Blog Entry
From the outside, having work embargoed seems like not much fun. It’s work that only goes to a small, limited and elite audience. It’s going to sit on “ice” for any number of years—because of copyright or security or ownership issues (usually). While a person may benefit from the intellectual property of that work, it’s not really there for the public consumption. There may be a release date of sorts, or there may not be any release dates. The jury may be out about the potential value of that particular work.
Then there’s the issue of dual use. This concept suggests reasonably that technologies created and applied for positive, civilized use may also be used for nefarious purposes. The idea here is that anything can be turned to destructive use, and some of that learning then is for a limited audience.
I’m all for protecting work. I understand holding information until it is not so incendiary. I’m willing to understand that some work may never be released ever because it’s incendiary into the far future. Some information is seriously just for a few, and it should stay that way.
Even those who work in the “light” (vs. dim or dark endeavors) have their own secrets to keep. There’s always student information that is not appropriate to share. There are the snippets of information that one comes across that has no business being out there.
To turn this musing around, I’ve thought about how much useful information should be shared in the “bright lights” of high publicity…but often are not. There’s often a huge reticence to share in the opposite direction, to enlighten the mainstream. Those who are silent seem to view anyengagement with mass media as a kind of compromise, a giving away of something valuable.
This seems to have a led to a very binary situation, very yes / no. Very either / or. None of the /.
Comments
Steve 10 months, 3 weeks ago
This post sparked some similar thoughts I've had recently. I used to work at the design firm at a major university, and we designed and created tons of valuable tools. They had their niche, but they could easily be adapted and even manipulated for others to use. As with most products we design, they're used for a very limited audience for a very limited time. What if we had a virtual "thrift store" where we provided free instructional tools that we no longer use, or that could no longer hurt our clients? The work is done, we just need to provide it to the world. I know it's pie-in-the-sky, and there are a ton of legal issues, but I've seen so many tools that could be so useful across the world, and they're just kept to the one instructor who requested it, and uses it once a semester for their class. Rant over.
Eruditio Loginquitas 10 months, 2 weeks ago
Hi, Steve: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. A side thought first: You point to the "dating out" of contents over time, which is so true. A lot of my own scripting and design work is used for a time and then covered over by other designs or intellectual contents. I think it's important to encourage evolution of educational materials because the fields change, and for effective teaching, it helps not to get dated materials... The technologies evolve so quickly, too, and it's important to stay contemporary.
As for sharing designs, if there's something that has some pseudo-lasting value, I think that should be shared (albeit within the constraints of laws and policies). There are repositories / referatories like MERLOT and others that help distribute access to various online learning objects. And many professors will share videos on various video sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and others.
Maybe there does need to be a repository of downloadable and functional scripts for various functions and tools. Want to start one? :)
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