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Nicole (00:03):
Welcome back to Into the open. This episode is titled sharing is caring. Why? Because when I first
virtually met our guest, Alan Levine, he was proudly wearing his sharing is caring. T-shirt Alan has been
involved and influential in the open community for what seems to be eons now, not to age him. He
doesn't like that very much, almost everybody that I've had a chance to talk to in the open community at
some point has brought up Alan's name and how he's positively influenced them in their journey into
the open, through creating, collaborating, commenting on other people's blogs. Alan truly has helped
the open community and open education grow. So come join me as I pick Alan's brain about what it
means to share and get to meet his dog. Felix, I was wondering if you could tell me how you first got
involved in open education or stumbled into it.
Alan (01:06):
Well, thank you, Nicole. And now I feel like I'm going to be like old person's stories where it's like back
when we, you know, we'd walk through the snow to get to the podcast shack or something like that. But
I guess it was before there's probably even like a name or an idea for it. So when I started my career, I
was doing what would now be called instructional technology with Maracopa community college system
in Phoenix, how they hired me on a Lark, because I really didn't have, I had a little bit of teaching. I had a
little bit of programming. I had a little bit of everything, but back then, and I'm going to date myself and
be like, then you'll say like that was before I was born probably or nineteen ninety two/ ninety three.
And I was just trying to look for interesting uses of technology and there was an internet then. And so I
was then like looking at and doing some prototypes and programming in HyperCard, which is kind of like
in many ways, the predecessor to multimedia and the idea of hyperlinked, et cetera. And what I found
was a great place to learn was this FTP site, um, from Stanford called the sumacs aim archives. It was like
the name of the computer, but what it's really simple, what happened was people who, they shared lots
of things like little utilities and programs that sometimes are created, but also people who were
interested in things like HyperCard or other things would upload and share the things that they had
created or things that they wanted help with. And so it was there for me to sort of download and open
up and it was open for me to sort of inspect and learn from. And so it just became almost reflective to
say, like, someone shared this with me, like anything I create, I'm going to share back with other people
because like I'm getting paid a salary to do my other work.
Alan (03:00):
And so this is not a monetary thing. And just what I found was in, in sort of connecting with other
people, doing similar work, then through email listservs, et cetera, is that all of a sudden, you got this
like affinity with someone, you know, I had a friend D'Arcy, Norman who's at university of Calgary now.
And so he, he was doing the same kind of work. I was almost in isolation in his institution because there
weren't many of us and sort of, you started getting the sense of asking questions, being willing to share
and people willing to give it back. So it just sort of became ingrained in me. Like if I create anything, why
not share it in case someone else finds it useful. And so they give up the idea of ownership and this was,
you know, pre-dated, you know, some of the ideas that came along towards the end of that decade, you
know, with David Wiley working on some of the first open licenses and creative comments, but it just
sort of seemed more like that, that natural, like, it seems almost simplistic to say, like, you remember as
a kid, you had something and shared it with other kids and that's way simplified, but it was really that
beginning. And the idea that I could learn from other people, because they shared stuff that wasn't
finished or wasn't polished with me.

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Nicole (04:12):
Right. And we were able to almost innovate andcombined ideas. It was more of a collaboration than
versus I'm just giving and taking.
Alan (04:20):
And of course like now, like in the beginning, you're like, oh my God, there's all these people who know
way more than me. I'm just going to be quiet and listen, I don't have anything to contribute. And then as
you learn to be more proficient at something, whether it's music or media or programming or speaking a
language, I guess you start to feel like, wait a minute, I can help someone maybe with an answer to a
question or I can make a suggestion and sort of you build up this sense that, yeah, I still may downplay
and say, oh my stuff, isn't really that great. But I think I have something I can maybe help someone else
with.
Nicole (04:53):
I think too, for me, what I see is as I move through the process, then I become more confident in helping
others that are maybe starting out on that process. It's like, I've moved through it once. And so these are
my mistakes. And so let me fill you in. So you don't make those. And then you can kind of have a better
start. I don't know if I get confident in, I know I can share.
