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Rationale for the post

15 January, 2016 - 09:25
Available under Creative Commons-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/f6522dce-7e2b-47ac-8c82-8e2b72973784@7.2

Ken's invitation to post a contribution for the OSS series covering the impact of free software in education couldn't have come at a better time. We're preparing to celebrate the first birthday of WikiEducator 1. This OSS series is an appropriate forum to reflect on Wikieducator's beginnings because we:

  • use free software (in particular, Mediawiki 2 , the same engine used for Wikipedia's 3 online encyclopedia);
  • promote and advocate the use of free software in education; and
  • our meaning of free content is derived from the experiences of the free software movement.

This post will reflect on some of my personal experiences in founding the site and its potential contribution to widening access to education in meaningful ways. If anything, I hope this reflection encourages constructive debate in building the value proposition for why we need to support free content production in preservation of the educational values that should underpin our knowledge practice.