AJIC Issue 16, 2015

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https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/19267
Innovation in technology, in production of goods and services, in business processes, in formal and informal economic settings, in electronic media and audio-visual content, in music – all these and other fields of innovation sit on foundations of knowledge, either private or common, appropriated via various mechanisms, including intellectual property (IP) tools. For almost two decades, the movement for access to knowledge (A2K) has slowly emerged, seeking open approaches to appropriation and IP and giving rise to a range of new phenomena for investigation. In the age of the Internet, knowledge can flow easily across borders, across industries and economic sectors, and across and among economic and social interest groups. The availability of rich sources of knowledge for productive innovation can enrich the African continent – it is possible. However, policy, law and regulation have not kept pace with the rapid changes in the availability of knowledge. Outdated policy, law and regulation, or practice, may limit the potential for knowledge resources to have full economic or social impact. These and other research problems are explored in the articles and thematic reports in this thematic issue.

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Browsing AJIC Issue 16, 2015 by Author "Baraki, Seble"

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    Prospects for Open Licensing of Knowledge Materials in Ethiopia
    (2015-12-15) Baraki, Seble
    Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, has in the past two decades made significant strides in national educational attainment. However, the country’s educational policy objectives still face numerous barriers. In this piece the author argues that a key challenge for Ethiopia’s education system is access to knowledge (A2K), specifically access to copyright-protected scholarly and learning materials. The author proposes increased use of open-licensed materials, such as those licensed under the Creative Commons (CC) suite of licensing tools, which take a flexible approach to copyright in order to allow users to, inter alia, engage in permission-free copying and re-distribution of the works. Greater use of such open materials would, the author contends, produce cost savings for the Ethiopian government, allowing the state to increase its investments in other key components of the educational system such as facilities, Internet connectivity and teacher training and support.