My attention has been recently diverted a bit by an update that I received a few days ago from WashingtonWatch about the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 (H.R. 275). The tag line on the bill is that it is intended to promote freedom of expression on the Internet and protect United States businesses from coercion to participate in repression by authoritarian foreign governments. I investigated this proposed legislation because I thought that the notion of freedom of expression on the Internet was critical to online learning (eLearning) in general and to our recent postings about open educational resources (OER) quite directly. In fact, without a whole lot of effort or creativity, it would be pretty easy to connect parts of the conceptual underpinning of the Global Online Freedom Act to all three strategies that were outlined in the Capetown Open Education Declaration and some of the derivative works to increase the reach and impact of open educational resources. Note too that the Bill refers to Article 19 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights for part of its philosophical underpinning.

Just to set the stage a bit, H.R. 275 is meant to support the following policy of the United States:

1. to promote as a fundamental component of United States foreign policy the right of everyone to freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers;
2. to use all appropriate instruments of United States influence, including diplomacy, trade policy, and export controls, to support, promote, and strengthen principles, practices, and values that promote the free flow of information, including through the Internet and other electronic media; and
3. to deter any United States business from cooperating with officials of Internet-restricting countries in effecting the political censorship of online content.

Please note that I do not want to get into how well the US government follows its own policy, etc. right now. If you want to comment on that, or on issues around implementation, please feel free. In any event, the Bill is, at least on its face, about enhancing and protecting access and reducing coercion. It is meant to address activities of selected foreign governments that are designated as “Internet-restricting countries.”

A government gets this designation when it blocks Internet sites or filters search engine terms and phrases relating to human rights, democracy, religious free exercise, and peaceful political dissent, both in general and as specifically related to the particular context and circumstances. In addition to blocking and filtering, H.R. 275 prohibits US businesses from locating (finding and giving away), within a designated Internet-restricting country, any electronic communication that contains any personally identifiable information. Currently Belarus, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, North Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Tunisia, and Vietnam would be identified as Internet-restricting countries.

The teeth in H.R. 275 come from applying sanctions of various types against offending governments (some sanctions will be determined only after the Bill is passed), and applying penalties to US businesses that contribute to offending activities. Offending activities by Microsoft and Yahoo are cited in documents that support the Bill. The coordination activities would fall under the purview of a newly established “Office of Global Internet Freedom,” while enforcement would fall to a number of US government agencies. Civil and criminal actions against US businesses would go through the Attorney General.

I see some connections between H.R. 245 and our previous dialogs around OER and Open Education, as indicated above, but I am wondering really what they might be. Given that H.R. 275 does provide civil and criminal recourse and also points to potential export controls, it could impact many US education providers who operate in Internet-restricting countries as partners with local universities and companies, or through branch campuses. I think too though that the notion of such legislation might have international interest. In early 2007 the following NGOs

• Reporters Without Borders
• Amnesty International
• Human Rights Watch
• China Information Center
• Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
• Earth Rights International
• Laogai Research Foundation
• National Economic and Social Rights Initiative
• PEN USA
• PEN American Center
• Religious Freedom Coalition
• Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights
• Secretariat of the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net)
• Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia

endorsed H.R. 275 in a Joint Statement to the members of Congress, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations, because of the Bill’s “…effort to prevent U.S. companies from carrying out or facilitating the suppression of online speech in China and other countries.”

So, would this type of legislation be useful to educators? Would it potentially serve as a means to free up OER for use in various countries? Does it address fundamental access issues that are precursors for Open Education?

More pragmatically, does it potentially pose interesting questions for US universities who partner with universities in foreign countries that require “location of personally identifiable information” of students or faculty, wish to filter content, or block Internet sites?

I think that the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 is one way that Internet Freedom and Open Education, which is predicated on various freedoms, is starting to align in various ways. I am not sure if national legislation is the most direct way forward, but it is becoming a factor in the dialog that will potentially impact education and education providers. Online learning and the Open Education movement raise the visibility, profile, and stakes of engaging in repression of education. Please feel free to share your thoughts!

I want to take the opportunity to thank all of the contributors to the Terra Incognita blog during the past semester. In addition to the authors, who I list below, I want to thank those who are reading along, making comments, recommending contributors, and simply carrying on the dialog off line, and Shelby Thayer who supports the blog (WordPress, trouble shooting, etc. etc. etc.). So thanks to:

• Gavin Baker, September 5th, 2007 - Open Access Journal Literature is an Open Educational Resource
• Rob Abel, September 19th, 2007 - Open Source and Open Standards
• David Wiley, October 3rd, 2007 - Content Is Infrastructure
• GarySchwartz, October 17th, 2007 - Leading a University Open Source Project
• Michael Feldstein, October 31st, 2007 - Coase’s University: Open Source, Economics, and Higher Education
• Steve Foerster, November 14th, 2007 - Fair Use as a Complement to Open Licensing
• Leigh Blackall, November 29th, 2007 - Educational Development at Otago Polytechnic

