During the past decade, the massive worldwide conversion of learning content from print and other older media on to digital networks has created gatekeepers who limit access to their digital content or require online users to pay for it.

A variety of gatekeepers have made a third choice:
to open their content freely into the Internet.
These are their stories.

October 31 , 2006

New York Times Science Videos
Bats at Halloween and 70 science videos

Frame from NYT bat video October 31, 2006
"T" at lower right prevents copying without attribution

The content gatekeepers and the New York Times have the entrance ajar, letting the Halloween bats video of 2006 fly through. One of the frustrations over many years for appreciators of high quality open education resources has been the removal from online public view after a few days of its multimedia assest by the New York Times.

This Video page from Halloween 2006 is a bountiful harvest of open science education content:

Advertising is an obvious means of support—and perhaps income—to the Times for the videos. When the page opens, two video ads begin to play. The one at the upper left plays a Verizon television commercial, followed by the titles for the bat story, and then the story itself without further ads. In the large box at the upper left, a Verizon video made for the Web plays and then stops, displaying a still ad.

The synergy is very positive and powerful here toward open education resources in which the grand old Gray Lady of print displays her photographic and journalistic prominence in materials supported online by a major teleccomunications enterprise.

Next step: Set up the page so those videos can be viewed on mobile phones.