Penn and Academic Earth part of open source education movement
Two giants in higher education’s growing open source movement seem to be circling.
At the end of January, the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Liberal and Professional Studies opened its Open Learning Commons, just about when Academic Earth launched itself.
Academic Earth, of course, is the growing aggregator of academic lectures that is creating a controversial stir in higher education. A stir not chronicled in write ups by Slate or Likehacker or by TechCrunch, though I mentioned it in this week’s Philadelphia Weekly.
“A lot of universities were excited at first [by Academic Earth], but now take issue with a for-profit.” said Jennifer Maden a Penn program implementation manager. “It’s going to depend on the licensing.”
That might get dicey because Richard Ludlow, CEO and founder of Academic Earth has suggested his hopes to enter into the college-heavy Philadelphia market.
