Open Course Ware

IAM Open Courseware is an initiative of the Institute of Network Cultures, MediaLAB Amsterdam and the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Communication and Multimedia Design (CMD) based on a similar initiative of MIT Open Course Ware.

The aim of IAM Open Courseware is to disseminate educational materials of the study Interactive Media (IAM) and the activities of the Institute of Network Cultures (INC). Preferably under an open license (Creative Commons) for anyone who wants use or re-use it to copy, distribute, translate and adapt for non-commercial purposes. Like this there will be an online database -consulted by students and teachers, or any other individuals with materials in the field of new media, culture and design. IAM, Interactive Media wants to be role model towards other studies directions. Besides, IAM wants to show how important and valuable it is to freely distribute your education material for students, teachers and everybody who is interested in it. Which is possible on every moment, every time and every place.

Interesting links on Open Course Ware or other Digital Educational Platforms:

• Open Course Ware Consortium (a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.)

• Opencast (This project is asking for commitment and contributions by people and institutions dedicated to developing a shared metadata scheme for audiovisual content in academia.)

Information about licenses:

• Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

• The GNU General Public License (GPL)

• MIT License

Other links:

• BuddyPress (BuddyPress is a set of WordPress MU specific plugins, each plugin adding a distinct new feature. BuddyPress contains all the features you’d expect from WordPress but aims to let members socially interact).

• Elgg (An interesting interview with the organisers of some educational courses on Harvard, where they’re using Elgg. Elgg is a free application to build your own social network, something which we could consider for the IAM OCW project).

• Institute for Information Law (A website of the Faculty of Law at the University of Amsterdam. It gives detailed information on Dutch Intellectual Property, Copyright law, Neighbouring Rights and Database Protection)

• Openedweb (A blog on Education and Technology).

• Twitter OCW news (An interesting Twitter account with daily posts on Open Course Ware. A good way to stay informed about the latest developments in the field.)