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Judy Baker has tweeted that Adobe has launched OER portals for K-12 and higher education.

Mike Linksvayer has a new post providing current statistics on Creative Commons in Flickr. From the post:

With over 10-fold growth, use of all licenses have increased greatly. However, the distribution has also changed, though slowly. Four years ago 78% of CC-licensed images on Flickr were not pre-cleared for commercial use. This has declined by close to 5 percentage points.

Tony Karrer, who recently posted on open content in the workplace, has a new post looking at Creative Commons in professional settings. From the post:

I’m exploring whether Open Content can be used by for-profit companies. And, since Open Content comes in under the Creative Commons license structure.

Rick Stafford has a new post on technical compatibility and open educational resources. From the post:

So, from a technological perspective, my advice for producing OER resources would be to use industry standard software rather than university standards when initially designing resources.

Matt Jadud has a new post on how students can get credit for open source projects. From the post:

While it is true that they could “just contribute to your project for the greater good of humanity,” the reality is that college students need credits to graduate, and getting credit towards graduation is one of the primary currencies of 4-year undergraduate instutitions.

Stephen Wheeler has a new post on the results of an OER focus group at the University of Cumbria. From the post:

The project managers seem pleased with what we’re doing and I’m also pleased with what we’ve done. I think it will prove to be a significant innovation for the University and will be of lasting worth.

Tony Hirst has a new post about the Open University’s revised Facebook app strategy. From the post:

For those who don’t remember the apps we developed, there were two: Course Profiles, which allowed students to declare the courses that had taken were taking and intended to take, and then provided a range of services around that information (find friends on a course, find a study buddy, link to course information or course related OpenLearn resources, get course recommendations); and My OU Story, where students could maintain a “status diary” about their progress on a course, along with a mood indicator so they could track their mood over a course, and other app users could add supportive comments.

A year after politicians and pundits started talking about three-year degrees, more colleges are starting programs or considering them.

Rev. Liza Neal describes a different model for nurturing student spirituality in a diverse academic environment.

Erskine College sued the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church Wednesday accusing the religious denomination that created the college of violating its bylaws and attempting to gain inappropriate control, The Index Journal reported. A judge issued a temporary restraining order against the church, blocking it from taking actions against Erskine, pending further hearings. The legal action results from last week's move by the college to fire board members of the college. Church leaders say that the college and its board have not stayed true to the faith, but many faculty members believe that the church is trying to impose ideological control on everyone at the college, and accreditors are raising questions about the church's actions.

Iowa State University is considering a change in its policy on the dismissal of tenured faculty members, The Omaha World-Herald reported. Currently, tenured faculty members may be dismissed only in cases of "extraordinary financial crisis," but a proposed change would also permit dismissals if their programs are eliminated. The change is being considered as more colleges violate the standards of the American Association of University Professors by dismissing tenured faculty members without declaring "financial exigency."

The director of the National Science Foundation explained numerous changes that the Obama administration aims to make in the agency's approach to science research and education in testimony before a Congressional science panel Wednesday. Arden L. Bement Jr., who is leaving the NSF to head a research center at Purdue University, told members of the House of Representatives Science Committee about the administration's plan to continue a drive to double spending on the physical sciences and to revamp funding for minority college students in science fields.

Advocates argue that time is of the essence for the American Graduation Initiative and officials need to withhold criticism to help get the bill passed.

The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association on Wednesday published a draft of proposed "common core standards" that are designed to help states reach consensus on what it means to be "college ready." Most states have agreed in principle to embrace the standards once they are agreed on, and groups of college faculty members in English and mathematics plan to assess the standards.

Black science students are more likely to stay in their field if they have at least one black instructor, according to new study, which finds no similar impact based on gender.

Bart Hildreth, dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, said that he was told to resign for speaking out against the idea of merging the school with another college at the university, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Georgia's public colleges are currently in the midst of considering a range of proposals to deal with deep budget cuts that they face already -- and the prospect of still more on the way. A spokeswoman for the university said that while officials disagree with the former dean's characterization of events, they were not speaking out in detail out of respect for the confidentiality of personnel matters.