Thanks, and here's more about what we're doing

I appreciate Friday's link from the Copyfight blog, where Donna Wentworth mentioned that this blog is "exploring the impact that DMCA export could have on education worldwide." From the Copyfight perspective, that is precisely what this blog is about. We are quite concerned with exporting the DMCA, because we feel that it (1) sets the stage for a content-centric style of transnational education, and (2) indicates that the Fair Use concept may not survive the digital age.

But that is not *all* we are doing. In fact, the post which Copyfight refers to focuses on the broader issue of Free Trade Agreements, within which DMCA-style language is one crucial component. We might rephrase Copyfight's characterization as something more like, " exploring the impact which GATS and other trade liberalization initiaitives could have on education worldwide, with restrictive IP as one important aspect of such agreements."

But that is also not *all* we are doing. We are actually operating a Transnational Education program in the Continuing Ed division here at Utah State University. Thus, we are also exploring effective teaching models and business relationships and the impact *they* could have on education worldwide. This blog is only one week old. We wanted to establish a foundation of solid posts on topics many people follow -- like GATS and IP. But we will also be sharing the results of our research on the use of instructional technology in Transnational Ed, and describing the Ups and Downs of our program as a whole. All that is still to come.

Thanks again to the excellent blogs which have linked to us already, which includes not only Copyfight, but Stephen Downes' OLDaily.