Topic 2 deepened my knowledge and thought process in being ‘open’. The webinar by Maha Bali was very engaging and enriching. Some of the information that she shared, such as those related to social justice, as well as regional variations of open content (such as Wikipedia having different quality and even information in different languages for the same topic). There were also discussions about social justice which openness brings about.

I have always striven to be open while remaining wary of the potential issues. I have made open some of my materials, such as this resource page on Arduino (which itself is an open-source project!) and this (a cutting edge topic on hardware-software co-design), with the hope that it will be useful for the larger community. The various benefits and pitfalls were discussed in depth in our PBL group. There are numerous benefits to being open apart from giving one the joy of sharing, such as mistakes getting noticed and corrected fast, possible help in building a reputation in the field, motivating others to share, etc. Pitfalls include inadvertently violating someone else’s copyright/intellectual property, putting up materials that could affect someone else’s sensitivities (especially given the fact that there could be temporal and cultural elements to such sensitivities), reputation risk through publishing incorrect information etc.

Personally, ensuring that we don’t violate someone’s intellectual property/copyright has been the biggest hurdle. It is very rare that we create learning materials entirely from scratch. We usually have to refer to textbooks, journals, and other online materials. We have to be very careful about the terms under which the original content creator has allowed reuse. In many cases, such information will not be included along with the material, and getting permissions can be a very time-consuming and sometimes impossible task (the author may not be contactable). While there are “fair dealing” clauses, there is still an uncertainty/ambiguity regarding how much is fair. This could prevent others from making good use of your work, and possibly enhancing it and paying it forward. Hence, as a content creator, it is important to be clear about the terms under which you are making your work open. There are various licenses, many of which are applicable to software too, a field I dabble in. Licensing schemes such as Creative Commons can be adopted, which allows for the original author to be credited while allowing for varying degrees of restrictions such as permitting or not permitting commercial use. There is also a Creative Commons variant CC0 which releases the material into the public domain while relinquishing as much rights as possible. I will make sure that I will clearly specify the license under which a work is released so that people will be able to use it as freely as I intend it to be.