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A must read story, especially for women. A long answer, but definitely worth it.Source: Take Me Home by Rashmi BansalMuruganantham was born in the village of Pappanaicken Pudur near Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.“I was lucky to be born in a poor family. People think it is good to be rich but rich people don’t havea real childhood. They don’t run behind butterflies or climb the trees like I did!”As a child, Murugan displayed a keen interest in science subjects. At the Tamil-medium schoolwhere he studied, he was lucky to have an encouraging teacher.“I participated in a school science exhibition and won a prize for a chicken incubator which I hadmade.”Murugan’s classmates were mostly from landed families. He loved visiting their farms, learningabout various farm implements and also modifying and repairing them.“I liked to experiment with mechanical things and moving parts!”Murugan’s father was a handloom weaver but, unfortunately, he was killed in a road accident. Hismother Mrs A Vanitha started working on a farm to support the family. Wages were low – just ₹5 aday. Being the eldest, Murugan dropped out of school after Class 9 and started working.“As a child, I have done many small business like selling fireworks, sugarcane and statues ofGanesha. So I thought I can do something on my own.”Initially, Murugan tried his hand at supplying idlis to factory workers. The venture was successful butthe idea was copied. When the competitor threatened his family, the 15-year-old shut the business.He decided to look for a job in Coimbatore – a city of industry and textile mills.The young man tried various trades but his heart lay in working with his hands.“I joined a workshop as a helper. Means, not working on a machine, just assisting seniors by buyingtea, buying cigarettes…like that.”The adjacent workshop-owner warned Murugan, “Your boss is no good. Don’t join.”But Murugan saw it differently.“My owner is a drunkard…that’s lucky for me. I work hard, I learn things and in a short timeeverybody thinks I am the owner of the workshop.”Like many other small businessmen, the workshop-owner took loans at a very high interest rate. On aloan of ₹10,000, interest payable on a daily basis is ₹100. This workshop owed ₹250 per daytowards ‘daily collection’ as the owner had several loans to his name. But he was usually in adrunken state and hardly bothered.“Moneylenders saw that I am working, I am repaying the loan. They said, ‘Throw out that fellow, youtake over the workshop.’ ”One day, the drunkard announced he was going back to his village and asked Murugan to take overthe workshop.Thus, one small shed and a welding machine to make grills came into the young man’s possession.The enterprise was very small, but it was enough for Murugan. He helped marry off two youngersisters and, finally, got married himself. But his mind was always occupied by small experiments.“I used to see all grills have same old design, so boring! So I took the rangoli pattern and madesimilar designs in metal.”Murugan’s decorative grillwork became popular, yet he never really tried to grow his business insize.“I never aimed for making more and more money. I don’t need a gold bathtub. I want to developmyself.”The one thing Murugan developed early was a personal philosophy of life. As a child, he observedstray dogs in his locality. He wondered where they lived, what they ate? Though he never foundspecific answers to such questions, a few months later he could see – they had grown, they hadsurvived.“I understood that survival is automatic, it is natural, it is not in our hands. So every human beingshould try to do something beyond survival.”It was October of 1998, Murugan had come home from the workshop for his lunch and afternoon nap.He noticed his young wife, Shanti, walking across the hall, carrying something behind her back.“What you are carrying?” he asked.“It’s none of your business!” she snapped back.This prompted Murugan to get up and run after her. He caught Shanti’s hand and saw it was a piece ofcloth. So shabby that he would not even use it to clean his moped.“I understood that she is using unhygienic methods to manage the period days. I asked her, ‘Why youare not using sanitary napkins?’”She replied, “Of course, I know napkin, I watch TV. But if myself and other women in our familystart using napkin, then we have to cut our milk budget.”Murugan was intrigued. He went to his neighbourhood medical shop and asked for a packet ofsanitary napkins. At the time he didn’t even know which brands were in the market, he simplypointed to the most colourful label. The shop girl took the packet, wrapped it in a newspaper andfurtively handed it to Murugan.“I felt like I am carrying a smuggling item.”At home, Murugan opened the packet and discovered that the napkin was simply a ‘white bandage’.Holding it in hand, automatically, his brain calculated the weight of the object.“Immediately I can see it’s less than 10 grams and it looks to be cotton.”Murugan knew that 10 grams of cotton cost only 10 paisa. Yet the napkin was selling for ₹4. What aprofit margin! He decided to make a low-cost napkin which Shanti could use. There are over 500textile mills in Coimbatore, so getting the raw material was easy. Murugan bought some high-qualitycotton from Laxmi Mills, wrapped it in viscose cloth and, certainly, it looked like a napkin.“I feel sad when I see children in ties going to school in cars andbuses. They are living in a golden cage, missing out on the realchildhood.”“Whenever I made a new thing I would go to my wife and say, ‘Close your eyes, Shanti.’ Then I giveit in her hand. The same way I did for this.”When Shanti opened her eyes, she was surprised.“See, I made for you. Use immediately and give me the feedback!” said Murugan.As if the monthly cycle of a woman is timed for experiments in napkin technology.“You will have to wait for some time,” she retorted.Murugan handed over the napkin and the matter was forgotten. Three weeks later, when he camehome for lunch, Shanti opened the door and burst out at him.“What nonsense napkin you have given to me? It’s the worst…I will go back to cloth!”Murugan remembers this lashing as a ‘historical’ day. Had Shanti given positive feedback, Muruganwould have dropped his research that very moment. Anyone can buy a cotton roll, cut it into arectangle and wrap it in viscose cloth. But the problem was something bigger, more complex. Now,Murugan was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.“Like Satyam Raju, I started riding a tiger. My nature is if things become easy, I lose interest. But ifit’s tough, I cannot drop it until that problem is solved.”Thus Murugan started his research with renewed energy. He made different shapes, sizes andvarieties of napkins. But who would test them out? Shanti was available only once a month – at thatrate the project would take years! Murugan decided to ask his sisters to volunteer. But they did nottake his interest in feminine hygiene kindly.They called up Shanti and said, “Anna (brother) has gone mad. Please tell him not to come to myhouse until he recovers his senses.”Murugan refused to give up so easily. Where else could he get volunteers? He had a hunch.“I thought of medical college. Because those girls are studying to be doctors so maybe they willagree to help.”The nearest medical college (Coimbatore Medical College) was 27 km away, near the airport.Murugan hopped onto his scooter and went there. Somehow, he managed to convince a few girls totake part in his research project.“What do we have to do?” they asked.“Just give a feedback after using…it’s cotton only.”The problem was, even medical students hesitated to have a conversation about their periods. Hence,Murugan designed a feedback sheet. The idea was wonderful, but on the day Murugan returned to thecollege, he saw 2 girls urgently filling out everyone’s sheets. Probably out of courtesy or sympathybut the data was false.“How can I conduct research on false data?”Murugan sat in front of the college, sipping a cup of tea. He wondered what could be the wayforward. At this point, he was struck by a simple thought.“I will use the napkin myself.”But how can a man get periods?“In my family nobody goes for a job…now only I came to know, itis called ‘self-employment’.”“Raw material of sanitary napkin is a big secret like Coca Colaformula. That’s why few companies have the monopoly on thisproduct.”With a bit of ingenuity and the help of a childhood friend. Murugan asked the local butcher to let himknow when he would be cutting the head of a goat. The butcher would ring his cycle bell as hepassed by Murugan’s house in the morning. That was the ‘signal’.“I go to his shop, fill the hot blood inside an empty football then I wore a napkin. There is a tubeconnecting my ‘uterus’ to napkin.”While walking, cycling, going about his work, Murugan would press the bladder and blood wouldsquirt onto the napkin. For 10 days, Murugan experienced what it was like for a woman to go abouther daily life during periods.