The OpenCourseware Consortium has just released its new website. (via Bazaar.org) Clicking on the Find-Button and following some links you end up on a partners‘ website where you as in case of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health can download PDF’s which contain following notice:
Copyright 2006, The Johns Hopkins University and William Brieger. All rights reserved. Use of these materials permitted only in accordance with license rights granted. Materials provided “AS IS”; no representations or warranties provided. User assumes all responsibility for use, and all liability related thereto, and must independently review all materials for accuracy and efficacy. May contain materials owned by others. User is responsible for obtaining permissions for use from third parties as needed.
The offered material is offered under Creative Commons License „Commons Deed 2.5“-Derivate as one can find out reading the „Notice and Conditions of Use“. This means „non-commercial use only“, „credits for the original author“, and an „infective licensemodel“, if you manipulate content you need to distribute it under „Commons Deed“.
To get a better and in-time glimpse at the latest OCW activities you can have a look at the Open Up!-Blog at the University of Utah.
Why do I blog this? Does this mean (e-)Learning of the future looks like „PowerPoint unordered lists transformed to PDF“ distributed via the web? I wonder if this has something to do with (e-)Learning at all. It basically looks like a rights-mangement-solution for PowerPoint Content. But anyway, who should be able to change the material if the PowerPoint is no more and instead everything is canned in an unchangeable PDF? Seems as if I miss a point here in the word „Open“ of „OpenCourseware“, do I?