Who ate all my notes? Latest update 30/09/04 I've waited for an answer from Judith Margolis, head of the Diploma course for months. She hasn't returned my calls or e-mails, so I'm getting the OUSA involved. Watch this space!
OK, I apologise to those e-mailing me asking as to what went on during November with my OU notes. In a nutshell, here's the situation: 1. I checked my e-mail one day at the beginning of November to find an officious e-mail from a woman called Bernadette Attwell from the OU Rights Department telling me that my revision notes were breaching copyright regulations as I was using OU material (that I later found that the OU had purchased some stuff under license from 3rd parties and they cleverly hadn't obtained digital license for them...!) and that I must remove them from my web site. I've always put (c) on OU diagrams and so forth, and made it clear where I was getting diagrams and notes from, not to mention the fact that I'm 100% non-profit making from the site, so I was a bit miffed about this. 2. A number of e-mails followed to and fro, my e-mails consisting of me trying to find out what I have to do become "legal", and Ms Attwell's e-mails trying to make me take up a career in copyright law, despite my protests that I really don't have much time or inclination to pursue these things beyond what I need to do to make the site "legal" as I don't want to break the law. I did put all the e-mails up on the site to let everyone know the situation, then got another snotty e-mail for Ms Attwell telling me that I could keep*my* e-mails up on the site but that *hers* belonged to her in copyright terms... (!) so I had to take those down as well, at which point my communications got a bit crap as I was completely fed up, and then I went off on shopping trip to New York for a few days. 3. During the time that I did have all the e-mails up on the site, some really nice people contacted me to support me. Some of them contacted the OU to tell them what they thought of the situation. THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN :) 3. Then I got lots of e-mails from OU students asking what had happened to all the notes. 4. Then I got an e-mail from Judith Margolis, the course Head for B(ZX)730. I spoke with her over the phone. She was really nice, and very helpful. I sent her 2 CDs with the site contents, plus a letter detailing all the trouble I'd had with Ms Attwell. I have been chasing her up with no success since, but as far as I know, at the moment they are still with the OU Rights department in the hope that some of the notes may be able to be salvaged and placed on the OU student site in some capacity. So that's the entire saga up-to-date. I'm not allowed to have the crib notes up on website, only in my own printed/written form. Ms Attwell time and again refused to tell me even the rudimentary source for her actions, although one brave soul told me that he *thinks* that he and his peers might have accidentally started the ball rolling by mentioning the site to their tutor in a "what a good site" way. Unfortunately this tutor wasn't as nice as all the others who have supported and recommended the site and shopped me :( I'm afraid I am not longer taking requests for the diploma crib notes. Sorry. Some of the (nice) tutors have them. I suggest you ask them directly. I can offer you mind maps; you need to download the free reader from www.mindjet.com. The mindmaps are situated on the Cert Man page. |
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