“My cloth napkin was not doing the job. I became like stinking and my clothes got stained. Iunderstood how much difficulty ladies go through.”The magnificent obsession with sanitary napkins was taking its toll. Neighbours concluded thatMurugan was either possessed by a spirit or had some vile disease. Shanti was convinced thatMurugan was using the ploy of research to get cozy with college girls. One fine day she stormed outof the house, vowing to never return.This failed to have any effect on Murugan and his esoteric experiments. With desperation-inspiration,he hit upon a method to get the ‘perfect’ feedback. Simply collect the used napkin from a lady – itwill reveal everything.“Some are thinking, he is doing black magic, but the medical college girls know me, so they agreed.”The modus operandi was simple: Murugan would supply various napkins along with a black carrybag. The used napkins were to be returned in the carry bag, which he would pick up weekly.“If I have a French cut or I speak very intelligent, na, they won’t help me. But they see me, I am asimple man, not trying to do any chakkar, so they say, okay.”There was some method to the madness – napkins were colour-coded, so he could identify who wasusing which napkin. Along with the homemade napkins, Murugan interspersed branded napkins, tosee what is the difference.“Like that one day I spread all the collected napkins in my house on a table… Same day my mothercame to visit me.”All hell broke loose. The old lady was finally convinced that Murugan was indeed mad and declaredshe would no longer have anything to do with him.Meanwhile, the experiments were yielding little result. There was something different aboutcompany-made napkins. What exactly, he could not figure out.“I sent the Stayfree and Carefree napkins to various labs in IIT, BITS Pilani, SITRA (South IndiaTextile Research Association), etc. For every test I am paying hefty fees – ₹6000, ₹10,000. But allare sending same report.”The report stated that the napkin consisted of a cellulose substance, meaning it was cotton. Yet, nomatter what grade of cotton Murugan used, it failed to absorb. Two years went by; finally Muruganreached an important conclusion.“Those companies are not using cotton…or they are doing some special process on cotton. I have tofind out what it is.”After a year and a half of investigation, Murugan realised that the cellulose substance in the napkinwas not cotton but wood-fibre. Specifically, pinewood fibre.“There are no circuits, no coding in sanitary napkin…only the property of raw material. Wood-fibreabsorbs liquid quickly and retains shape under pressure. Hence those give better comfort.”“If the problem is tough, you cannot find a single man there…youstand there and you will definitely get an opportunity. ”“I was even ready to do the surgery and become a lady to conductmy research! ”So far, so good, but pinewood trees do not grow in India. Murugan realised that he would need toimport the material from Australia, Canada or America. This was relatively easy – pinewood fibre isone-fourth the price of cotton and available through the Internet.Murugan took the help of a professor from the agricultural university to draft a letter and place theorder in November 2000. When the Fedex package arrived some weeks later, he could barelycontain his excitement. But there seemed to be a mistake.“I was expecting something like cotton roll, it was just a plain board.”How can one make a soft napkin out of this stiff material?Every day Murugan would take the board out of the Fedex cover and inspect it, puzzle over it. Oneday, he accidentally tore off a piece and that’s when his heart leaped up. There was fibre inside.“Immediately I understood the whole secret. But then I found out you need a plant which costs ₹4-5crore to process the material.”All adding to the ultimate cost of the napkin. So, what was the solution? Murugan spent the next 4years trying out new and different ways of processing the pinewood board. Through trial and error,tyaag and tapas he finally cracked the problem.“I made a small machine in my workshop and with that I am making napkins.”Murugan gave the girls in the medical college these napkins to use. This time, the feedback was verydifferent.“Anna!” they said. “What happened? This time I tried and I forgot I am using napkin!”From the ‘nonsense’ napkin rejected by Shanti to the as-good-as-branded napkin, it was a longjourney. Not a few days, or a few weeks, but 4 years. The device itself is simple – anyone can learnto operate it within an hour. The first part of the process is ‘defiberation’.“This is a beating apparatus, like a dry mixer. You put the pinewood inside and fibre is separated.”Next, the pulp is compressed into the shape of a pad using an aluminium mould. Thickness can bevaried to make either a regular or XL size napkin. This unit is operated by a foot pedal.The third stage involves sealing the pads in the napkin-finishing machine. In 2005, the cost of theentire machine was a mere ₹65,000. The per napkin cost – less than one rupee.“I approached IIT Madras and then everywhere in India… The major problem in India is if you don’tknow English, nobody thinks you are capable.”But someone, somewhere, took notice of Murugan’s invention. In 2006, IIT Madras held acompetition called ‘Innovation for the Betterment of Society’. The low-cost sanitary napkin machinewas entered into the contest where it won the first prize.All of a sudden, everyone wanted to know – who is Murugan?“Magazines and TV channels were chasing me for interview. Myself I didn’t know the differencebetween ITI and IIT at that time!”The publicity produced another side effect. Murugan’s wife, sisters and mother forgave Murugan forhis mad antics. Shanti decided to reunite with her husband and return to his home.At the same time, Murugan was emboldened to launch his napkins commercially.“I tried to come out with my own napkin which is as good as J & J, Procter & Gamble but half theprice. ”“To find a pearl you have to jump in the sea ten times, twenty times,hundred times. You won’t find it floating on the surface. ”“I prefer rented house and rented workshop. Ownership is anuisance and a burden. ”Murugan’s ‘Covai’ napkins were launched in Coimbatore city in 2006 with a small advertisement inthe local paper. But poorly marketed and distributed, the brand flopped miserably.“I realised the customer thinks if someone is giving 8 napkins for 10 rupees it must be poor quality. Iburned my fingers badly and lost ₹50,000.”Murugan suffered this setback in silence. What more could he do? The mighty multinationals weretoo strong for one man to take on.“I am having machines and raw material. I gave it to my wife thinking let her at least use it. Maybe 5-10 years she won’t need to buy napkins from any shop.”Life once again resumed its routine, Murugan got busy in his workshop. Two months later, Shanticame to him with a strange request.“We need more raw material.”“But there was enough for 15,000 napkins! What did you do with it?” asked Murugan.“We are selling napkins,” she replied.“How is this possible?” thought Murugan. “I have already tried and failed!”Then, he noticed that ladies from the neighbourhood were constantly peeping in from the window.When Murugan was in the hall, they would quietly disappear. But if he was in the other room, theywould come inside and take a packet from Shanti. Money was also changing hands.“5 rupees,” he heard Shanti say.“Why are you selling the packet for 5 rupees?” Murugan asked.“Oh…you heard 5 rupees? Actually they will pay in installment, weekly 5 rupees. Seri?”Some ladies even stopped by to buy a single napkin. Something no shopkeeper could provide.This was a eureka moment for Murugan. Finally, he understood how he could compete withmultinationals. In 60 years, only 10% of India’s women had adopted the sanitary napkin. Murugan’starget would be the remaining 90% – the bottom of the pyramid.“My model is one-to-one, here the woman will own the machine. She will manufacture the napkinand sell it to her neighbours.”The whole process of production thus gets decentralised. No transport cost, no hefty profit margin. Ahigh-quality, low-cost product, easily available from somebody I know and trust.“Actually there are many taboos associated with periods in our country. You cannot change themindset with a 20-30 second corporate advertisement.”With media and word of mouth publicity, Murugan had started getting invitations to deliver guestlectures at various forums and universities. This was frightening at first as he could only speak Tamiland Telugu.“I made efforts to learn English…it is easier than learning Hindi, I say!”Exposure and advice from well-wishers introduced Murugan to the concept of IPR (IntellectualProperty Rights). With the help of the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) in Ahmedabad, heapplied for a patent. He also received support from the NIF Micro Innovation Venture Fund to finetunehis machine.“I added a UV sterilisation unit, calibration for various pad sizes and increased the production rateto target 1000 pads per day.”However, the business model remained unchanged. Murugan refused to sell or license the technologyto any large corporate. The low-cost napkin would be of, for and by women themselves.Each machine is sold on turnkey basis directly to Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and femaleentrepreneurs. One day training and raw material is provided along with the machine itself. M SSwaminathan Research Foundation, All India Woman’s Conference, DATA, Malabar Hospital,Community Centre-AAI Delhi, Mandal Mahila Samkiya and Sammilana were some of the earlyadopters. Companies like Jindal Steel and Moser Baer have taken up the project as a CSR activity inOrissa and Karnataka.