Alan (05:15):
And I found it's not about being an expert. Cause you know, I remember like the first time I asked like a
question openly on a multimedia listserv and there was this guy, G. Gordon, somebody from Virginia
Tech who was like, it was very loud, like someone loud in social media. And he basically blasted me like
saying how naive my question was. And it took me like weeks, maybe longer to sort of lick my chops and
go in a little bit more quietly. And so, and that still happens. Unfortunately, there are some people and
that's not all people who are experts, but unfortunately we get locked into this idea that there's sort of
these different tiers of people. And some people who have a lot of expertise can be a little bit overly
zealous about their expertise,
Nicole (06:02):
What I find. And I don't want to date you either, but what I find really interesting, we started this for,
Alan (06:11):
So come here, he's chasing the cat. You're not cooperating. Felix.
Nicole (06:16):
What I was going to say is you got involved in, started. It was before we had all of this advanced
technology, really like the internet and our ability to connect like this is Twitter, social media pre. So I
find it really interesting. It's almost more values-based form that, that you found this community and
you continued to flourish in it. How do you think or maybe how we share or has it amplified it or has it
altered it and maybe not the way?
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Yes, probably to all it's a little bit challenging to characterize it. And again, because I'm painted by my
own experiences and, there was, it just was different modality. So then it was, you know, email and
news groups and, but it was also more like pockets and not necessarily completely separate, but there
wasn't sort of like the large, massive amount of mixing that, that has both negative and possible
consequences that happened now. But you know, some of the same things can still happen. The
greatest thing is, is that by generally becoming a little bit more participatory and it's participating is not
necessarily being the G Gordon's who speak the loudest, participating by, by private messaging and
acknowledging people and, you know, writing comments on their blogs and some simpler things that
are not like as much big broadcasting and, you know, getting attention in social media. And I guess what
I found that works is like, as I connected to some people, I would sort of get to see who they talked with
and communicated with. And so there's just like gentle, increasing of the number of people that you
might be able to bounce off of, or just might be interesting to learn about. And so the best part is, is to
me, the most magical things are like accidental serendipity, where you just, you didn't expect to follow
someone's Twitter thread. And there's a link to something that you'd never seen before. And all of a
sudden you've gone down this rabbit hole and that still happens a lot for all the problems and the things
that people rail against on Twitter. Like every day I kind of had that experience. You know, I could, I can
name some, I stopped marveling at them, but just someone tweeted something referencing this goofy
cover song that I did railing at textbook publishers and someone responded, and I went to check out
their site in a way down there. I found this link to an Atlas Obscura post about choose your own
adventure games and company that's still producing them. Does all these character maps? And like all of
a sudden, like, I dunno, 20 minutes have gone. You know, there used to be this site called stumbled
upon, which was sort of that thing where like people would share these accidental, little gems. And so
that part of the internet, that's still there in social media. Like often it's like we, a lot of attention gets
paid to things that are loud and trending and sort of things. But to me, the more interesting stuff has
always happened in, in like the smaller crevices or what they used to call the Long Tail of the internet,
where there's fewer people, but sort of like more odd, curious, random things.
Nicole (09:33):
It gets more niche or almost more specific. You can find a little note of interest and follow it. I'm going to
share with you just because I've talked to a couple of people now and you brought up just participating
by even commenting on a blog or doing that. The number of people that have said, oh, I got into open.
And then Alan responded to my blog post and blew my mind. So knowthat your little responses there
have fueled multiple people and it really got them.
Alan (10:03):
Yeah, you'll make me make me blush. But I used to, I spent a while I used to try this thing. I think I did it
a couple of years. I would take February. I would write any blog posts. What I would do is I would spend
all my time writing on other people's blogs and it was inspiring because what's his name? Matthew
Kirschenbaum who is at University of Maryland. Who is like kind of like a digital media guru. He wrote
on his blog one time about this guy Francois Lachance who said he blogged, but he doesn't have a blog.
So he called him a comment blogger. So Francois would just, basically he didn't publish in his own space.
