Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Open University and Creative Commons

The Open University have released our Internet law course, based on Larry Lessig's book, The Future of Ideas, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

Unfortunately you need to register to get into the site but otherwise it is openly accessible. Your chosen user ID and verifiable email address will only be used by server administrators to monitor site usage and will not be used for any other purpose.

The course originally formed part of the Relevant Knowledge programme of undergraduate technology short courses at the Open University, but is no longer offered as a credit-bearing option which can count towards an Open Unversity degree.

Given the importance of the ideas of of people like Larry to the future of our information society, however, I'd be keen to see the site widely read. It is pitched at a lay audience and so do encourage friends, family and colleagues to dip into at least some parts of the site. It's worth a look if only for the cartoons!

This is the first Open University course to be made available under a creative commons license but I hope it is the first of many.

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