“I very much like the philosophy of Bhutan. It is the only countrywhich measures the gross national happiness instead of grossdomestic production.”The napkins are sold under various trade names1 like ‘Easy Feel’, ‘Be Free’, ‘Feel Free’ (inspiredby the big brands) and vernacular ones (Saki, Nari Suraksa, Nalam, to name a few). Priced at ₹15for a set of 10 pads, the entrepreneur make a profit of 50 paise per pad. Which adds up to ₹3000-5000 per month, depending on how many packets she produces.“I remember how my mother struggled to earn money… This napkin business is a sustainablelivelihood activity for each and every rural woman.”Murugan’s goal is to create employment for one million (ten lakh) women. At the micro-level,Murugan’s machines have given economic independence to many in need.“See this lady is in Anantpur, her husband was shot by police, with my machine she can supportherself.”Banks willingly provided loans to such women to buy the machine. The product has a regular,captive market and the equipment pays for itself in just 6 years.By 2009, over 100 napkin machines had been installed in UP, Bihar, Andhra, Tamil Nadu andHaryana, catering to 2.5 lakh customers. But there was a ‘bigger’ picture in the inventor’s head.“In 1960s, Amul created white revolution. I want to create second white revolution using thefederation model.”Towards this goal, Murugan has shifted his focus to working with state governments. It started withUttarakhand, where the government-owned ‘Uttarakhand Parvatiya Aajeevika Sanvardhan’ boughtand installed a machine in Barpur, a remote village in Tehri district.“This place is 16 hours from Dehradun, you can see Ganga river below. There was no road, we hadto take the machine on the back of a donkey!”Women in this area began using sanitary napkins – for the very first time. Each micro-enterprise alsoprovided employment to 7-8 women. This model was replicated across 22 villages in the area.At the fifth national awards ceremony for Grassroots Technological Innovations in November 2009,Murugan was felicitated by President Pratibha Patil. The invention was noticed in government andIAS circles. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh were the states which came forward with themost enthusiasm.The idea of a ‘Federation’ model is that, like Mother Dairy and Amul, each state creates and marketsits own unique brand. So, for example, all the women under the state scheme in Maharashtra use thebrand name ‘Nirmal’ while in Gujarat, the napkins are sold as ‘Sakhi’.“Gujarat government is supporting very much and I think we will achieve 100% usage of sanitarynapkin in this state very soon2. It will be a model for rest of India.”Yet, overall progress remains slow and steady with 947 machines installed by August 2013. Mostlybecause Murugan believes that means matter as much as the end result. When politicians approachhim to order 100-200 machines at a time, he refuses.“Maybe they give it like a free bicycle, free TV only to catch vote bank. But I don’t believe in this‘free’ policy. I am particular there must be an end-user.”Naxalite and tribal areas are Murugan’s pet projects. Even when foundations come forward, he urgesthem to identify remote villages for his machines.“Everywhere, ladies are making napkins and selling locally. This is not corporate model, it’snational development.”However, there is interest not just from India but Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mauritius and evendistant South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. The model works everywhere. Murugan is happy even ifthey buy one machine from him and replicate it in their own country, working with the same non-corporateprinciples.Despite name and fame, Murugan remains humble and grounded.“If you call my office I am only attending to phone. There is no secretary.”The machines are only assembled at the workshop, with 4 helpers. Manufacture of various parts hasbeen outsourced to different suppliers, with specifications.“Like how they do for Nano car,” he grins.Murugan’s Jayashree Industries earns a small surplus on each machine sold. It is more than enough,he says.“I have some cost of production, over and above that some need. If I take more than that it becomesgreed.”Murugan’s logic is simple. The ultimate aim of human life, he believes, is ‘enlightenment’. There aremany, many rich people in the world, but only a handful of ‘enlightened’ souls. They renounced theworld and its mundane pleasures, went to the distant Himalayas. But Murugan has no such plans.“See, enlightenment does not come only by sitting in a remote forest…even in your business premisesor in your home, you can become enlightened. It’s just your mindset.”What do you need to be happy? As a child, you want a chocolate bar. As an adult, you want love,money, name, fame – the list is endless. Murugan needs nothing to be happy. He simply is.“I am happy 24x7. Everything else is additional – this pen, this laptop. If I have someone to talk to Iam happy, if I am alone I am happy.”A happy man, but with a clear purpose.“Before my birth only 5 to 6% women in India are using napkin. I make a machine and after 10 to 15to 20 years all women are using napkin. That’s it, my life is over.”The question is, what are you going to leave behind? A house, a car, a bank account? Or, an idea thatcreated a small ripple in this beautiful world.1 A total of 742 brands names are in use in India and 7 other countries.2 At the time of going to print, 55 machines had been installed in Gujarat.3 In 2013, the machine costs between ₹1.45 lakh to ₹2.5 lakh.(Figures till 2013, when the book was published)Arunachalam Muruganantham's TED speech: How I started a sanitary napkin revolution!

The last several decades have seen dramatic changes to education.Our fundamental accounts of learning have broadened from purely behavioral explanations to include cognitive, social, constructivist, and connectivist perspectives.The tools we use to support learning have broadened from books, paper, and pencils to include computers of all shapes and sizes, networks, and a wide range of static and interactive digital resources.The institutions we use to support learning have broadened to include those that are public and private, large and small, accredited and not, online and on campus.The values of the institutions that support learning have broadened as well, including a new recognition of the critical role diversity plays in a facilitating a vibrant, evolving ecosystem of ideas and benefits to society.Where do we position openness in a narrative of the evolution of education?Openness has little to contribute to our fundamental accounts of learning.The foundational role of open licenses in open education might suggest that openness be considered a tool we use to support learning.The inclusion of “open” in the names of institutions might suggest that openness describes a type of institution.However, these simplistic, impoverished views underestimate openness, confusing its everyday implements with its deeper nature.When properly understood, openness is a value – like diversity. In fact, I believe diversity is one of the best metaphors for understanding the place of openness in education.Decades ago, the value of diversity in the educational enterprise was deeply underappreciated and education was the worse for it. Over a period of years, we have slowly improved education’s recognition of the crucial contributions of diversity through a coordinated effort comprised of campus conversations, workshops, trainings, initiatives, and a range of other memetic vehicles. Where administrators, faculty, staff, and students have truly internalized the value of diversity, they act in ways that allow everyone around them to enjoy the benefits of diversity.As I ponder the core beliefs embodied in openness (considering openness as a value),I return again and again to sharing and gratitude.I share because others have shared with me, and sharing with others seems the most appropriate way to express gratitude for what I have received. Like Newton, I recognize that if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Should I then, from my heightened station, fight to prevent people from standing on my shoulders? Or do I have an obligation to those before and after me to leverage every means available to me, including modern technologies and open licenses, to enable as many people to stand there as possible? And is it not true that the more people we can help make their way atop our shoulders, and the faster we can enable others to climb atop theirs, the sooner we can solve global wicked problems like poverty, hunger, and war that threaten all humanity?When administrators, faculty, staff, and students embrace the value we call openness they create, share, and use open educational resources. They publish their research in open access journals. They employ open pedagogies and other open educational practices. They reward and recognize those in their institutions who engage in these behaviors and others that embody the ideals of sharing and gratitude. They