T]he premiers would do well to focus on three issues: distance education, access to knowledge, and an innovative research environment....Bill C-60, the copyright reform bill currently before the House of Commons, represents a step backward when it comes to the use of the Internet in Canadian education....The provinces should also demand that the federal government do more to facilitate access to knowledge. One possibility in that regard is the creation of a national digital library. Digitizing millions of Canadian books would provide students with greater access to Canadians works, while also serving as an important export of Canadian culture to the rest of the world....Increased dollars for research are always welcome, but that money should be distributed with new strings attached that link the results to open access policies. That would enable all Canadians to freely share in the fruits of the research investment, while still preserving important opportunities for commercialization. The federal government should also encourage the type of curriculum reform that increases accessibility to education. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has emerged as a world leader by providing the public with access to hundreds of lectures and other course materials. Canadian institutions should be doing the same.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/30/2005 10:46:00 AM.
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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
