openlearn is a massive effort from the UK open university to make their course materials free and open on the web. You can also remix and upload your versions. See the openlearn talk @ the London Knowledge Lab.

Also, check out the OpenLean2007 conference (deadline coming up!). Free open content & a free open lunch.

(Digg the video)

One of the hot issues that came up during the Vision document discussions (also here) was the idea of Open Research.
It's FP7 season, and time to put our money where our mouth is (sorry for the Americanism).

I'm sure many people in the network are working on proposals. Why not have an open process for this?

Now, you may think this is crazy, after all - we're in competition. But I say - think again. I remember back in the days of the Web1.0 gold rush, I had an idea and wanted to talk to some venture capitalist about it. I asked him to sign a non-disclosure argeement. He said "If the only thing you have going for you is that no one knows what you're thinking about, then don't bother. Either someone else is thinking the same, or they'll copy and better you the first time you expose it"

Here's a theory: the product of an open process can never be of a lesser quality than the product of a similar closed process. So if we open up, share our ideas, we can:
- learn from each other.
- form new teams.
- focus on our relative advantages.

As for myself, I'm party to two efforts. Since I'm not leading either, I can't say too much without my partners' consent. But I can say that one follows up on weblabs and playground, the other follows up on the learning patterns project .

Petition for guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results

http://www.ec-petition.eu/

You may sign this petition to register your support for free and open access to European research and for the recommendations proposed in the EU's 'Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe'.

Plain and simple. Public funding = public knowledge.

Nature reports that a consortium of publishers is considering hiring Eric Dezenhall to take on the threat of the open research. The man has an impressive resume, he worked for Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron chief now serving a 24-year jail term for fraud. He helped ExxonMobile in their attempts to discredit GreenPeace.

This is great news. If they think they have something to be that worried about, they're probably right.