work to remove barriers, remove obstacles, and remove friction from pathways to learning for all. Out of their deep gratitude for what others have shared with them, intellectually and in other ways, they do everything in their power to share with others.The importance of openness in education is only now beginning to be appreciated, and I hope this tendency can increase the pace of its spread. Out there are stories of people and institutions around the world acting in accordance with the value of openness, and relates the amazing results that come from those actions.I hope it will inspire you. I hope that as you read these stories you will feel an inward stirring of gratitude for what you have received from those giants who went before us, and that out of the rich soil of that gratitude will grow a commitment to share – a commitment to openness.David Wiley’s excerpt from Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education by Patrick Blessinger and TJ Bliss open bookOpen education is part of the wider movement to democratize tertiary education, and to treat lifelong learning as a human rightIn the past higher education was mainly the domain of a few. In recent decades, however, it has gradually become more accessible to larger segments of society — a phenomenon that is currently concerning a growing number of countries. These developments not only reflect the growing democratization of society and the increasing emphasis on human rights around the world but also the rising demand for a diversified and flexible system of higher learning to meet the increasingly complex needs of global societies.The broad definition of open education is the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s definition :“teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others”Open education provides a viable means by which anyone can pursue lifelong learning though access to free, openly licensed, high quality educational resources. Open education, and OER(Open Education Resources) in particular, is in the early stages of its development.The typical diffusion cycle for new products, services, and innovations consists of stages for introduction, adoption, growth, and maturity.In the early stages of the cycle, basic models, concepts and standards are defined.In the adoption stage, more and more people and organizations begin to use and find new applications for these products, services, and innovations.For instance, as the idea of OER began to spread in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, MIT began to post its courses on the internet. This radical idea, known as the MIT OpenCourseWare project, now has over 2000 courses available to the public for free. Other universities have followed MIT’s example.As with the broader movement to democratize education at all levels, the common underlying force driving these changes — irrespective of national geography or technological innovation — is the on-going development of democratically oriented societies (e.g., public policy reforms, rising global demand for higher education and lifelong learning opportunities). Within the last few decades we have seen an explosion of new ways, such as OER, massive open online courses and online universities, as a way to broaden access to higher education courses.Towards a Human Rights TheoryEducation is recognized as a fundamental human right. Yet, many people throughout the world do not have access to important educational opportunities. Open education, which began in earnest in the late 1960s with the establishment of open universities and gained momentum in the first part of this century through open educational resources and open technologies, is part of a wider effort to democratize education. Designed for access, agency, ownership, participation, and experience, open education has the potential to become a great global equalizer, providing opportunity for people throughout the world to exercise this basic human right.The condition of being open has many qualities and characteristics but these characteristics, relative to one’s ability to access, participate in, and leverage the full benefits of open education, have the following dimensions:spatial,temporal, andprocess.Therefore, these core dimensions serve as a good starting point to explain the nature of open education.Regarding the spatial dimension, open education (e.g., open educational resources, open courseware, massive online open courses) allows people to access and participate in education regardless of their physical/ geographic location, provided of course that they have the means (e.g., computer, smart phone, internet access) to connect to the resources. Thus, improvements in open education technologies allow more people to overcome physical and geographical barriers and constraints. As mobile and other information technologies become more affordable, the opportunity to access these resources increases.Regarding the temporal dimension, open education allows people to access and participate in education regardless of the time of day, month, or year, and independent of others’ time considerations. In other words, open education need not be a synchronous form of communication as in the traditional higher education model, but rather communication and participation become in this context an asynchronous form of learning and communication. As with the spatial dimension, improvements in course design and information and communication technologies allow more people to overcome time barriers and constraints.Regarding the process dimension, it is important that open educational platforms and systems be created using sound design principles, valid and reliable teaching methods, and learning theories.Within this dimensional framework, open education consists of the following core components:Subject-matter experts (i.e., professors, scholars, teachers, educators) create the content.Students are free to select those courses and other educational resources that they believe will be most beneficial to them (i.e., it is a voluntary system to satisfy the learning needs of the students). Within the structural constraints of the educational platform and the usage policies and rules, students are free to determine if, when, and how they will access and participate in open education and they are free to self-determine what learning needs (outcomes) they want to meet.Organizations (i.e., universities, non-governmental organizations) create the structure and rules by which the content is packaged and structured as well as the basic rules governing how content is produced and consumed, including feedback systems that are used to continuously make improvements and meet the needs of both the experts and students.As noted by Kahle (2008), the core underlying principles involved in open education include the following:Design for accessDesign for agencyDesign for ownershipDesign for participationDesign for experienceOpen education is designed for access because it removes the traditional barriers that people often face in obtaining knowledge, credits, and degrees — including but not limited to cost. Access is fundamental to open education and is the basic principle that has informed and driven the open education movement from its inception.Open education goes beyond access: it is designed for the agency of students and teachers and affords them increased control of content and technology. As Kahle (2008, p. 35) explains: Openness“is measured by the degree to which it empowers users to take action, making technology [and content] their own, rather than imposing its own foreign and inflexible requirements and constraints”.Open education pre-supposes the participation of the learner and the educator, and it seeks to amplify their agency.Open education is also designed for ownership when technology and content are licensed in such a way that users can both modify and retain the resource in perpetuity. David Wiley originally defined open content using a “4 R” framework, which includes the rights to reuse, revise, redistribute, and remix creative works. But in response to academic publishers pushing access codes and short-term leases on educational content, Wiley made explicit something he had long seen as an underlying implicit principle of open content: the right to retain, which includes the rights to make, own, and control copies of the content (Wiley, 2014).Open education is designed for participation when it is well-designed for access, agency, and ownership. In other words, these aspects lead to participation by learners and educators. As open education promotes these fundamental principles, students and teachers are more likely to collaborate and participatory in inclusive activities. Indeed, one of the goals of open education is to move learners closer to the center of a community of practice, specifically through providing opportunities and infrastructure for participation and collaboration.Finally, open education is designed for experience, or at least it can be, when educators and systems focus on making content and technology appealing and user-friendly. Kahle (2008, p. 42) argues that “design for experience recognizes that all participants, particularly busy educators and students, quickly form opinions as to what resources are interesting, helpful, and