He would just comment voraciously on other people's blogs. And by the powers of search engines, he
could string together things he written elsewhere. And so that always seemed to be interesting, like
someone who's going to like, instead of claiming the space of their own, they're going to say like, I I'm
going to spend my time writing in, other people's spaces. And a lot of my interest in commenting again,
was sort of the turnaround that when, cause I got, if I got a comment from someone I was really

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motivated to go and write back, especially if it's more than like nice blog post, or I liked that when
people offer something
Nicole (11:15):
It's a conversation catalyst, it sounds like Francois was a bit of a, he got conversations rolling. And those
are important.
Alan (11:22):
I think like last year I was curious and I think he does have a blog now, but I just, to me that, that I, that
idea of kind of being like a nomad of sorts, I imagine it more like, like a Regal horse galloping around the
internet, you know,
Nicole (11:38):
A little traces here, but it is interesting to others and how that impacts them. Like, you've definitely had
an impact by doing that and you don't always see it
Alan (11:49):
Well, and that's, that's the other thing about sharing. Cause you know, when, when I w I mean, I think
we talked about the stories collection. I did
Nicole (11:59):
The stories Really inspired this as well. So when we were starting the podcast, Verena was like, no,
Alan's project- is amazing. The stories project.
Alan (12:08):
Yeah. What I would do when I talked about it was like, I can't guarantee that if you share something
openly or reach out to someone or do one of these small things that you're going to get one of these
wonderful surprise acts of serendipity in return, I can only guarantee if you never share, it's probably
never going to happen to you. It's kind of, you know, I used to try to talk about it, like, you know, the
potential, the potential energy of sharing or something like that, but that you just want to create more
possibility for serendipity to happen. You know, you can labor on a piece of media or on an audio on a
long blog post, and you can write it and nothing will happen. And then you can dash off something and
people will latch onto it. And so you can't really predicate your interest in creativity based upon the
response. Just that the more you put out there and contribute the more possibility that something
might come back and return, but it might not. And so if that can't be the reward, it's gotta be like the
bonus.
Nicole (13:07):
Right. I feel like you said that to me at the beginning of this, like, don't do this for any specific reason, do
it, if you're interested in it, do it because you're interested and you want to learn more and not like that
you'll put out a good product with versus trying to connect or to forcing it in a way. So it's kind of the
same, like share, because you want to share in, you're interested in and you want to combine ideas and
grow.

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Alan (13:31):
Yeah. And the process of writing or making the media, it's gotta be something you sort of sit down and
say like, this is like just the act of doing this is kind of feeding myself in a way it's hard to explain, but you
know, as an example, I just saw my colleague Ann Marie Scott from Athabasca university, tweeted out
reminding me that it's at a Lovelace day, it's second Tuesday of October recognizing the first person to
actually write down a computer program happened to be a woman. And so I had to stop and say like,
what can I do? And so I, I did a little quick Wikipedia research. I did a little montage collage of two
images for me doing mashups in Photoshop are kind of like my little bit of relaxation. And so in doing
that, you're not only creating like, yeah, maybe you don't like the media creator. It's no big deal. But I
think the act of doing that, I mean, I'm thinking about this person and what she meant and learning
about her and, and just as you're doing something tangible, whether it's taking out the ums that are
going to be in my by podcast, you're also like probably thinking about it at a higher level. And so to me,
that's the magic of this creative process.
Nicole (14:44):
Yeah. I think as long as it's meaningful to you, I have different ways that I create not Photoshop, not
being one, but I paint. And so I'm trying to relate what you're saying to, to paint it and yeah, maybe it's
that process where you, for me, I slow down and it causes me to have to think, or it gives me time to, to
think and process and focus.
Alan (15:03):
Sorry, get over here, get over here, come on, Felix get over here. She's taunting little bit, but also there
was a, a post by, Dave Cormier about, you know, trying to teach creativity and teachers. And so
creativity has a little bit of a lack of awareness because we tend to think of it in the artistic sense. So,
you know, when you say painting, it's like, you know, I can barely draw stick figures. I think a lot of times
teachers equate creativity with like this artistic kind or that it's something like super unique and a value.
