What happens when everyone shares everything? The music and film industries are struggling to come to terms with a world where copying is so easy and virtually impossible to control. The publishing industry is also under threat and the educational sector can't quite decide if the power of new web services are a threat or an opportunity. More and more information is being shared thanks to various wiki projects and educational material is more freely distributed than ever before. At the same time as we can share our own material we are also able to "share" other people's material with or without their permission.
I love the idea of open learning resources allowing access to educational material without a price tag. I'm not so sure about file sharing when the product of several months of an artist's/author's/actor's life can be distributed without that person getting any financial reward or credit. However the technology to do so is available and we have to adapt to a new reality where many established businesses will disappear in the next few years.
The power of sharing is a disruptive process and threatens many established structures. Mark Pesce has posted a lecture on this theme (see below) and is well worth a look. He examines amongst, many other areas, the possibility of creating a truly open university with lectures available from anywhere at any time and rated by students and peers. Many areas of university administration are being slowly opened up and put into the hands of the consumers (students). What will happen to the bricks-and-mortar campus ideal when you can choose when to study, where to study, what pace to study and are free to choose which lecturers to follow? Can this change be managed and structured or will the customer decide? Have a loook ..
See even Mark Pesce's blog The Human Network.
Share This Lecture! from Mark Pesce on Vimeo.
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