worth their investment of time. Design for experience is a form of human-centered design”. Insofar as creators of content and technologies recognize this important principle, open education can appeal to a broader audience than students and educators, thus amplifying access, agency, ownership and participation to anyone with a desire to learn.The open education movement can also be viewed as part of a wider drive to democratize tertiary education, which, in turn, can be viewed as part of the movement to establish tertiary education and lifelong learning as a human right.The human rights view of lifelong learning focuses not on the socio-economic and personal benefits that education produces (albeit very important) but rather on the claim that universal education makes on others. A human right is a very broad construct from which other issues and rights flow (e.g., civil rights, social inclusion, humane treatment of people). A human right is defined as a justified claim on others (McGowan, 2013). In addition, one of the goals of the UN Millennium Development Goals initiative is to move towards a more inclusive and quality education system that recognizes tertiary education alongside primary and secondary education.Human rights are justified because they protect humanity from the abuse of others and they defend those aspects of society (e.g., life, liberty, and security) that are considered fundamental to human life, and as such, they are the most urgent claim on others. In the final analysis, by viewing learning and education through the lens of human rights, universal education throughout the course of life becomes an important condition for justice in a democratic society.In 2007, UNESCO and UNICEF further delineated the right to education into three areas:the right of access to education,the right to quality education, andthe right to respect within the learning environment.Defined this way, these rights therefore have implications for governments, educational institutions, and non-governmental organizations with regard to their responsibility towards how they provision educational resources and how they lead learning environments.Concerning access, open education puts the responsibility and duty of care primarily on the service provider and others to ensure a ubiquitous, affordable way for people to access a wide range of educational resources. Concerning quality, it puts the responsibility primarily on the service provider (i.e., the educational institution) and the content creators (i.e., the faculty or other subject matter expert) to define the framework and process of who, what, when, where, why, and how the content will be created and the criteria by which to evaluate and assess the quality of the content and the effectiveness of teaching and learning.Concerning respect, it puts the responsibility primarily on the service provider to define the policies and rules to cultivate an environment of mutual respect and on the teachers and students, as the two primary agents in the teaching-learning process, to treat others with respect and dignity. Thus, open education will be most effective if it addresses all these components.Brief History of Open EducationAt its core, the open education movement has been about access.In the late 1960s, efforts began to remove barriers to entry for students desiring to pursue tertiary education. For example, the Open University of the United Kingdom (OU-UK, The Open University) was established in 1969 with the mission to help facilitate educational opportunities and greater social justice by providing high-quality university education to anyone who has a desire to learn and realize their potential. Since the founding of the OU-UK, many other open universities have been established in countries throughout the world, ranging from Bangladesh to Canada to South Africa.In the late 1990s, as the internet was becoming more ubiquitous, many prestigious institutions of higher education in the United States began looking for ways to further disseminate the educational content promulgated within their classrooms. At the same time, forward thinking education technologists were recognizing the power of the internet to democratize education at all levels and exponentially increase access to educational content for people across the globe.In 1998, David Wiley coined the term “open content”, which he described as a creative work that others are allowed to copy, share, and modify. Wiley created a basic open license that creators could place on their works to signify these permissions.As the idea of open content for education began to spread, Charles Vest, then President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), sought funding from private foundations to video-tape and post content from MIT courses on the internet. This radical idea became the MIT project (Free Online Course Materials), which continues to publicly and freely share the content from over two thousand MIT courses (updated to 2016). Other universities followed MIT’s example, dramatically expanding the open courseware movement over the next several years.Recognizing the power and potential of open content to increase access to education, private philanthropic foundations, particularly the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in California, began supporting the development and spread of open courseware and other types of open educational content.In 2002, at a UNESCO meeting of developing nations, known as the Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries, the term “Open Educational Resources” (OER) was officially adopted to describe open content used for educational purposes. The forum agreed on the following definition of OER: the open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes (UNESCO, 2002, p. 24).In the same year, Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson, and Eric Eldred received funding to establish a new non-profit called Creative Commons, which produced flexible copyright licenses that people could use to openly license their creative works. These licenses have become the gold standard for establishing the legal aspect of OER.The Hewlett Foundation defines OER as“teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others”, and requires that all works created with project grant funding be licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution license. Many other foundations and government agencies throughout the world have adopted similar open policies, leading to a significant increase in the supply of OER.For the first five or so years after the UNESCO meeting in Paris, most of the OER available for professors to adopt existed in piecemeal form and was mostly suitable as a supplement to primary course content.Starting in 2009, advocates and supporters of OER began to recognize that for OER to enter mainstream adoption, open content would need to be produced in a format that professors would be better able to adopt as primary course material: the textbook. With support from foundations and governments, work began to produce and disseminate what have become known as “open textbooks”. For example,over the past four years, OpenStax College at Rice University (OpenStax) has produced twenty open textbooks for the highest enrolled college courses in the United States;and the state of California and the province of British Columbia have each compiled a library of open textbooks for the highest enrolled courses in their respective systems. These open textbooks have been adopted by thousands of professors, positively impacting hundreds of thousands of students.In addition, the Open Textbook Network and the Open Textbook Library at the University of Minnesota (https://open.umn.edu) provide access to a growing list of open textbooks.Most recently, an effort has begun to bring adoption of OER in higher education to scale. In 2013, Tidewater Community College established the first degree program entirely based on OER. In June 2016, the college reform network, Achieving the Dream (http://achievingthedream.org), provided pass-through funding to nearly 40 community colleges in the United States to establish OER degrees within the next 2 years.These degree programs will impact many students and do much to bring OER into mainstream adoption in higher education.On the international front, the OERu partnership (Home | OERu) is working with over thirty partner institutions around the world to establish a fully articulated, credit-bearing first year of study based exclusively on OER that students around the world can enroll in for free.Open education is more than just open content, of course, but the OER movement is a remarkable example of the power of openness to increase educational access for all. The real potential of open education is to actually improve learning for all. In the next several years, Open Educational Practice is expected to increase. It will include teaching techniques that draw on open educational resources, open technologies, and open systems to increase the flexibility and authenticity of learner experiences (Conole and Ehlers, 2010), ultimately resulting in better learning for students and better teaching for educators globally.Open Education to Democratize EducationOpen education is not a substitute for