[FC-discuss] Free Thesis Project Released Today

[Matthew Z]

>
> As to the public good: how is digitally archiving theses to help
> prevent damage a bad thing?


What is the "thesis tower?"

What "damage" is being prevented?

Why do individuals need systematization in order to even be motivated at all
to publicly display their thesis? It just seems like a tool is being
provided that would only be beneficial to those minds who otherwise
wouldn'thave cared, but now, opportunistically, see something that
they would submit
to if only as another reason for them to appear laudable -- to score more
scholastic brownie points. Unless I'm completely confused, cannot any
individual simply upload his or her thesis to the internet (and anywhere on
the internet at that, vs. some closed-in, nationalistic university resource
storage system)? Does the university otherwise take full control of the
thesis and treat it as property? I'm just really not sure what is being
transgressed here at all!

FreeCulture works to promote Open Access,
> how is using a repository hosted on a library server and offering the
> students a free and easy way to net their work not an admirable goal?


Because it precludes their self-organization in attempting that goal.
Throwing into a mass (and university-specific) pot like this might be nice,
but its effortless and doesn't really show any sort of potent intent on the
individuals side. It just shows that there was an easy mechanism set up for
privileged university students.

I feel that many of the projects that this organization undertakes
> strive to educate others about existing oppotunities in creative
> expression and providing a way to make that expression easier. We are
> pushing to provide a selection of CC licenses to allow the students to
> decide how "free" they want their work to be. This is just the first
> step in the process, letting the Library, Computer Information
> Services, and the Administration know our goals and how we seek to
> implement them.
>
> Why be so dismissive? You seem to think that college students like
> (assumedly) yourself have nothing to offer. Is promoting open access
> to student's work merely an pointless approbative function?
> -Rob


Nah, I'm not in college or university. I just think that this sort of
promotion has little to offer (not that the theses themselves have little to
offer -- just this mode of distributing them). I would have liked to see it
extend outside of some official university agenda if anything. Plus, I guess
I just have a taste for stronger and more unexpected individual initiative.
But... in not relegating myself to the restrictions of the schooling system
from square one, I might be missing a lot of the point. I just like to see
supposed "transgressions" move a little bit further than the scope of a
university-inclusive feedback loop. It might be neat to have grander
visions.

Quoting Matthew Z <matt at mjzhosting.net>:
>
> > I'm not sure I understand the scope of this project. Is it simply to
> provide
> > a medium that would encourage people to exhibit their thesis publicly?
> >
> > I guess I'm trying to say that I don't understand what this is
> contesting at
> > all. Is it really anything more than systematizing (and centralizing)
> > something that people could have simply otherwise done on their own free
> > individual initiative? Am I missing something here? Just curious as to
> what
> > beyond a sort of pointless approbative function this would fill.
> >
> > Matt
> >
> > On 5/1/07, Elizabeth Stark <emstark at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Very cool. This would be for all theses at your school? Would they be
> >> freely available? CC licensed?
> >>
> >> Are any of you coming to the FC conference? It would be great to talk
> >> about it then.
> >>
> >> On 4/30/07, Max Berger <maxberger85 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Elizabeth,
> >>>
> >>> We're doing this at Reed currently. We've recently put together a
> >>> proposal digitize and net all theses, which can be found on our wiki
> >> (http://reed.freeculture.org/wiki/The_Proposal ).
> >>> Perhaps we can host some kind of discussion forum/seminar to share
> ideas
> >>> about these types of projects?
> >>>
> >>> Cool,
> >>>
> >>> Max
> >>>
> >>> On 4/27/07, Elizabeth Stark <estark at law.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> >  Hi all,
> >>> >
> >>> > We released our Free Thesis Project site at Harvard today
> >>> > (http://hcs.harvard.edu/thesis ), a site where we encourage seniors
> to
> >>> > upload their theses and make them available under CC licenses. We
> also
> >>> >
> >>> > published a related op-ed on open access in the Harvard Crimson
> >>> > (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=518548 ).
> >>> >
> >>> > While our site is currently only open to Harvard students, we're
> >>> > working on making a version of the software available for other
> >>> > schools to easily download and install. It's also OAI-complaint, so
> >>> > that other sites can easily index it. We're hoping to release the
> >>> > broader project at the National Free Culture Conference at Harvard
> on
> >>> > May 26.
> >>> >
> >>> > Let us know if you'd be interested in doing this at your own school.
> >>> >
> >>> > Elizabeth
> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >>> > Discuss mailing list
> >>> > Discuss at freeculture.org
> >>> > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >>> >
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Discuss mailing list
> >> Discuss at freeculture.org
> >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at freeculture.org
> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20070503/f64f95e3/attachment.htm