And so I always found in, you know, when I did more direct work with faculty, if they would start out
with some disclaimer about like, why didn't do anything innovative or creative, I would say like, well just,
you know, tell me, you know, what are you teaching right now? And then like, and then they go through
something, oh yeah. What kind of things are you doing in class? What's your activity? And every time we
had this conversation, they would throw out something that, to them sounded really small, but it was
like, you know, that is really quite, that is innovative. And so people paint down what they do. I do it
myself all the time. It's like, I want to keep myself humble that there was this, video, the concept that
really explained it well by this guy, Derek Sievers called ordinary to you, amazing to others. And it's like
this little comic illustration. The fact that we dismiss the things that we do is just being ordinary, not
special. But if you tell it to someone else, chances are, it's going to be meaningful in a way that you don't
comprehend. And unfortunately that tends to block us from even doing the sharing.
Alan (16:42):
In the first place. I used to do some things in these and some online presentations about like this
subject. And I stole this idea of just putting up a whiteboard slide where people could write and I would
ask them like, what, what prevents you from sharing things that you do or your works. And when people
have this chance to anonymously put it down, it's covered it's to things about like, oh, what I do, isn't
very creative. It's not innovative. It's not as good as the experts in the field. And so this is the same thing.
It, it stops people from sharing before they even do it because they just downplay the potential

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possibility of what they do as, as being useful or not. And so if you can find that place to kind of do away
with the expectation and say - when I teach, it's like, I kind of tend to make a fool of myself and do goofy
things in front of my students. Cause I don't, I don't want them to think, and I don't want me to think I
have to be this master and this perfectionist. Yeah. And so I, you know, kind of try to shift my humanity.
That sounds really cliche, but yeah.
Nicole (17:52):
Have you ever had a negative experience with sharing or, or can think of someone else who's had a, like
what is a downfall or a possible negative to share?
Alan (18:02):
oh, that's a really good question. And um, I, yeah, I have, like not really like not anything like personal
attacks. And so I, you know, I've been very fortunate there where it's kind of like, I don't know, like, you
know, sometimes I would hear third hand that, that people have said to them, "Alan Levine is full of
poop", you know, or something like that. but not like that, you know, I had like twice where I thought
things were just like, my favorite thing to do is like priorities of things. And so I did something about an
old sort of like what was a popular approach to instructional technology. And I sort of did a believe it or
not thing about learning objects. And actually, like I got a letter, a cease and desist letter from the
Ripley's people, because to me, it was just, it was just like farcical and it was kind of funny, but actually
the story site, the very first one, I called it amazing stories of openness because that's how it felt to me.
Alan (19:03):
And I kind of did my own Photoshop versions, remixes of covers from this old magazine called amazing
stories. Cause there was like an archive of them on the internet I found. But then I actually got an email
from the person who actually like is a family member owns the right and, and they, and like people
legally do this a lot. They can just say like get a lawyer to send you something. I don't want to go to court
to fight this. So I kind of changed the name, like to true stories because I found a public domain comics
site called true stories, but that's really minor on the level of like a negative thing that has happened.
You know, it's a really good question. I've had something that, that I've made that I thought was highly
original and I found that someone else, you know, did a derivative, but then of course I realized that I
think I probably got it in my head from someone else.
Alan (19:59):
We can get trapped up into that idea about someone like took my idea and people do it. I mean actually
it, it does happen. And so there, there is commonplace. There is a lot of theft of original ideas and you
know, and it's different because if my livelihood dependent upon these works, it would mean
something. The person who influenced me a lot and understanding is a photographer who became a
professional photographer, Jonathan Worth, who became an open educator, taught some open courses
in photography, but sort of like he was like paid good money for doing portraits of celebrities and
famous people. He has like a photo that he took of the Dalai Lama in his office. He had taken a famous
portrait of actor, Heath ledger, not long before he passed away. One of the last ones and Jonathan was
adamant about chasing down on the internet, illegal copies as he saw it, of his work.
