Controversy over Open Source/Open Content This morning's Inside Higher Ed brings us a fascinating story about arguments over technology inititiatives in higher education. The Commission on the Future of Higher Education has been working for a long time to create a report to send to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. Earlier this month, they finalized and voted on a draft of their report. They agreed to only make minor language changes between the vote and when they presented the report to Secretary Spellings. However, one member of the commission objected to a single paragraph in the report that supports the development of open source and open content projects within higher education institutions. That member happened to be an employee of Microsoft. While the Gerri Elliot, the member who opposed the paragraph, says that her association with Microsoft has nothing to do with her objections, it's hard not to think that her company affiliation might have some bearing on her objection. What seems to be most likely is that she simply overlooked the paragraph and failed to bring up her objections during the creation of the report.

Even if Elliot's affiliation with Microsoft had nothing to do with her objections, it's odd to see so much objection to open source and open content. The report itself is interested in issues of transparency in higher education, so it's puzzling that in the area of technology, someone would want to advocate for closed systems or not advocate for more transparency.

¶ 8:25 AM, posted by Laura