iBerry

A number of issues concerning iBerry - feedback is always welcome!

• Help other learners by commenting on Open Courseware (OCW) - Anyone can add comments to any item in the Open Courseware Directory but very few do! The annotations provided by iBerry are essentially factual and based on details provided by OCW websites but if you have had direct learning experience of a particular open course then please maintain the goodwill and help other learners by sharing your comments about it. It is very useful to have constructive comments on the nature and delivery of a course: design, presentation, etc. Also, if you have some expertise in a subject area your informed opinion on the subject matter of a course (whether it's introductory, advanced, up-to-date, accurate etc.) and comments on the particular approach taken by the author, would be extremely valuable to online learners trying to decide between different courses. iBerry would be very interested to hear from students at any academic level or anyone else willing to make expert or at least informed comment on individual OCW items covering particular subject areas in Higher Education.

• New Message Board - The old message board has now been discontinued. It was not used very much and was constantly targeted by 'comment spammers'. Instead, a new message board or forum has been set up for Registered Users only so any personal details etc. will not be accessible to iBerry's many anonymous visitors. This is in addition to the user profiles that are already accessible to all Registered Users.

  If you are registered (see Registration FAQ) it can be rewarding to have your profile accessible to other Registered Users in order to find people with similar interests ("peer-matching") or perhaps for professional reasons. iBerry encourages connection but you are completely in control and free to make contact with others, or not, and without revealing private email addresses. There is no system of 'friends', 'followers', 'pokes', unwanted advertising or dubious use of your private information!

• Delicious - For some time iBerry has been saving 'unsorted' bookmarks on delicious and some, though not all, of these links are available under various subject headings in the Open Courseware Directory. 'Unsorted' usually means recent links that may be suitable for the Directory and await classification, editing etc. but some links of peripheral interest are also included that for one reason or another are not suitable for the Directory. To make iBerry's growing collection of unsorted links generally more useful a few words of descriptive text is now (usually!) being copied and pasted, unedited, to the delicious link.
• Twitter - iBerry is on Twitter as "iBerry_". We are exploring how to make the best use of Twitter to "foster free and accessible Higher Education" in accordance with our mission statement and welcome any advice. If you follow us it is likely that we will follow you if you have interests in Higher Education, particularly OCW or Open Education in general.

As far as iBerry is concerned the term, 'Open Courseware' (OCW), simply refers to courseware made openly accessible on the web by any institution or individual. OCW includes the impressively large collection of course materials published by the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC) and subject to Creative Commons Licenses. Today's OCW is unlikely to be offered in the traditional sense of instructor-led packages with access to experts, fellow students, formal exams and certification. That's usually for paying customers only whereas OCW is typically a byproduct of a traditional course, providing some subset of lecture notes, assignments, slides, images, practice exams, videoed lectures etc. and published in a static form with little possibility for learner interaction.

From time to time iBerry intends to feature examples of the best Open Courseware (OCW). Rather than attempting authoritative reviews of content the focus will be on why a particular OCW item is considered notable from the point of view of the online learner. Anyone is welcome to contribute or suggest some really first-class OCW (Comment below or contact iBerry)

Anthropology of Religion (Utah State University)

Feedback on any aspect of iBerry's activities is always appreciated but the following issues are central in the evolution of this Academic Porthole and constructive comment on these is particularly welcome.

— Benjamin Franklin

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Good ! - now here's your chance to give something back!

What you can do to help . . . . . . in rough order of difficulty or time commitment. You don't even need to register to do most of this!

Not a few "Open Courseware (OCW)" sites present the would-be user with the type of message shown above, or the equivalent in the form of login boxes and other restrictions preventing full access to course materials. No doubt the reasons are many and varied, ranging from marketing ploys that supposedly encourage (paying) students to sign up, to plain errors in website design. There's so much OCW out there now isn't it time to restrict the term to courseware that really is open and complete, at least as far as the major educational content is concerned? There are grey areas of course but now, in 2010, surely basic OCW should come with typed lecture notes and/or videoed lectures and if assignments, projects and quizzes and exams (particularly with solutions!) are thrown in too, then so much the better. Maybe by 2020 we would expect a lot more but at present even stalwart OCW creators such as MIT OpenCourseWare don't always live up to basic standards and much of what goes under the OCW banner is of little immediate use to many online learners.

As promised in 'Plans for 2010' we are making make it easier for users to create accounts and flag their requirements as Registered Users. If you have already registered please check your profile and revise it if necessary as some changes have been made to the layout.

iBerry does not go out of its way to encourage visitors to become Registered Users (see Registration FAQ) and we have absolutely no wish to create a closed community but it can be rewarding to have your profile accessible to other Registered Users in order to find people with similar interests ("peer-matching") or perhaps for professional reasons. If you register you can edit your profile at any time and it will be available for at least a year after your last login. You are free to make contact with others, or not, and without revealing private email addresses. There is no system of 'friends', 'followers', 'pokes' or advertising!