Alan (20:54):

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And as he tells it with his great British accent and flori about, he wrote, he found it on this website and
he was like, he was like madly typing. Like you're taking money out of the food out of the mouths of my
children. And, and like, you know, you have to stop this and he got back this apologetic, like, I'm so
sorry, email from it's like the biggest Heath ledger fan site out there. And it's run by like a 12 year old
girl. Jonathan said like, what am I doing? And so it was part of his sort of, and he framed it so much
better of understanding the difference between the creative art, the physical art, which is a real picture
that he prints and the digital representation of it, which you can't control the distribution. But still, it's
hard to say when people's creative works do get stolen and music does get literally stolen. And people
who have shared photographs, they do get sometimes used by commercial firms against the creator's
wish. And so the bad stuff happens.
Nicole (21:56):
I think putting a creative commons license on for me has helped me feel like someone can acknowledge
that I'm sharing and that they're allowed to remix and play with it. I think too, I've gotten more
interested in NFTs and how that's going to affect digital pieces of work. And that photograph, for
instance, if it had a NFT, like a tag on it, how that could kind of impact how it's shared. So I think there
are ways that we're developing to, to track that, but I hope it doesn't deter from it. Like I think creative
commons is great because you still get acknowledgement. And like you said, as long as it's not your
bread and butter and, and you're not, you're able to feed your family or yourself because that's another
issue I have as someone who's just a student just getting in. I go like, I don't know the money to do this
guys. Like sharing is a bit of a privilege, but I think, yeah, it's a, it's a balancing act between, okay, I can
make money off of this and I can be acknowledged for this, but I still want others to be able to be
creative and grow.
Alan (22:59):
Yeah. And that's tough to accept because I, you know, I'm a big fan of creative commons. I use it a lot of
time, but I think people get lost the idea that it protects their work. And it really doesn't. I mean, it gives
you, if you find someone who violates your license, you can spend a lot of money in time and go to court
and you can try to sue them, but it's not like anything that's enforceable. And so it's, it's asking for the
grace and generosity of someone out there. And, and so, you know, most people will abide by it and, but
there's a significant number that won't, and yeah, whether NFTs will really provide that, it could be, I'm
not deeply, well, I don't understand it first of all, but, I don't really, I'm not looking for the protection
because if you really want to protect your digital assets, don't put them on the internet. Like just, just,
don't like put low, put low Rez, or just describe them but you know, if you don't want it taken, you
know, don't put it out there,
Nicole (24:04):
That's a definition of sharing versus collaborating. Could you separate, is it possible?
Alan (24:10):
And there's some kind of Venn diagram there. Can I share without collaborating? Yeah. Probably in a
way, unless you, unless you sort of, you know, say that if I share something with you and you find it and
make reuse of it and send me like, Hey, you know, I used your X here - is that really collaboration? That's
more like generosity acknowledgement, I guess. I guess sharing is sort of a thing that we do perhaps
individually and collaborating of course is the thing that we do with others. Although I would say I share

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to others, but like, I don't really say like, well, yeah, I could say, like Nicole, look, I'm sharing this
specifically with you. That's a little bit different from saying like I'm sharing my creative works or my
written works for the world at large. And so, I sort of thing like sharing is something that sort of like
originates, at least with us leads to collaboration. Interesting question. I think it's, it'd be good to, to
flush it out more and hear what other people say. Yeah. I don't think I can separate them. Interesting,
philosophical discussion. Can you collaborate without sharing or can you, can you share without
collaborating,
Nicole (25:24):
If you were talking to someone who was very new to open because I'm hoping that some people that
are just getting involved in this do listen to this. Do you have any words of advice or encouragement on
why someone should dip their toes in the water.
