Report May 2009

Status Report, ICP Project

Alternative Energy

General Status

• Generally, our literature review on efficiencies and barriers to technological development and implementation has been greatly improved over the last month.
• We have focused our research on international wind and solar markets and decided to limit our inquiry to the leading countries (Germany, Spain, Denmark, and China).
• We have increased our analysis of government policy and looked at how it creates incentives for technological development.
• We have been in contact with people at the Belfer Center who are researching technological innovation and we are looking for ways to collaborate with them.

Work Completed

• We have fairly extensive research in the following areas:
  • Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_AE_field
  • Innovations_in_Wind,_Solar_and_Tidal
  • IP_Profile_of_Biggest_for-profit_companies_in_AE
  • Commons_based_cases_in_AE
  • Alternative_Energy#Focus Market Segments
• We are building upon research in the following areas
  • Country_AE_Profiles
  • Alternative_Energy#Deprioritized Market Segments
  • Alternative_Energy#Excluded From Field Definition
  • Overview_of_Economics_of_Intellectual_Property_in_AE
  • IP_Profile_of_non-profit_companies_in_AE
  • IP_Profile_of_Associations_in_AE
  • IP_Profile_of_Universities_working_in_AE
• Status: Andrew and Silas have split their work between technologies as well as international regions. Silas has focused on solar energy and Anderw has focused on wind. Both Andrew ans Silas have worked on tidal/wave. Since expanding our wind research into the international market, Silas has focused on expanding research on Germany and Spain and Andrew has begun to research China and Denmark.

Work Remaining

• Our research remains weak in the following areas:
  • Define the main legal tools of IP protection available for the field
    • Our international wind research is starting to give us a comparative analysis of patent usage but it is still relatively primitive and dependent on interviews. More interviews and secondary research needs to be collected in this area.
  • Competitive advantages in AE

Research Methodology in use

• Industry analysis
• Case studies
• Literature review
• Business School Cases review
• Media review: Area Specific Blogs and News
• Market databases and reports review
• Interviews
• Participation in Events

Problems and Considerations

• International Policy Map with color coding has not yet been possible given that the variations in policy are not yet fully understood.
  • The Kennedy School paper defining supply push and demand pull policies provides categories, but identifying the supply-push policies will require more research.
  • Funding usage for these policies is hard to categorize.
• VC funding has been hard to track down because the data is largely proprietary

Next Steps

• Look more closely at the international history of the technological innovations that led to the current alternative energy market landscape.
• More emphasis on case studies of certain companies in the alternative energy sector that exemplify the open or closed models that the research is based on.
  • We have begun using interviews as a primary source of information for our research and will continue to do so while possibly adding surveys for specific topics of importance like information about private R&D funding.
• Begin to emphasize patent usage and polices more in our research now that our market understanding has increased.
  • Look into why there is an increase in patent usage
• Track some technologies that came from Universities
  • how they were licensed?
• Possible Case Studies
  • IRENA
  • GE Energy

Biotechnology, Genomics, and Proteomics

General Status

• We have begun to investigate specific cases of commons-based and peer-produced resources in biotech, such as Harvard's onco-mouse
• We have made good progress examining specific cases of biotech narrative, data, and tool producers, coming up with detailed company profiles for the largest firms
• We have completed a more detailed mapping of the narratives and tools industries within biotech
• Have good idea of cost structure, competitive advantage, and attitudes towards openness and enclosure within the field

Work Completed

• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Data%2C_narratives_and_tools_produced_by_the_BGP_field#Tools
• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#What_is_the_cost_structure_of_the_field
• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Overview_of_Economics_of_Intellectual_Property_in_BGP#Openness_and_Publication_outputs
• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#Factors_Impacting_the_amount_and_speed_of_knowledge_flow
• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/IP_in_BGP#Biotech_And_Software
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/edit/IP_Profile_of_Universities_working_in_BGP
• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Biotechnology_-_Genomic_and_Proteomics#Visualization
• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/BGP_Company_Profiles_-_Data#NIH
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/IP_Profile_of_Biggest_for-profit_companies_in_BGP

Work Remaining

• Government_in_BGP
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#Who_are_the_producers.2C_the_buyers.2C_and_the_users.3F
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Give_an_overall_picture_of_the_BGP_field#What_is_the_structure_of_power_from_the_production_side_and_what_is_the_structure_of_power_in_the_demand_side.3F_.28E.g..2C_who_has_the_power_to_control_production_and_demand.3F_How_is_the_control_distributed.3F.29
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/IP_in_BGP
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/IP_Profile_of_non-profit_companies_in_BGP
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/IP_Profile_of_Universities_working_in_BGP
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Commons_based_cases_in_BGP
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Peer-Production_Business_models_in_BGP
• https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/commonsbasedresearch/Open_Business_models_in_BGP

Research Methodology in use

• Case studies
• Literature review
• Industry analysis
• Business reports and press releases
• University reports and press releases

Problems and Considerations

• How can the next phase of research further develop the quadrants already mapped?
• What information should we aim to obtain through new research methods (e.g., interviews)?
• How much should we focus on the largely defunct data production businesses in biotech?

