e-learning Content

22-December-2004

[ ICT and learning ]

In October (not November as I said in an earlier entry) the European Commission e-Learning Programme held a two day workshop in Brussels on e-Learning Content. The first day was focused around licensing and copyright issues with the second day more focused on content creation and reuse. Obviously there was quite some overlap and some participants were invited to both days.

I attended the first day on behalf of the SIG Open Source Software in Education in Europe project and Ray Elpherink from Raycom attended the second day on behalf of the project.

There were some twenty participants in both days, invited form a wide range of those interested in such a subject including major software companies, publishers, education providers and media organisations.
To their credit, the Commission organised the event very well, inviting everyone to provide a two page position paper before the event (see previous entry for copy of our paper) and running the event as a workshop.

I will ask Ray to write a short account of the second day. Opinions were widely divided on the first day. Roughly speaking the workshop was polarised between those advocating Open Content and the publishers who wanted to tighten rules and practice on digital rights.

Following the event Brian Holmes who organised the consultation workshop on behalf of the European Commission circulated a summary. Of course no-one was satisfied and this led to a lengthy and lively email discussion.

The position papers and summary have now been published on DG Education and Culture's web site. They will be publicizing the site in the New Year and are intending to launch a discussion on the outcomes. It is intended that the results of the discussions will inform future policy by the Commission in this area.


Graham Attwell; 22-December-2004 16:29:38;