Alan (25:38):
Well, they shouldn't do it because I say so, or I think it's great. You know, when I taught my immediate
classes, I used to like start out with this virtues of open licensing and, and why I thought it was a good
idea. I think the students nodded along, but I don't think I really convinced them. I know it was more
along the lines of accepting it because I, as the teacher was sort of like saying, it's a good thing. I want
people to sort of like, get to experience like I did in that very first story. I described some benefits of
working from someone else's materials. So I sort of started crafting some of my early media
assignments. So students would have to like build off of, you know, we would do like a shared what was
that? A Google drive folder of media.
Alan (26:20):
And you'd have to, you know, create a remix with someone else's art and, you know, give them credit or
something like that, or have them just expose to places that provide really good art. Instead of this idea
about you should do look for open license stuff, because you don't want to get in trouble for breaking
copyright. And I think that's the way it's usually led with this, like sledgehammer of like, you don't want
to get in trouble. Whereas if you sort of get into this practice of not only like making use of other
people's work, but acknowledging it and, and even going to the part of thanking them for it, because
you might think they are a famous author or famous painter, and chances are like, these are people who
wrestle with their own demons of inadequacy of their work to know that someone found value in your
work and took the time to message you.
Alan (27:11):
It doesn't hurt to thank people for the things that they've shared and you get a connection, like all of a
sudden you've established a connection with that other person. They may not remember you, they may
go home and like tell their family about it. Like, this is amazing - this student named Nicole wants to use
my, my photo to make a painting. And so this makes me proud. And so to me, that's just like another
small potential, for that, you know, creative connection or that possibility space where something good
can happen. That, that wouldn't be there. If you just said like, oh no, I just write the attribution and I'm
done. Or I just take the thing that's licensed public domain and don't even attribute it because I don't
have to. I, you know, I think you should attribute everything that you use, whether you have to or not.
Nicole (28:02):

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For me - the process of creating a press book and creating an OER before in assignments. When I would
write, I would obviously use citations, but I didn't really think of where they were coming from. Like I
would just, I would include them as I had to. It was the rules. I didn't want to get in trouble and
plagiarize, but after creating a book that was going to go out in the world and be accessed and read and
remixed, I start to look at it differently. And so I quote insight, Cronin a lot in my chapter. And I got on
Twitter and like, I can put a face to the name and I can connect with her and ask her directly a question.
And so it turned her in, she's a human she's. She is a person who's put a lot of work and effort into it.
And until I, I got her or that clicked, she's
Alan (28:53):
An amazing person.
Nicole (28:56):
Fan. But until I got to creating an OER and had the ability to, to connect with those researchers, and like
you said, make connections and network. I viewed it very differently. It was very rules-based. I have to
cite, it's a university course to like now I very much respect these people's work. And I want to include
them in my own because they've influenced me and I can ask them questions and they can, they've
helped me learn. And so it's, it's changed that enormously.
Alan (29:27):
That's perfect. Cause if you're writing a paper and you put something in the bibliography, you know,
Cronin comma C 2020, um, yeah, that's proper. But like, if you say, who is this person, you looked them
up, you see that Twitter bio, you follow the link to their blog. You see, you see her pictures of, of the,
flaggy shore of Ireland where she walks and then you sort of see who she talks to and the way she talks
and so that is so much richer than getting the APA formatting. Right.
Nicole (30:03):
Yes Which is
Alan (30:03):
What you just said.
Nicole (30:04):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think that to me is understanding where that information and where those
ideas and respecting where they come from and being grateful for them. I think you're right. It allows
you to connect and it pushes you in a different way and so open. And, and for me, I had to move
through the process again, it was like, I couldn't just be told, I didn't have a professor come in and say,
you need to do this, this and this. It was give it a try, put it out in the open, see what happens with your
work. And I think it's definitely changed how I move in, in the world.
Alan (30:41):
So to, so to turn the interview around, like, how, how can students, how can students better understand
this, process than being like, told it's the right way to do things? How can they get a lived experience?
