Course Calendar for COM580: Open Source in Technical Communication

Calendar information will change over the semester; check back regularly. This is an open course.

Unit A: Open Source and Software

8/26 Introduction & Welcome

• In-Class Activities:
  • Welcome, Introductions
  • Course Website and Policies
  • Register on Wiki, create a biography page at your username
  • Create an hCard to sign your pages with
  • Register on Delicious; share URL with instructor
  • Make a post or two to your Delicious account
• Readings and Tasks for Next Week:
  • C&B ix-63; 167-91; 195-213 (Foreword, Preface, A Brief History of Hackerdom, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Revenge of the Hackers, Appendix A: How to Become a Hacker)
  • Free Software Foundation (Website)
  • Linux.org (Website)
  • Linus Torvalds on the Origins of Linux (Video)
  • Watch the video first before reading
  • Create your reading response page- 500 word responses for readings
  • Enter bio information on your page

9/2 Origins: Who are these people?

• In Class:
  • Reading Discussion
  • Establishing Days and Times for "State of the Art" Presentations
• Readings for Next Week:
  • C&B 65-166;193-194 (Homesteading the Noosphere, The Magic Cauldron, Afterword: Beyond Software?)
  • ...

9/9 Origins: What are they doing? and how?

• In Class:
  • Reading Discussion
  • Brief (and Surprise!) Presentations on the Open Source Community/Project You're Tracking
  • Drawing names for State of the Art Dates and making a schedule
  • Workshopping State of the Art presentation ideas
• Readings for Next Week:
  • Yochai Benkler: Open Source Economics (Video)
  • TWN 1-127
• Reading Questions:
  • What does Benkler identify as the different Ideal-Type Information Production Strategies? What additional examples of eachcan you think of, in your own work or academic/professional life?
  • What arguments does Benkler make for the sustainability and effectiveness of nonmarket production?
  • How does Benkler's take on peer-production and peer-review compare to Raymond's descriptions of the hacker community?

Unit B: Open Source and Business, Economics, and the Polis

9/16 Networks: "The Networked Information Economy"

• In Class:
  • Reading Discussion
  • Structured play with open source software
• Readings for Next Week:
  • TWN 129-272
  • Constructing a framework to enable an open source reinvention of journalism
  • NewAssignment.Net

9/23 Networks: "The Political Economy" Part I

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: JohnP
  • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • Note: In lieu of a fresh reading response, comment on three of your colleagues' past reading responses. See the inline comments page for help doing this.
  • TWN 273-377
  • KellyS State of the Art: Tying Digitizing Archives to Open Source Ideas
    • Read or listen to Web Security Words Help Digitize Old Books NPR's Technology Podcast from 8/14/08.
    • Read one:
      • 1) Thoughts on Digital Preservation, Validation and Community
      • 2) Towards an Open Source Repository and Preservation System Download this word doc and read the Preface, the Executive Summary, and the Introduction or link here to find it in our wiki.
      • 3) reCAPTCHA: crowdsourcing transcription comes to life
      • DSpace An Open Source Dynamic Digital Repository
      • Using Open Source Social Software as Digital Library Interface. The site the article refers to: http://www.digitalforsyth.org/
      • Applying Contextual Memory Cues for Retrievalk from Personal Memory Archives

9/30 Networks: "The Political Economy" Part II

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: KellyS
  • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • TWN 379-473
  • BridieS State of the Art: Open Health Care
    • Scan the latest report (PDF) from the Committee for Economic Development regarding openness in health care. Focus on section V, VI, and VIII.
    • Review recent legislation (in PDF form) about OS and Healthcare
    • Read a PDF about OS and Electronic Health Records

10/7 Networks: "Policies of Freedom"

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: BridieS
  • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law (Video)
    • If you enjoyed Lessig, Snapper recommends: Nate Harrison: Can I Get an Amen? (Video documentation of Audio Installation)
  • FC 1-79
  • RoM's state-of-the-art : Open Source and Multimedia Game Development.
    • Free/Open Source Software Development Practices in the Computer Game Community
    • http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=printer_friendly&pid=114&page=1 Game Development: Harder Than You Think
    • Where are the Good Open Source Games?
    • Gaming for Freedom (Youtube Video)

