Institutional Repositories & Mandated Open Access in the U.S.?

Hard to believe, and it may take some time before we fully understand the meaning here. But this is exciting news. I first saw this on the Chronicle news blog (be sure to read the comments being posted as they reveal that there is a lot of confusion still over what exactly this means). Then a colleague sent me this New York Times article. If you're interested in this topic, more on this can be found at SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. SPARC, is an excellent resource for keeping up on this topic. Developed by the Association of Research Libraries, it's an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. Those new to Open Access may want to check out Peter Suber's Overview.

Horizon Report 2008 - Future of Higher Education

I recently downloaded the 2008 Horizon Report. The report is a collaboration between The New Media Consortium and the eduCause Learning initiative. If you're interested in the future of higher education you will want to read this.

According to EDUCAUSE President Diana Oblinger, “The Horizon Report helps all of us put emerging technologies in perspective—what might be useful, what might be further in the future—and links it to learning."

The six selected areas for 2008: grassroots video, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, data mashups, collective intelligence, and social operating systems.

The 32-page 2008 Horizon Report is free and has been released with a Creative Commons license to facilitate its widespread use, easy duplication, and broad distribution. The report can be accessed along with all five previous Horizon Reports from this great Horizon Project Wiki, 2008 edition.

Librarians and IT workers in higher ed will want to be sure that decision makers at their institutions are aware of this report. In the increasingly competitive higher education environment, keeping abreast of these emerging technologies is more important than ever.

YouTube and Academe

YouTube seems like a great venue for many purposes. Upon viewing this YouTube video of a biology course from UC Berkeley, I found myself thinking how a simple to execute idea (at no cost!) could have such an impact. Be sure to notice the number of views and mostly positive comments on the site. This is partly what spurred me to begin experimenting with YouTube and uploading videos myself. Soon I'll be creating Camtasia screencasts for supplemental library instruction and I can't think of any reason why I wouldn't want to upload them to YouTube along with adding them on our library website.
This Chronicle article is about how professors are finding new audiences by uploading video of regular class sessions. What a great way for universities to promote themselves. This also fits well with the global movement to provide open education for all. I would love to see my university doing this. Why would we not?