CI proposed text for UN Guidelines released online for comment

The new draft text that Consumers International is proposing to amend the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection is online now!  This draft is the culmination of several years of activity, which began with work on Access to Knowledge amendments in 2010.  You can view and comment on the latest proposed text at this address: http://ungcp.consumersinternational.org The A2K amendments haven't disappeared, they have just been abridged and... more

Our 2013 Impact Report

The below is a screenshot of one of the pages for our 2013 Impact Report: Download the report from: https://sites.google.com/site/eglacnz/downloadable-publications/2013%20EGL%20Impact%20report.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1!

«Press Freedom Day named after John Lennon» (British Council)

Real Love INTRODUCTION: The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. We call this work cultural relations. Recognizing the useful contribution of John Lennon for the good of culture, education, freedom of speech and press freedom, the British Council is ready create the new holiday as tribute to this great man .. John Lennon is the leader of the... more

A Look at Paris Open Access Week 2012

Open access is a topic as important for the French research community as for any other, and, yet, no major events to mark International Open Access Week had ever been held in Paris—until now. At the end of October 2012, Open Access Week finally came to the French capital, with two evenings of talks and discussions organized by MyScienceWork, in partnership with the University of Pierre and Marie Curie and UNESCO. Open access leaders like... more

test - Welcome to CoPILOT!

Welcome to the Project CoPILOT blog! We will be working from now until December to explore use of the WSIS site to encourage sharing of information literacy (IL) open educational resources (OER).

Open Access Week in Paris on October 23 and 25, 2012, organized by MyScienceWork/UNESCO/UPMC

From October 22 to 28, 2012, International Open Access Week will take place to accompany the international reform of the dissemination of information and scientific knowledge. For the occasion, MyScienceWork in partnership with UNESCO and UPMC is organizing, for the first time in Paris, two evenings devoted to Open Access at two prestigious venues of knowledge dissemination. 1/ “Discovering Open Access” (in French) will be held at... more

UNCTAD agrees to review the UN Guidelines

The United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection are to be reviewed in July 2013.  This was the major outcome of an UNCTAD Ad Hoc Expert Meeting on Consumer Protection: The interface between competition and consumer policies, at which CI staff and members participated on 12-13 July.  A number of ideas for areas in which the Guidelines could be improved were discussed by CI's Indrani Thuraisingham and other speakers, including... more

Quo vadis? What universities do we need in Africa?

This July some of the most influential from the world of science, society and policy met in Dublin (Ireland/EU) for an important gathering: the Euroscience Open Forum 2012 (ESOF2012), providing a platform for debate, for influencing policy and strengthening the links between science and society. And though becoming mor global (and open?), some figures visualise the painfully slow development and change towards equal opportunities and... more

Forgivable loans for textbook authors - a sustainable way to create high quality OERs?

Organizations such as the Saylor Foundation provide grants to textbook authors that release their work under a CC-BY license. I would like to suggest an alternative way of finacing OERs. Provide an author with a forgiveable loan to write a textbook released with a tradional copyright. However, a condition of the loan would say that after the book sells a pre-agreed sales target, the book is released via CC-BY. The forgiveable loan can be... more

Making World Bank Open Data Usable: An Important Next Step

As of July 1, 2012, all data published by the World Bank regarding its development programs will be made available to all online. The Bank will also be the first major international organization to embrace Creative Commons licensing for its research products, making them free to reuse. This move has been hailed as a significant step forward for the open data movement and for development. At the same time, how useful will a slew of data be to... more