Unit C: Open Source and Creative Activity, Cultural Production, and the Law

10/14 Culture: "Piracy"

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: RoM
  • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • FC 83-173
  • Glance Over:
    • BSD License
    • GNU Public License
    • Mozilla Public License

10/21 Culture: "Property"

• In Class:
  • GUEST SPEAKER on Licensing (Attorney Colin Stolley) (presentation outline)
  • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • FC 177-306
  • Catherine's state of the art: Open Source Tools and Scholarly Research for the Humanities
    • Ways that digital resources can transform teaching and research, grand and small
    • Building a Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities (User Requirements) - Scan full report
    • Wired Campus: Company’s Lawsuit Over Free Scholarly Organization Tool Generates Buzz
  • Look over a few of these tools and projects, to get an idea of what's out there now
    • Zotero Citation tool described in Wired Campus article
    • Making of America database mentioned in first article
    • Open Content Alliance
    • Hyper Nietzsche -- Open project to digitize copies of Nietzsche’s work and other primary and secondary source materials.
    • Wordle tag cloud tool useful to scholars to data mine or visualize text, built by an IBM employee using JAVA. Code, therefore, is copyright, but resulting clouds are not.
    • The ARTFL Project – Project at UC for French literature (powered by Philologic at UC, a Free Software project)
    • TiddlyWiki
    • Digital Research Tools (DiRT)

10/28 Culture: "Puzzles & Balances"

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: CatherineK
  • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • RCC Chapters 1-4

Unit D: Open Source and the Creative Class

11/4 Creative Class: "The Creative Age"?

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: FredL : Building a Creative Corporate Foundation with Open Source Software: Trends, Collaborations and Emerging Practices. (Please read any 4 of the articles below, and skim the book if you want -- Please explore links to other articles/ definitions embedded in the web pages you read. )
    • The Open Source Movement has the answers....
    • Is OS limited to Software?
    • Creative Class War
    • Open Source Case for Business:Advocacy
    • 50 Open Source Success Stories in Business, Education, and Government
    • Open Source Service Oriented Architecture
    • Open Source Democracy
    • The Economics of Technology Sharing: Open Source and Beyond
    • Behind Google's Plan to Conquer Enterprise Computing
    • Free Code for Sale: The New Business of Open Source
  • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • RCC Chapters 5, 8, 9
  • ...

11/11 Creative Class: Creativity and Work

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: CynthiaL
  • Copyleft for Publications Read these three articles.
    
    • Why is The Bizarre Cathedral licence "non-free"?
    • Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Informationl
    • Copyright/Copyleft: Myths About Copyright
  • Stuff to Browse
    • Featured Commoners Lulu
    • Lulu Self Publishing
    • Featured Commoners Kembrew McLeod
    • Introducing Bloomsbury Academic
    • Back Talk: Kelly Link
    • The Shakespeare Chronicles
    • Remix My Lit

http://courses.karlstolley.com/580os/SOANotes

• • Reading Discussion
• Readings for Next Week:
  • RCC Chapters 12, 15, 16

11/18 Creative Class: Life, Community and Place

• In Class:
  • State of the Art: AnnG
  • Things to read
    • Open access publishing in the biomedical sciences: could funding agencies accelerate the inevitable changes? You'll need your ID number if you're trying to access this from off IIT's campus.
  • Sites to browse. Please check out the list of publications available.
    • PubMed Please do a search on a medical topic of your choosing & see what sort of information you can find.
    • Biomed Central Please read the About page.
    • PubMed Central Please read the FAQs under "About".
    • arXiv.org e-print archive
• For Next Week:
  • Finish Final Project and Prepare Presentation

11/25 NO CLASS

12/2 LAST CLASS

• In Class:
  • Final Project Presentations

	Attachment	Size	Date Added
	GPL.pdf	114.72 KB	10/14/2008 10:40 am
	MPL.pdf	87.98 KB	10/14/2008 10:41 am
	cstolley_talk_outline.pdf	104.54 KB	10/21/2008 10:57 am
	tmj.2007.0052.lowlink.pdf_v03.pdf	628.28 KB	10/04/2008 10:20 am
	BSD.pdf	32.61 KB	10/14/2008 10:40 am

Author:

Karl Stolley