traditional higher education provisioning, nor is it intended to be. The desire-to-learn model of open education supplements the ability-to-pay model of higher education.For many people who use open education services, they provide a supplementary type of education that adds to the mix of educational offerings available. Thus, open education need not represent an “either/or” proposition and it need not compete with (nor necessarily intends to) traditional higher education but rather it provides an additional means by which people can access knowledge and engage in lifelong learning. In fact, some of the largest providers of open educational resources are the traditional brick-and-mortar higher education institutions because they understand that open education is not a pure substitute for traditional place-based higher education and because it makes it easier for them to prepare materials for MOOCs, for example (based on existing courses), and because it is easier for them to utilize existing instructional staff and institutional expertise.The goals of students using open education and the goals of those who undertake traditional higher education are often very different.Most students in traditional place-based higher education want to obtain a degree whereas most in open education want to pursue learning but not necessarily obtain a degree. In addition, many people do not have the time to devote themselves exclusively, or even part-time, to place-based education.Fixed time and place requirements are major obstacles to enrolment for many students. To ameliorate this obstacle, in some countries university fees are kept very low and virtually non-existent for low-income students and for students who live at home the total cost of attendance is extremely low.A key distinction between traditional and open education is that traditional higher education institutions provide services (e.g., accredited degrees, extensive instructional and support staff, research output) that some open education services may not, nor necessarily intend to. Thus, both systems have emerged to address different types of learners who have different goals and needs.Most nations have gradually shifted away from an elitist system of higher education and towards a universal access model of higher education. In the universal access model a multiplicity of institutional types (e.g., technical colleges, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research universities) and a multiplicity of access types (e.g., online universities, open universities, open courseware, open educational resources), as well as hybrid institutions together with further and continuing education programs are combined in unique ways to serve the varied needs of society.This shift has created a more diversified system of institutional types, access methods, and program and course offerings for every stage of life or career and is reflective of the continuing democratization of knowledge and the growing demand for higher education worldwide (Blessinger and Anchan, 2015; Blessinger, 2015a, b; OECD, 2012; Trow, 1974; Yu and Delaney, 2014).The main distinguishing features of open education is that it consists of free, unfettered, anytime, anywhere access to educational resources that are meaningful and useful to those who wish to utilize those resources.Effective open education platforms and processes center on meeting the needs and aspirations of people throughout every life stage (lifelong learning) and across all life activities (life-wide learning).Since every person is part of the broader social structures in which they live, the most effective open education platforms are those that create opportunities for shared meaning-making, collaborative activities, and creative participation.Thus, open education should not only be a personal meaning-making experience but also a social one. As such, the open education model moves away from the knowledge scarcity model and toward a knowledge abundance model (McGrath, 2008; Batson, Paharia, and Kumar, 2008).As such, additional models are needed to work alongside (not replace) traditional educational structures. With the knowledge abundance model, knowledge is made available to anyone who wishes to consume it, regardless of their ability to pay or their ability to participate in place-based education.The emerging abundance model is reflective of the broader democratization of knowledge that is unfolding around the world. The abundance model represents an emerging paradigm shift from knowledge that is owned and controlled by knowledge elites to knowledge that is accessible to anyone.As mentioned earlier, the emergence of massive open online courses, open universities, and open educational resources represent concrete exemplars of this paradigm shift. As noted by Blessinger (2016a), this is not an entirely new phenomenon because there have been revolutionary moments in human history (e.g., invention of the printing press in the 15th century, the spread of public libraries in the nineteenth century, the development of the internet in the twentieth century) that have served as catalysts to de-monopolize higher learning and to open access to knowledge to wider segments of society. Blessinger (2016a) puts it this way:“The wide-ranging utility of the printing press laid the foundation for future political, social, economic and scientific revolutions such as the Renaissance and the Reformation, which paved the way for mass learning and the modern hyper-connected global knowledge society”.This trend continues to this day. Thus, one can see how these events are connected, although, at the time they emerged, their future impact was often unforeseen and often shunned and even fiercely opposed by those who wanted to maintain the status quo.Thus, as discussed by Blessinger and Anchan (2015), the underlying forces driving the development of open education are the basic human needs to learn and grow throughout every stage of life. The change model also supports a democratic theory of higher education postulating that the goal of university-level education is to cultivate personal agency through the development of knowledge, skills, and capacity; opportunities to learn throughout life should therefore be provided to all.These political, social, economic, scientific, and technological revolutions and factors are connected and they impact each other in concrete ways.The role and purpose of tertiary education continues to expand. The importance of lifelong and life-wide learning continues to grow and it is now regarded as necessary to social and personal development and therefore as a human right. As such, the role of tertiary education has expanded to include the production of social and cultural capital, not just human and economic capital.Lynch (2008) argues that we should not automatically equate access to information (e.g., internet based information) to access to education (i.e., education is a system of formal learning). This is especially true if we take a broader definition of education to include socio-cultural processes which implies that education should also be about social and emotional learning, not just cognitive learning. Treating education as a social process emphasizes the point that learning is socially situated (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and that learning is also a personal meaning-making process (Kovbasyuk and Blessinger, 2013). Yet, notwithstanding the importance of these processes, effective educational systems also require the elimination of unnecessary and arbitrary barriers that may inhibit its access and participation.Whether one uses a narrow definition of education or a broad definition, open education can be adequately described as a form of universal education available to all through freely accessible and ubiquitous knowledge bases. Although open education need not, strictly speaking, be electronic in form, electronic technology does nonetheless provide a low cost and relatively easy means for people anywhere at any time to learn in a social and personalized way, thus making the ideal of “education for all” an emerging reality.Open Education as Social InclusionGiven higher education’s history of exclusion and elitism, the emergence of education for all and education as a right is imperative (Blessinger, 2016e; Burke, 2012; McCowan, 2013; UNESCO/UNICEF, 2007; Spring, 2000; Vandenberg, 1990).Learning is a social process and formal systems of learning are necessary for social reproduction and the continual development of society. As with all living creatures, all people are born depending on others for their survival and development. They depend on others (e.g., family, school, community) to learn the required knowledge and skills to live within society.Education is therefore social in nature and a type of learning community.Although the ultimate purpose of education is to produce learning, education also inherently serves political, economic, social, and humanistic purposes.With globalization, humans live in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. The more complex the world becomes and the faster that change happens, the greater the need for lifelong and life-wide education. Different models and systems of open education help meet this need (Altbach, Gumport and Berdahl, 2011; Barnett, 2012; Burke, 2012; Dewey, 1916; Kezar, 2014; Knapper and Cropley, 2000; Kovbasyuk and Blessinger, 2012).In the US, for example, higher education and lifelong learning have been marked by four broad movements (or waves) over the last 150 years.The first wave was the result of the Morrill Act of 1862 which created a system of land-grant universities through the US;the second wave was the creation of the community and technical college system that began at the beginning of the twentieth century and the G.I. Bill of 1944, both of which extended access to higher education to millions of US citizens;the third wave was the use of information and communication technologies (e.g., television, internet) and distance education opportunities which helped create the anytime, anywhere educational movement; andthe fourth wave which has been brought about by the acceleration of globalization and the internationalization of higher education resulting in the growing recognition that lifelong learning and education is a human right which further expands the democratic social contract to education to all segments of society (Blessinger, 2015c, d, e).We suggest that the OE movement, and open methods as part of this, be considered a fifth wave in the history of education.Open Education to Support Education as a Human RightOne of the main reasons why higher education has become so diversified (in terms of institutional types and educational delivery models) and widely available to anyone who wishes to avail her/himself of it is because a university or college degree has become the gateway to professional careers and specific job opportunities, whether they be white, pink or blue collar. For instance, nearly all professions such as medicine, law, education, and engineering are only available to those with advanced university degrees.Many careers that once only required a high school diploma now require a college degree. In most countries certification and apprenticeships are now required in most vocational fields such as medical and legal assisting, welding, electronics, cosmetology, real estate, and culinary arts. Jobs have become more complex and more demanding throughout the labour market.Thus, it is no surprise that tertiary institutions of all types have grown in importance. Societies around the world are placing greater faith and reliance in educational systems to address a growing array of social and economic problems. Universal education is now widely viewed as one of the basic requirements for a modern society and it serves as a chief catalyst for socio-economic and personal development.Education at all levels (i.e., primary, secondary, tertiary) is now widely considered a human right because it yields so many positive benefits at a social, economic, and personal level (Hanushek and Woessmann, 2007), because it has become so vital to the development of social reproduction (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) and because continual learning is so necessary to human agency and development. Because of these factors, it would be an injustice to deny or constrain people from learning throughout the entirety of their lives (Kovbasyuk and Blessinger, 2013; Spring, 2000; Vandenberg, 1990).MOOCs, open educational resources, open universities, and the like therefore provide a low cost or zero cost means for anyone to access high quality educational materials. The costs associated with producing open educational services typically come from a variety of sources such institutional budgets, government support, and non-governmental support (e.g., foundations). In addition, studies have shown that costs for textbooks, for example, can be dramatically reduced using OER (Hilton, Robinson, Wiley, and Ackerman, 2014).Open education resources and platforms may be structured either as formal learning (i.e., part of a structured curriculum) or as non-formal learning (i.e., not structured as part of a curricula program leading to a certificate or degree but rather as one-off courses).In the years following WWII, the human and civil rights movement took on a new sense of urgency. This sense of urgency was a result, in large measure, of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by some people during WWII. When the full extent of these crimes was revealed it became clear that the civilized world community needed to intervene on a global scale.So, the United Nations, acting in their capacity as representatives of the world community, adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — UDHR (United Nations, 1948) which articulated those basic human rights that applied to all nations and cultures.(3) The UDHR states that everyone has a right to education at all levels.To conclude, we has discussed how democratic societies have gradually moved away from elitist and exclusivist systems of higher education that were based on power and privilege claims in favor of open and inclusive systems of higher education based on justice and human rights claims.This phenomenon represents a major paradigm shift in higher education. Since democratic societies are fundamentally based on principles of rights and justice, it should not come as a surprise that this transformation is occurring, albeit incrementally.Thus, the emergence of open education is a reflection of the broader democratic society in which it functions. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Democracy (1997) states that,“A sustained state of democracy thus requires a democratic climate and culture constantly nurtured and reinforced by education and other vehicles of culture and information”.(4) Thus, lifelong education, not just basic education, is needed to nurture and strengthen democracy. It does this by creating flexible and open educational structures that allow all people to engage in lifelong and life-wide learning. Given the increasing impact of globalization and the increasing importance of continual lifelong education for all, it is clear that treating education as a human right is imperative.(3)Recently a prestigious group of scholars, politicians and activists, under the leadership of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the auspices of New York University’s Global Institute for Advanced Study, convened the Global Citizenship Commission to re-examine the spirit of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Their findings are published in Gordon Brown (Ed.), The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 21st Century (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2016), http://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0091, http://www.openbookpublishers.com/ product/467. See, in particular, Section 6.3.d, “Human Rights Education” (pp. 97–99) and the online Appendix “Advancing Transformative Human Rights Education”, https://www.openbookpublishers.com/shopimages/The-UDHR-21st-C-AppendixD.pdfPS:“There comes a point when a creative work belongs to history as much as to its author and her heirs,“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” How refreshing it is to quote freely from another iconic Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken,” published in his poetry collection Mountain Interval in 1916. Its copyright expired in 1992 and that has made all the difference. The poem has inspired lyrics from Bruce Hornsby, Melissa Etheridge and George Strait, and its phrases have been used to sell cars, careers, computers and countless dorm room posters that feature the final lines as an exhortation to individualism that the poet likely never intended.That's an awesome event IMHO let's enjoyed it all of usFor the First Time in More Than 20 Years, Copyrighted Works Will Enter the Public Domain

The Mona Lisa (/ˌmoʊnə ˈliːsə/; Italian: Monna Lisa [ˈmɔnna ˈliːza] or La Gioconda [la dʒoˈkonda], French: La Joconde [la ʒɔkɔ̃d]) is a half-length portrait of a woman by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been acclaimed as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.The subject's expression, which is frequently described as enigmatic the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modeling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism were novel qualities that have contributed to the continuing fascination and study of the work.The title of the painting, which is known in English as Mona Lisa, comes from a description by Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari, who wrote "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife."[5][6] Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ma donna – similar to Ma’am, Madam, or my lady in English. This became madonna, and its contraction mona. The title of the painting, though traditionally spelled "Mona" (as used by Vasari[5]), is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as Monna Lisa ("mona" being a vulgarity in some Italian dialects) but this is rare in English.