Like you did,

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Nicole (30:56):
Yeah. So again, I think the design that Verena came up with, so the fact that we were producing was
student co-created or co-designed is what the term they use, co-designed OER that allowed me to move
through that process. And it made sure that my assignment wasn't just a disposable. I put a lot of hours
into it to check some boxes and get an a, it was, it was scary and it was a lot more work and it took a lot
more hours, but I learned a heck of a lot more because I, had the opportunity to go through it. And then
at the end, we weren't forced to share, but you'd kind of learn slowly through these different
participatory activities, what it meant to share. And so you were either comfortable or you weren't
there yet, and that was fine, but you had that as an opportunity. And so I think the more you can get
those type of projects into a course, you see it a lot more in K to 12, to be totally honest, but I think it's
just starting to trickle up to university. I think, Dr. Roberts used a pressbook as a bit. I call the press
book, the gateway drug to OER because the average person at the institution understands a textbook
that makes sense to them. They didn't necessarily understand Twitter or
Alan (32:23):
Felix get over here. He made a lunch.
Nicole (32:27):
He liked, you saw, and you caught him. You had him in the corner eye - "Felix is gone".
Alan (32:35):
Yeah. And, uh, yeah, that's, you know, the, the student contributed projects, um, often impressed books
are open publishing are a fantastic experience, as are the projects where students get involved in
understanding of contributing to public knowledge in Wikipedia. And so the Wikimedia foundationum,
it's kind of a different level of publishing and it's, it's a little bit more of an abstract environment to get a
sense of as opposed to a textbook, but it's incredibly valuable. Probably you remember, like in middle
school or high school, you were like discouraged from using Wikipedia because it was such a, you know,
a sketchy environment and, you know, and there are instructors who still feel that way, but it's, it's
definitely gotten way more appreciation and understanding for what it enables and it's, it's absolutely
OER to a massive degree,
Nicole (33:31):
The mind shift for me, I've been that teacher who's gone through and told my students don't cite
Wikipedia. Like I've been that person completely. And so it is a mindshift, I think, too it's more
sustainable than saying, okay, produce a press book it's not, we're not there yet. I think with Pressbooks,
I know with the one that we created, the amount of,copy editing that went in to it, just the demand on
feedback from instructors. And they really wanted to do a peer review, an academic review of all the
chapters. So from the time we finished to the time that actually came out, was it a year of backwork that
the students didn't necessarily see. And so that for every course is not, or, or for a large force. So you
had 600 students. I can't see it, but Wikipedia, I think you're right. It's more abstract, but I think it, it's
got more maybe levels of access to it. There's more ways of being easy or easier. It's easier to get
involved with.
Alan (34:30):

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And there's, there's like, you know, it'd be, it'd be a good thing to, to think about, to figure out with your
peers is like, what are the other avenues for contribution to public knowledge that aren't as intensive as
doing a press books. And so, and, and again, with Wikipedia people think of the pedia part, but
Wikimedia commons, it's easy and they make it easy to find things that need, you know, photos and
illustrations, added to it as a public. Good. And you know, some of the science projects that ask people
to become like, you know, contribute, you know, um, to, to, you know, computing, you know, giant
computing algorithms or, you know, so I think there's a lot more of those smaller scale things out there
that people could get a sense of that, that reward of, of doing more than the disposable assignment and
actually seeing where their work, you know, appears in the world. I mean, that's, that's the key, sorry.
The Felix is sleeping on the floor and the cat is just walking by taunting. Okay.
Nicole (35:35):
I understand why Felix doesn't like this cat.
Alan (35:38):
Well, no, he wants to play. I think he doesn't understand, but she is like, no fear. I mean, literally she
was listening. She was this far from his butt, but he was sleeping,
Nicole (35:50):
So thank you for all of your support and help and advice. Cause we've definitely taken a lot of it.
Alan (35:57):
Sure - Anytime.
Nicole (35:58):
I think Alan has posed a really good challenge and question to everyone out there. So if you're listening
and you've got any really creative or awesome ideas as to how to involve your students in knowledge
building and contributing in open environments - I'm all ears. I'd love to hear just to make it clear, no
cats or Felix's were hurt hurting the production of this podcast. Both survived. They're still not friends.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
[inaudible].

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