Open Source, Open Course

...release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity...

This is a graduate seminar on Open Source. And where possible, the course attempts not just to cover the material on open source, but to rely on and reflect open source technologies and principles. For example:

• This course website is running on WikkaWiki, a free and open source wiki software package
• The major readings on the course calendar are all (with one exception) available online, under Creative Commons or other license
• The course calendar, course policies, and course projects pages are all licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, meaning that, for example, instructors at other institutions are free to use, repost, and modify these materials so long as they provide attribution to the original author(s).
• Because this site is a wiki, all but a few pages (e.g., the course policies, which determines how people will be graded) are editable, and you are encouraged to edit them for everything from typographical errors to significant content revisions.

Regarding that last point: among the open, editable pages is the course calendar, which is in beta version: I have provided the rough shell, mostly through books, a few links and class activities, and a guest speaker or two (who will be listed once I have dates confirmed).

But that isn't enough material for three hours' worth of meetings each week. Not in my opinion.

Besides, although I have read a fair amount on topics of open source, I doubt that I have come even close to finding everything that there is to find--much less finding what interests each of you personally. What I have found, and continue to find, I will post via my delicious account and add to the open source bibliography that we will develop as a class.

And although it violates open source development community principles to compel anyone to do anything, I have nonetheless created a project for this course, called State of the Art, for which you will responsible for finding a few readings and videos or other media on a given topic related, in some fashion, to the topics of this course.

The books we are reading will give everyone a rough framework to talk with one another; the bibliography and class-wide collection of Delicious posts will provide enrichment.

But you each will go one step further, and choose a week on the calendar for which you will assign readings (giving you an opportunity to compel me, the instructor, to do something) and for which you will lead the class for about 45 minutes or so.

In other words, it's not just the calendar that's open source; the teaching of this class is open source, too.

Now, that said, I will still serve as your collaborator and, though I hope it won't be necessary, gatekeeper when it comes to your plans for the course. Serving in this role--reviewing your ideas as a peer, acting as an arbitrator over whether your ideas are included in this project--are not violations of the spirit of the open source community; as Raymond points out, any given open source software project has a lead person or persons who serve in precisely that role, no matter how many collaborators there are.

But those leaders serve in that role not to exercise god-like power (well, not entirely), but to advance the project in what they believe is ultimately in its best interest. And so it is that I am compelling you to contribute, while also working with you to do what I can to help you make the best possible contribution to the course itself.

Let's hope this works.


Author:

Karl Stolley