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hi everyone: I thought I’d share this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education with you. The article reminds us that many of our students are incredibly vulnerable. Textbook expenses are another, often untenable, burden in their lives.

Although the video makes light of copy write law it is important to respect the content of any authors works.

The fact that copy write law exist to protect an author’s work means we need to work hard and trace all content to its original source before posting It will be important for all of us to understand and give credit to those willing to share content via creative commons or other OER sites. I plan to extensively research my content before posting.

Copyright (as it was initially conceived) shares a common purpose with education: “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” However, as Gray’s video illustrates, increasingly stringent copyright laws impost limits on how we access, use, and share information. Copyright restrictions also effect how much resources cost to access or use in different contexts.

Do issues of copyright, ease of access, and / or cost impact which materials you typically use in your courses?  

How might the use of open materials change the way you and your students use and share resources or impact your teaching?

1. Content & Comprehensiveness: an extensive amount of contents seem to be covered in a variety of form – video, podcast, photo, reading, project, etc. Students’ engagement would be enhanced.
2. Attribution: course contents are well cited except for a few items. I wonder the college has any suggestions in terms of citation style such as APA.
3. Organization: I indeed struggled a bit at first when navigating the website. It was not easy for me to figure out what was what because the way course contents were organized, the size of menus, the font type/size, and the background color. I tried to find the course syllabus first when I was directed to the site, but I couldn’t locate it easily. After navigating on the site for a while, I’ve found that the syllabus was located in a submenu called Course Document. It would enhance usability of the site if the link to the syllabus was placed on the front page or in any other prominent locations.
4. Accessibility: I accessed the site with computers as well as mobile devices. Interestingly, the website was easier for me to understand when using mobile devices.
5. Navigation: some video and podcast links are dead, unfortunately.
6. Modularity: fairly satisfied. Contents seem to be well clustered under sub-categories, so website visitors could review the materials section by section.

Room for enhancement: I’ve learned that usability of the site should be more highlighted – not only the visual attractiveness of the website but also the ease of use. For instance, using the discussion board would be somewhat challenging to students or web visitors. It would be great if the site could integrate this feature without log-in to Blackboard. This will give visitors an opportunity to view and participate in discussion so a broad spectrum in experience and perspectives could be combined. And the width and the depth of contents may need to be adjusted depending on the goal of the site. More is not necessarily better, I’ve learned through this assignment.