Open Folklore Discussed as Part of UMN Forum on Open Research and Learning

The Open Folklore project was one of a number of projects discussed at a recent event hosted by the University of Minnesota Libraries, with co-sponsorship from the UMN Department of Anthropology. The event was titled Open Research and Learning: Collaboration, Connections and Communities and it focused on the social side of open access, open educational resources, and open research architectures and collaborations.

In his remarks, OF team member Jason Baird Jackson discussed not only OF, but also the social nature of research-focused group blogs and the implications of new journal publishing strategies such as those central to the PressForward project and its associated Digital Humanities Now and Journal of Digital Humanities efforts.

Amazing presentations were offered by Doug Armato (Director of the University of Minnesota Press, focusing on the transformation of university presses in the context of shifts to open access approaches to scholarly communication), David Ernst (Director of Academic and Information Technology for the UMN College of Education and Human Development, describing the UMN's new open textbook project) and Lucy Fortson (Associate Professor, UMN School of Physics and Astronomy, discussing remarkably successful open data-based citizen science collaborations, particularly the Galaxy Zoo project and related Zooniverse projects). UMN Copyright Librarian Nancy Sims moderated the panel.

For those who are interested in a recap of the event, Barbara Fister has offered one in a new essay published at Inside Higher Education. She starts from the substance of the panel and proceeds to offer reflections on the nature of undergraduate learning and research in a changing information environment. Find her essay in Inside Higher Education.

The basic information on the event is available from the UMN Library website.