Since the inception of Rebus, we’ve worked closely with the OER community to ensure that everything we do is informed by the values of the people we support. In addition, we aim to advocate for those values, build them into our tools and processes, and remain responsive to evolving attitudes and ideas as we allKeep reading “The Evolution of Rebus Community’s Licensing Policy”
Category: OER philosophy
How we can make open education more feminist
In my previous post, I reflected on what it means for the open movement to be a feminist movement, and why it’s vital to us achieving our goal of more equitable global knowledge and education systems. That vision is exciting and challenging. It drives so much of what I do, so the next logical stepKeep reading “How we can make open education more feminist”
How personal storytelling pops canonical bubbles
I’m new to Rebus and I’m new to the OER community. To be honest, before I interviewed for my current position, I didn’t know what “open” meant. But throughout the interview process it became clear to me that I was already expressing open values without saying the word open. When I studied English Literature inKeep reading “How personal storytelling pops canonical bubbles”
Opening Up a Can of… Marketing
What might it mean to do ‘open marketing’? Would it involve being anti-strategic? Foregrounding mechanisms to opt out and ignore messaging? Making advertising and promotional materials that can be reused and repurposed? Demonstrating clarity, accessibility, and absolute truth on Twitter? Said another way, does open twist the objectives of marketing, or does it elicit newKeep reading “Opening Up a Can of… Marketing”
The (non-profit) business of connecting people through technology
While we aren’t Facebook (we really, really aren’t), we are in the (non-profit) business of connecting people through technology. That’s not something we take lightly. We understand that the technologies we choose and the platform we create will shape interactions, for better or worse, as much as many other decisions we make.
A Shared Belief in Publishing Openly
Rebus Community is in many ways a perfect bridge between publishing, education, academia, and knowledge exchange—a collective effort that makes a tangible difference in people’s lives. As Publishing Liaison, my role is to provide support and guidance to those working on open textbook projects. The specifics vary from team to team, but the through lineKeep reading “A Shared Belief in Publishing Openly”
Making books to build communities, building communities to make books.
Brewster Kahle, of the Internet Archive, gave a talk back in 2004 titled, “Universal Access to All Human Knowledge,” arguing that new web technologies could help realize a world in which all knowledge would be available to anyone for free. Brewster’s vision was a core inspiration for the past decade and a half of myKeep reading “Making books to build communities, building communities to make books.”
Power, Publishing, and A Broader Vision for OER
Open licenses are a hugely powerful tool in education, opening the the door to a whole world of possibility and change. But if we expand our definition and understanding of openness beyond licenses, we potentially have an even more powerful tool to begin addressing systemic inequities in society. As Ethan Senack recently pointed out inKeep reading “Power, Publishing, and A Broader Vision for OER”
Open is More Than A License: Why File Formats Matter for Revising & Remixing
I once wrote a 2500-word essay on why PDFs are terrible, so it’s safe to say that I have some thoughts about file formats (and also that I’m great fun at the right kind of parties). However, it’s also safe to say that not many people give file formats as much thought as I do.Keep reading “Open is More Than A License: Why File Formats Matter for Revising & Remixing”
The Rebus Mantra: If We All Chip In, the Effort Will Be Minimal and the Benefits Great
Before the Rebus Community was officially founded, Hugh McGuire wrote a post on Medium about the large-scale collaboration we hope to achieve around open textbooks. Hugh is no stranger to this kind of collaboration, having founded Librivox, a community of volunteers who crowdsourced the world’s largest collection of public domain audiobooks. In the post, heKeep reading “The Rebus Mantra: If We All Chip In, the Effort Will Be Minimal and the Benefits Great”