Wired Campus reports that a new group calling itself Academic Earth is offering free online videos of lectures from leading universities.  AE describe themselves as “an organisation founded with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world-class education.”  Read the fine print (Mission Statement) and you will find that “everyone on earth” means “internet users around the world” and “a world-class education” means video podcasts.  Viewers can grade the quality of the lectures with a mark between A+ and F.

It seems that AE are simply copying the videos from the websites of various universities (currently MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale) .  Wired Campus quotes Richard Ludlow, the company’s CEO and founder, as saying that the videos are accessible via Creative Commons licenses, which allow outside entities (even for-profit ones) to reuse the materials, provided that those entities do not use the materials for commercial purposes.  Mr. Ludlow says that his company will not place any advertising on Web pages that contain university videos, although there may be advertising on other sections of the website in future.

Whether this violates the terms of Creative Commons (CC) remains to be seen.  As CC say: “Determining what does and doesn’t constitute commercial use is not always easy.”  CC are currently conducting a study on the meaning of noncommercial, with results due in early 2009.  We’ll revisit this topic when this happens.

In the meantime, you might want to check out CCLearn, a division of Creative Commons dedicated to supporting open learning and open educational resources.  The resources and projects sections are invaluable for those interested in issues around open access, technology, and education.

Filed under: Accessibility, Open Education, Social Networks, Technologies by Agnes Bosanquet