This should be interesting. My proposal for a session at the Spirit of Inquiry conference has been accepted.

Here is the description which should appear in the conference program:

Free, Open, Flexible: Rethinking Learning Materials Online
Alexandre Enkerli, Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University

Considered as a whole, learning materials such as textbooks and lecture notes constitute the “shoulders of giants” on which learners and teachers stand. In this session, academic publishers, instructors, librarians, and administrators are all invited to rethink learning materials through their own experiences with online technologies. A short, informal report on the principal presenter’s experience with podcasting and other online applications will be followed by a facilitated discussion. This session will pay special attention to issues of open access, academic freedom, and flexible strategies for learning and teaching. Together, session participants will construct a new understanding of the implications linking technological changes to the use of learning materials online.

My views are quite close to those of Richard Baraniuk of Rice University’s Connexions project providing open access to learning materials. Discussions of Open Access tend to focus on research articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals but this session will focus on pedagogical uses of online content, including podcasts, lecture notes, and textbooks.

I do hope that people from the publishing and “knowledge management” side of the equation will be present.