On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Joe Bogner <[email protected]> wrote: > Some things to think about: > 1. Want to respect the copyright of the dictionary. Perhaps it could be > shown in an iframe?
I have been thinking about this topic a lot. Copyright (and, law, in general) is an interesting and often contradictory subject. I'm not going to go into all the implications and ramifications of intellectual property law, but I will note: Various segments of the computer gaming industry has strongly benefited from not taking copyright issues too seriously. Modding communities tend to enhance the popularity of their respective games. Similar observations hold for most other realms of creative activity. Fiction, music, theatre and so on all substantially benefit from communities which respectfully violate copyright. Furthermore, with legal principles such as contributory infringement, the distinction between copyright infringement and legal activity is .. tenuous. (Contributory infringement is where you do something that makes it easier for someone else to violate copyright which causes you to be in violation of copyright.) Meanwhile, looking at how copyright cases proceed, the courts are generally looking for reasonable behavior and general civility. Not always, though. Another issue is that copyright is not like trademark, in how it gets enforced. Trademark law requires that the trademark holder strictly enforce its use, otherwise the trademark passes into the public domain. Copyright law allows the copyright holder to instead wait until violation is a problem (and here "problem" means that someone other than the copyright holder is getting a lot of money that the copyright holder wants - at the very least, enough to cover the lawyer bills). Anyways, we can use NuVoc for a dictionary, or maybe we can use the official dictionary. I imagine that as long as what we are asking for is reasonable, and benefits the community, that the uses will be OK'd. > 2. How best to structure the interaction? Can a person explore any topic or > should it be: > a. Time based (one topic per day/week) > b. Can only see topics after completing previous topics? > c. Can answers be seen at any time or only after posting your own > answer? Here, I've fewer insights. One of my favorite educators speaks highly of "the school of hard knocks" (aka: try it and learn from your mistakes and successes). But others favor good reference works, learning at the student's pace, speaking to the lowest common denominator, individualized instruction, and countless other approaches. I don't know that any system is going to be perfect, and I expect that any approach will require some effort on the part of everyone involved. > I'm sure there are lots more aspects to think through. > > More importantly, would this be a useful additional offering in our > learning environment? I am not prepared to create my own exercises so the > Dictionary ones are the best ones I've seen so far... I should probably shut up and let other people contribute. Honestly, I sometimes worry that by talking at the wrong times I am replacing voices that we should be hearing from. But I get excited about something (often something really simple) I notice, and I just go off and post anyways. There's probably a lot I have to learn about being inclusive. Thanks, -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