Next Steps

• Continue to investigate universities, non-profits, associations, and businesses relevant to the field
• Deepen our understanding of how production and demand are controlled
• Provide further documentation for the quadrants as we have identified them so far

Educational Materials

General Status

• Between late April and early May, the EM section of the wiki has enjoyed significant expansion, while undergoing a necessary restructuring
  • The textbook market was chosen as a major focus for the current stage EM research
  • Using the textbook market as a model the Field Research Methodology questions were split between two sectors of EM: The K-12 Level and The Higher Education Level to represent the different actors and market forces that determine the trends toward regulation/deregulation, openness/closedness
  • We now have a much stronger sense of the traditional publishing business strategies as compared with OER and a variety of alternative business models
• The anecdotal mapping of actors and outputs in Higher Ed reported on in the April Report, has become clearer in our quadrant mapping tool
• We are still learning about the K-12 market and need to explore both the market and social barriers that seem to be complicating this sector even more than the Higher Ed sector
• Our extensive bibliography has grown significantly; additional contemporary research and market news continue to become available and prove enlightening
• Our list of useful contacts is still expanding as well; and new interviews have been conducted and continue to be scheduled
• Finally, the Executive Summary on EM was successfully drafted for the report to the Ford Foundation in June 2009

Work Completed

• Our research in these areas is particularly strong:
  • Overall Picture of the EM field / Overall Picture of the EM-K12 field
  • Alternative Business Models in EM / Alternative Business Models in EM-K12
  • IP Profile of Biggest for-profit companies in EM
    • Pearson
    • Cengage Learning
    • McGraw-Hill
    • Wiley
    • Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck
• Our research in these areas is growing:
  • Overview of Economics of Intellectual Property in EM

    Need to expand economic analysis beyond copying issues

  • IP Profile of Universities working in EM
  • Commons-based Cases in EM / Commons-based Cases in EM-K12

    Some examples have been found and profiled briefly but analysis needs to go as deep as for for-profit companies

Work Remaining

• Our research in these areas needs to be expanded:
  • Outputs and Products of the field: Data, narratives and tools produced by the EM field
  • IP in EM / IP in EM-K12

    Still building list of important cases of copyright and patents

  • Competitive advantages in EM / Competitive advantages in EM-K12

    Some of this material can be extracted from other sections of the wiki

  • IP Profile of non-profit companies in EM
  • IP Profile of Associations in EM / IP Profile of Associations in EM-K12

    Need to expand profiles of each associations advocacy for IP and particular business practicies

  • IP Profile of Biggest for-profit companies in EM-K12
    • McGraw-Hill (Higher Ed sector profile is strong)
    • Pearson (Higher Ed sector profile is strong)
    • Houghton Mifflin / Harcourt Education
    • Reed Elsevier

Research Methodology in use

• Literature review (ongoing)
• Business School Cases review (awaiting reply from HBS staff)
• Media review: Area Specific Blogs and News (ongoing)
• Market databases and reports review
  • MarketResearch.com has been a key resource for K-12 and College market analysis
  • The ORBIS database has been useful in profiling individual companies
• Interviews, see Contacts for EM
  • Nicole Allen, Campaign Director for Make Textbooks Affordable - followed up in May 2009
  • Ahrash Bissell, Executive Director of ccLearn - interviewed by e-mail in May 2009
  • Joel Thierstein, Executive Director Connexions - contact in April 2009

Problems and Considerations

• Having focused mainly on textbooks thus far, how broad do we extend our research?
  • Supplementary materials often blur into the textbook market through the business strategy of bundling (including educational software)
• Arguments criticizing the high cost of textbooks in the US often point toward lower prices in foreign markets (the UK particularly), is there a place for a comparative study of reasons for lower prices for identical textbooks and greater price elasticity of those markets?
• Splitting The K-12 Level and The Higher Education Level has helped analysis and organization, however we find a number of orphaned, duplicated research question-based pages; there is a need to consolidate relevant information for each sub-sector and glean superfluous pages/questions.
  • i.e.: which are valid as having specific purposes for K-12 versus Higher Education concerns?: Overview of Economics of Intellectual Property in EM-K12, Data, narratives and tools produced by the EM-K12 field, IP in EM-K12, IP Profile of Universities working in EM-K12

Next Steps

• Continue literature review
  • Expand policy analysis
  • Keep abreast of latest news and trends on OER and company blogs
• Need to better understand both the economic/political and various social barriers to innovation
  • Do professors trust certain forms of EM over others, affecting OER adoption?
  • Do state's require mandates like California's to legitimize OER and peer produced EM at the K-12 level?
• Conduct a survey of K-12 teachers and higher education professors to look at social barriers
• Use California as a potential paradigmatic case in public policy pressure on business trends
• Expand descriptive research exercise to the remainder of the EM field, as defined:
  • More on higher education upper-level course EM, including University Press practices
  • More on supplementary materials (digital and non-digital)
  • Study educational software as market vs. sub-market

Telecommunication

General Status

• Have nearly complete 15-20 page field overview
• Have list of case studies on wiki with some accompanying materials as next steps

Work Completed

• Basic research in the Research Methodology Areas
• Writeup of research into 15-20 page report
• Collection of possible case studies
• Collection of sources for possible case studies

Work Remaining

• Polish Research report including:
  • Clean Up, Add footnotes
  • Add intro/roadmap
  • Add conclusion/next steps
  • Add a little bit of discussion of "commons" theory so that its clearer how the discussion of IP relates to the overall research question

Research Methodology in use

• Literature review
• Business School Cases review
• Media review: Area Specific Blogs and News
• Market databases and reports review
• Interviews
• Participation in Events

Problems and Considerations

• Work is slowing, but just need to wrap up!

Next Steps

• See Work Remaining