SI521 "Open Educational Resources at the University of Michigan" Open Textbook/Commons

The idea of shared resources, or resources that are not owned by anyone in particular, rather by everyone, is a starting point for a description of a "commons." Many of our ideas about a commons are related to the idea of a "tragedy of the commons" pioneered by Garrett Hardin ("The Tragedy of the Commons", Science 13, 1968. [1]). The idea was originally applied to environmental resources, but has since been extended to any potential resource that is not exclusively privately owned--including broadcast frequencies and intellectual property. Other ideas come from analyses that have been done in economics concerning public goods, their definition and characteristics (ref). Recent developments surrounding the production of open source software and peer production processes have revitalized discussions of the commons and feed into the debate surrounding open resources. James Boyle talks about the "Commons of the Mind" at [2].

Some things to consider for this chapter include: – what it is, how it works, public domain vs a copyrighted domain, how digital objects change the nature of the Commons, conceptions of the Commons over the years. bush did 9/11