idea: bigger wikipedia idea for lectures

[piratePenguin]

something quick i scribbled up for an msn convo, pasting here, and gonna start seeing whats already on the web. bit in brackets is less-important.

(heres what we need
a web-based mathematica using JS and canvas/svg
and a web-site that uses it to explain maths techniques so that a noob can pick a topic and learn it including all prerequisites
using programmed and animated diagrams that run right in the browser)
this idea of using static pdfs to spread ideas of a technical nature has to go imo, why dont we use the web nowadays?
also we need an open university concept to flourish where lecturers can attach a rod with accelerometers to their chalk/pen and what they put on the board can be put online in image format for volunteers to transcribe and file for others to learn from, expand on etc

[worker201]

Money.  Who's going to write it?  Who's going to host it?  Who's going to be able to support it without being fragged by their current textbook providers?

[Refalm]

There is something called Sakai, which is used by my university to share learning documents, as well as the usual "college time rescheduled" announcements.

It could be used for an open environment, in which everyone in a certain group of professionals and students can share best practices and ideas.

[piratePenguin]

There is something called Sakai, which is used by my university to share learning documents, as well as the usual "college time rescheduled" announcements.

It could be used for an open environment, in which everyone in a certain group of professionals and students can share best practices and ideas.

Yeah seems like almost all colleges I know are now using something like this. My uni uses Moodle which is open source (and there's a huge appreciation for these tools that are open source). Seems like most of the big universities here are using Blackboard though, which is closed source.

However all content published by lecturers on these websites are blocked for the public according to the configuration of the website (moodle or w/e). Could universities (or lecturers) be convinced to make a commitment to sharing their content on a wikipedia-type site where the best content will rise to the top, where students can suggest corrections, where students can ask questions for help, etc..
If universities went along with this it could result in a massive academic resource. And each university brings with it like 10,000 students and above, that's why these sites grow quickly (Moodle etc. have hundreds of thousands of users, but there's no relationship between each site).

A lot of the TOP universities in the world (MIT, Stanford) video record particular lectures and put them online for the public. academicearth.org is a (one) website that gathers them all together in one site.

worker: possibly could be done by the wikipedia foundation themselves or a new similarly organised organization. I think the biggest issue from the outset would be getting universities on board, because if they are on board it would be pretty straightforward. (as long as someone developed it)

[worker201]

Seems to me that many universities actually have a vested interest in not sharing.  If a student at the Hicktown Community College in Armpit, Nebraska has the same access to information as a student from MIT or Princeton, the epic costs associated with the higher level schools don't seem like they're worth it.  Yes, that example compares extremes, and the prestige of the degree means a lot.  But what about smaller competitive universities?  For example, the University of Florida and Florida State University.  Both are large state-funded schools that are desperate to fill the ranks.  Aside from the football programs (which probably mean more to American students than anything else), the only real differences between these universities are in the exclusivity of their academic programs - "We've got Professor Johnson, and they don't."  Having open educational content which is shared across the whole system serves to reduce this exclusivity, and the competitive edges are reduced.  Although the students would be better served by an open shared system, the university trustees, who are in it for the money, would be better served by a closed exclusive system.  And I think we know who will have the final word on any discussion.

[Lead Head]

Yup, I agree. When it comes down to it, its all about making money. If you publish all your lectures and classes on the web for free to be accessed by anyone anywhere, then what really is the point of going to that school?

[piratePenguin]

Battery gone, this rushed post is basically why Ireland appears very different to the rest of the world (I knew this, but I've more to discuss when I get back around here)

Yup, I agree. When it comes down to it, its all about making money. If you publish all your lectures and classes on the web for free to be accessed by anyone anywhere, then what really is the point of going to that school?

Is it all about making money?

I actually came to this idea thinking about how I ended up in my course. I chose business studies when I was in my final year of leaving cert (our A levels or equivalent in america). I got enrolled into university in a BS class, and switched to maths on day 1 because I was lead to believe studying maths in college was extremely intense (due to olympiad training I attending a few years before), but in fact it is easier than I ever thought and I could tell just by looking at the timetable on day 1.

So, I was thinking about a website where secondary students could learn more about the degree choices and make better informed decisions, and it seems like the best way to do this is by engaging with the students who are studying that course. There are websites with lots of information about course content but they have no user or student involvement, and the best way to get all of that is if you are the college moodle/blackboard system.

This could be an idea that seems to work much better here in ireland than for example in america. In ireland (there's actually been serious talk of abolishing this system, but currently its probably gonna stick) students dont pay fees (except if theyre not Irish or northern irish citizens (not sure if that applies to all of uk)), The government pays 15k or whatever it is for every student enrolled in every college every year. I'm not sure if the sum varies from college to college, but I'm pretty sure it doesnt.

So essentially, we've got different institutions with different policies, priorities and characteristics but they're all government funded about 85%.

[worker201]

In the US, public state universities (which excludes schools like Harvard and MIT) receive funding from the state.  It's just not possible to guess exactly how much, but state residents generally pay 1/4 to 1/2 of what non-residents pay.  Suffice it to say that this is nowhere near 85%.  But even in a situation where the government is funding most of the cost of education, the institution is still a profit-seeking entity, looking to make the most of its government funding.

[davidnix71]

Copyrights are a bigger problem in the US. Who exactly owns the rights to the lecture? The university or the prof who gave the lecture? If the prof writes books (most good ones do because there is money in that, and tenure may depend on how many books the prof published) then he/she may not want to give away something they could sell later.

The source material for the lecture may not belong to either the university or the prof, so they can't legally give away something that was not theirs to begin with.

Think about OS's. Microsoft and Apple "publish" operating systems, but those OS's contain material licensed from third parties, so neither MS nor Apple can even legally give away an unsupported OS without getting permission from other people. There has been a petition for years to get Apple to give away system 8 or 8.5, but they just can't.

[worker201]

Think about OS's. Microsoft and Apple "publish" operating systems, but those OS's contain material licensed from third parties, so neither MS nor Apple can even legally give away an unsupported OS without getting permission from other people. There has been a petition for years to get Apple to give away system 8 or 8.5, but they just can't.

Which, by the way, is fucking crazy.  There's got to be a way.  Windows 3.x, Windows 9x, DOS, and any MacOS below X should be free.  In fact, Apple and Microsoft should be out there re-negotiating royalty-free contracts with anyone that is opposed to just giving stuff that outdated away for free.  And anyone who isn't willing to negotiate should be jailed for being a fucking prick - it's not like there's money to be made from the shitty code you contributed to Windows 15 years ago.