HOUSEKEPING NOTES

Our regular blog posting will be interrupted until next Week.

 

News: Judge’s Ruling in Copyright Case Lets College Off but Not Lecturer

Basically, this ruling has all sort of nasty implications. In other words, if I follow the instructions of my boss (the university), I am guilty because I could not be acting as an official agent of the university ( my boss, who has immunity under the law).

From the The Chronicle: Daily News Blog, April 16, 2008:

It’s a case that has some copyright scholars scratching their heads. A judge exonerates a university that is accused of infringing the copyright of a company’s research report. But the judge rules that an employee of the university might be culpable of the same activity.

The case is Marketing Information Masters, Inc. v. The Board of Trustees of the California State University System. In it, the market-research company accuses the California State University system and one of its lecturers, Robert A. Rauch, of duplicating the company’s work when he created a report analyzing the financial impact of a San Diego State University football game, the 2004 Pacific Life Holiday Bowl.

The university had asked Mr. Rauch, who also is director of the university’s Center for Hospitality and Tourism Research, to create the report. (For prior Holiday Bowls, the market-research company had provided the university with the reports.)

Judge John A. Houston, of the U.S. District Court in San Diego, sided with the university. In a ruling issued in February he stated that the university was immune from claims of infringement because as a state entity it is shielded from liability by sovereign immunity. The judge also said Mr. Rauch was immune from liability as a university official who created the report.

But here’s the kicker: Mr. Rauch could still be liable for infringement acting as an “individual” who created the report, the judge said. The marketing company’s rationale is that if Mr. Rauch violated the law, he could not be acting as an official agent of the university.

“Isn’t logic great?” Georgia K. Harper sarcastically posits on her blog, ©ollectanea. Ms. Harper, a copyright lawyer at the Center for Intellectual Property at University of Maryland University College, says Mr. Rauch seems to be taking the fall for the university.

“I guess I do feel rather badly about the result in this case,” she writes. “It would be one thing if the faculty member were sort of rogue, acting on his own. But the university hired him to do this and directed him to make his report like the earlier one.”

As a result of the judge’s ruling, the market-research company is moving ahead with its suit against Mr. Rauch. —Andrea L. Foster

 

Report: Knowledge sharing synthesis paper_communications in education

From ELDIS:

Title:Knowledge sharing synthesis paper:communications in education
Authors: F. Hunt
Publisher: Development Communications Evidence Research Network, 2007

Full text of document

This report provides evidence of the role of communications in education and identifies where it has been successful and where it can still be improved. The paper focuses on spaces for communication and communication initiatives. It gives examples of a range of communication initiatives in education, the processes of communications and the direct and indirect impacts.

The study is a desk-based review of documentation available about the spaces, processes and impacts of communications in the formal education sector. Documentation reviewed included academic articles; development reports; advocacy papers; newspaper articles; theses; and website content.

 

Housekeeping notes

Our regular blog posting will be interrupted until next Week.

 

HOUSEKEPING NOTES

1. Our regular blog posting will be interrupted until December 12.
2. From the GSED we wish you a Happy New Year!

 

HOUSEKEPING NOTES

 

Our regular blog posting will be interrupted until December 6 in order to solve some technical problems [i.e. I need to buy a new computer  :(  ]

 

 

 

Housekeping notes

Our regular blog posting will be interrupted until the end of next Week in order to solve some technical problems.

 

HOUSEKEPING NOTES

 

1. Our regular blog posting will be interrupted until August 10.
2. From the GSED we wish you a Happy Summer Vacation!

 

Video: Herbert’s Hippopotamus_ Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise (1996)

From Herbert Marcuse Official Homepage:

Herbert’s Hippopotamus is a 1 hr. 9 min. documentary video made by UCSD film student Paul Alexander Juutilainen in 1996. It is a wonderful film about Herbert’s traces at UCSD, with great documentary footage from the 1960s and 70s and follow-up interviews from the 1990s. One reviewer wrote: “This Emmy award-winning documentary explores the historical background for the cultural encounter between European Critical Thinking, the Third World, Feminist and Anti-war movements, as well as the political turmoil and institutional pressures in reaction to these coalitions.”

Herbert’s Hippopotamus: Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise 57 min

Watch video here Hide video

 

Review:

[From reviewed by Steve Rhodes]

HERBERT’S HIPPOPOTAMUS is not kid’s show, no matter how silly the title sounds. (The derivation of the title is less interesting than you might suspect.) The film is a serious documentary that examines radical Professor Herbert Marcuse’s fight against the University of California system…..

The documentary is set in the late 1960s and early 1970s with videos of several different University of California campuses, but with most of the film set in San Diego where Professor Marcuse taught. …. [ read full review]

Link:

Herbert’s Hippopotamus: Marcuse and Revolution in Paradise, biographic documentary on google video

 

Video: Peru_The Curse of Inca Gold - PBS (2005)_Corruption and multinational corporations

The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Lowell Bergman and a team from The New York Times journey to the Peruvian Andes to report on the battle for control of one of the world’s richest gold mines.

Watch video

Chapter 1 (13:42)

Chapter 2 (16:00)

Synopsis:

[FromPBS] High in the Andean mountains of Peru is a gold mine, Yanacocha, run by Newmont Mining Corporation of Denver, Colorado, the largest gold mining company in the world. Once part of the Incan Empire, this land was conquered by the Spanish, who came in search of gold and silver. Descendants of the Incas remain suspicious to this day of outsiders seeking fortune here. FRONTLINE/World and New York Times reporter Lowell Bergman arrives to investigate a growing conflict between the local people and the Yanacocha Mine, which has already produced $7 billion worth of gold. read more