Looking forward to 2008, we are already planning the series for the next half-year. I have decided to change the format from a 2-week posting cycle, to a monthly cycle. Articles for the OSS and OER in Education Series will appear on the first of the month, staring on February 1st. I felt that the extra time will allow dialogs to develop more naturally and for authors to explore other ways of forming dialog, like Leigh Blackall did with an hour-long web-conference. I am excited to say that Chris Geith, of Michigan State University has agreed to kick off the 2008 Series with a posting and dialog on February 1. In the meantime, there will be postings on a variety of topics.

“Educational Development at Otago Polytechnic,” the eighteenth installment of the Impact of Open Source Software Series, was posted on November 28th, 2007, by Leigh Blackall. Leigh currently serves as an Educational Developer at the Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand, and blogs his work to Learn Online. Thanks Leigh for a great posting!

In his posting Leigh provides a nice introduction about the Otago Polytechnic and the Educational Development Centre (EDC), which provides staff development, online and flexible learning development, and research into educational development. He also connects EDC activities with staff development supporting weblogging and digital literacy.

During this same period in which the EDC was supporting capacity development, a related set of policy changes were underway in which the Polytechnic’s intellectual policy was re-crafted to support the use of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license.

Leigh described how increased competency in the use of wikis and weblogs, the adoption of an open content license, and the use of WikiEducator supported the development of a wiki-based learning design and content development model that enables content sharing and reuse. He ends his posting by indicating that there are challenges and risks associated with wiki-based content development.

Comments
This posting attracted a number of comments, questions, and responses. There were comments about license compatibility and support of various open licenses on WikiEducator. In addition, there was a thread of questions and responses that were generally about the “hows” and “whys” associated with adopting an open license as a matter of policy at Otago polytechnic.

In addition to the posting and comments, Leigh ran a web conference, which was a first for this Series on Terra Incognita. I thought it was great and a number of others have communicated this sentiment also. A recording of the conference is available. No password is necessary.

Thanks again to Leigh for his interesting and insightful post, responses, and web conference, in addition I want to extend a big thanks to Wayne, Randi, and cormaggio for making this a great exchange, and other folks who have been reading along and participated in the web conference. Please feel free to continue the dialog.  This posting takes us to the end of 2007.

Please stay tuned as the schedule for next year is developed. In addition, all suggestions for the Series (improvements, ideas, comments, etc.) and recommendations for contributors are VERY welcome. The schedule for the series can be found on WikiEducator.

There is something quite significant happening, which is flowing from much of the good thinking and dialog surrounding the emergence of Free and Open Educational Resources and Software. In mid-September, 2007 a relatively small group of individuals crafted a brief statement (declaration) that represents a watershed of thinking, which points us from free and open resources to the larger agenda of open education. The Declaration is being circulated, discussed, and refined, and a project site supporting the Cape Town Open Education Declaration Initiative has been established. In all likelihood this Declaration and project will be one of the seminal efforts that shapes our thinking and hopefully practice in the coming decades.

It is my feeling that the Cape Town initiative is at a near perfect state of development to help inform practitioners (teachers, learners, learning designers, administrators, etc.) who are interested in Open Education and in engaging their institutions in the dialog.

Meaningful engagement has the potential of putting their organizations on an exciting and meaningful trajectory relative to Free and Open Education and Educational Resources. Widespread involvement of a diverse community or practitioners will help not only strengthen the Declaration Initiative, but has potential to bridge many gaps within the larger education community (colleges, universities, schools, governments, NGOs, governments, foundations, etc.) and among stakeholders within education organizations.

To learn more about the Cape Town Open Education Declaration Initiative, please visit the resource site where there is an opportunity to provide feedback. Please also feel free to comment here on Terra Incognita. It is worth noting that our most recent post by Leigh Blackall, Educational Development at Otago Polytechnic, describes the efforts of the Otago polytechnic in creating institutional OER policy related very practically to the practice implied by the Cape Town Open Education Declaration Initiative.

We are going to try something new. Leigh Blackall has suggested that we do a synchronous web-conference to discuss aspects of the Otago Polytechnic experience, OER, and other aspects of his posting. The conference time is set for Friday, December 7, 2007 at 12:00 noon Eastern Standard Time, which would be December 7th at 17:00 Greenwich Mean Time, and December 8th at 6:00 (AM) New Zealand Daylight Time. We are planning on an hour-long session. The event will be recorded and made openly available. Special thanks to Leigh for getting up early Saturday morning!!!!

The link to the web-conference site is:

http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1196885988687

Hope to see you there!