[citation needed]Vasari's account of the Mona Lisa comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550, 31 years after the artist's death. It has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter. Leonardo's assistant Salaì, at his death in 1525, owned a portrait which in his personal papers was named la Gioconda, a painting bequeathed to him by Leonardo.That Leonardo painted such a work, and its date, were confirmed in 2005 when a scholar at Heidelberg University discovered a marginal note in a 1477 printing of a volume written by the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero. Dated October 1503, the note was written by Leonardo's contemporary Agostino Vespucci. This note likens Leonardo to renowned Greek painter Apelles, who is mentioned in the text, and states that Leonardo was at that time working on a painting of Lisa del Giocondo.[7]A margin note by Agostino Vespucci (visible at right) discovered in a book at Heidelberg University. Dated 1503, it states that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo.The model, Lisa del Giocondo,[8][9] was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo.[10] The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea.[11] The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means "jocund" ("happy" or "jovial") or, literally, "the jocund one", a pun on the feminine form of Lisa's married name, "Giocondo".[10][12] In French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning.Before that discovery, scholars had developed several alternative views as to the subject of the painting. Some argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the Mona Lisa referred to by Vasari.[13][14] Several other women have been proposed as the subject of the painting.[15] Isabella of Aragon,[16] Cecilia Gallerani,[17] Costanza d'Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla,[15] Isabella d'Este, Pacifica Brandano or Brandino, Isabela Gualanda, Caterina Sforza—even Salaì and Leonardo himself—are all among the list of posited models portrayed in the painting.[18][19] The consensus of art historians in the 21st century maintains the long-held traditional opinion, that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo.[7]HistoryPresumed self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, executed in red chalk sometime between 1512 and 1515Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, Italy.[20] Although the Louvre states that it was "doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506",[4] the art historian Martin Kemp says there is some difficulty in confirming the actual dates with certainty.[10] According to Leonardo's contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, "after he had lingered over it four years, [he] left it unfinished".[6] Leonardo, later in his life, is said to have regretted "never having completed a single work".[21]In 1516, Leonardo was invited by King François I to work at the Clos Lucé near the king's castle in Amboise. It is believed that he took the Mona Lisa with him and continued to work after he moved to France.[18] Art historian Carmen C. Bambach has concluded that da Vinci probably continued refining the work until 1516 or 1517.[22]Upon his death, the painting was inherited with other works by his pupil and assistant Salaì.[10] Francis I bought the painting for 4,000 écus and kept it at Palace of Fontainebleau, where it remained until Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre, but spent a brief period in the bedroom of Napoleon in the Tuileries Palace.During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) it was moved from the Louvre to the Brest Arsenal.[23] During World War II, the painting was again removed from the Louvre and taken safely, first to Château d'Amboise, then to the Loc-Dieu Abbey and Château de Chambord, then finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban.In December 2015, it was reported that French scientist Pascal Cotte had found a hidden portrait underneath the surface of the painting using reflective light technology.[24] The portrait is an underlying image of a model looking off to the side.[25] Having been given access to the painting by Louvre in 2004, Cotte spent ten years using layer amplification methods to study the painting.[24] According to Cotte, the underlying image is Leonardo's original Mona Lisa.[24][26]"La Joconde est Retrouvée" ("Mona Lisa is Found"), Le Petit Parisien, 13 December 1913Vacant wall in the Salon Carré, Louvre after the painting was stolen in 1911On 21 August 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre.[27] The next day, painter Louis Béroud walked into the museum and went to the Salon Carré where the Mona Lisa had been on display for five years, only to find four iron pegs on the wall. Béroud contacted the head of the guards, who thought the painting was being photographed for promotional purposes. A few hours later, Béroud checked back with the Section Chief of the Louvre who confirmed that the Mona Lisa was not with the photographers. The Louvre was closed for an entire week during the investigation.The Mona Lisa on display in the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, 1913. Museum director Giovanni Poggi (right) inspects the painting.French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be "burnt down", came under suspicion and was arrested and imprisoned. Apollinaire implicated his friend Pablo Picasso, who was brought in for questioning. Both were later exonerated.[28][29] Two years later the thief was found. Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen the Mona Lisa by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet, and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed.[12] Peruggia was an Italian patriot who believed da Vinci's painting should have been returned for display in an Italian museum. Peruggia may have also been motivated by a friend whose copies of the original would significantly rise in value after the painting's theft. A later account suggested Eduardo de Valfierno had been the mastermind of the theft and had commissioned forger Yves Chaudron to create six copies of the painting to sell in the U.S. while the location of the original was unclear.[30] However, the original painting remained in Europe. After having kept the Mona Lisa in his apartment for two years, Peruggia grew impatient and was caught when he attempted to sell it to directors of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It was exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery for over two weeks and returned to the Louvre on 4 January 1914.[31] Peruggia served six months in prison for the crime and was hailed for his patriotism in Italy.[29] Before its theft, the Mona Lisa was not widely known outside the art world. It was not until the 1860s that some critics, a thin slice of the French intelligentsia, began to hail it as a masterwork of Renaissance painting.[32]In 1956, part of the painting was damaged when a vandal threw acid at it.[33] On 30 December of that year, a speck of pigment near the left elbow was damaged when a rock was thrown at the painting, which was later restored.[34]The use of bulletproof glass has shielded the Mona Lisa from subsequent attacks. In April 1974, a woman, upset by the museum's policy for disabled people, sprayed red paint at it while it was being displayed at the Tokyo National Museum.[35] On 2 August 2009, a Russian woman, distraught over being denied French citizenship, threw a ceramic teacup purchased at the Louvre; the vessel shattered against the glass enclosure.[36][37] In both cases, the painting was undamaged.AestheticsDetail of the background (right side)The Mona Lisa bears a strong resemblance to many Renaissance depictions of the Virgin Mary, who was at that time seen as an ideal for womanhood.[38]The depiction of the sitter in three-quarter profile is similar to late 15th-century works by Lorenzo di Credi and Agnolo di Domenico del Mazziere.[38] Zöllner notes that the sitter's general position can be traced back to Flemish models and that "in particular the vertical slices of columns at both sides of the panel had precedents in Flemish portraiture."[39] Woods-Marsden cites Hans Memling's portrait of Benededetto Portinari (1487) or Italian imitations such as Sebastiano Mainardi's pendant portraits for the use of a loggia, which has the effect of mediating between the sitter and the distant landscape, a feature missing from Leonardo's earlier portrait of Ginevra de' Benci.[40]The woman sits markedly upright in a "pozzetto" armchair with her arms folded, a sign of her reserved posture. Only her gaze is fixed on the observer and seems to welcome them to this silent look of communication.[original research?] Since the brightly lit face is practically framed by much darker elements (hair, veil, shadows), the observer's attraction to her is brought out to an even greater extent.[original research?] The woman appears alive to an unusual extent, which Leonardo achieved by his new method of not drawing outlines (sfumato). The soft blending creates an ambiguous mood "mainly in two features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes".[41]Detail of Lisa's hands, her right hand resting on her left. Leonardo chose this gesture rather than a wedding ring to depict Lisa as a virtuous woman and faithful wife.[42]The painting was one of the first portraits to depict the sitter in front of an imaginary landscape, and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective.[43] The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her, a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. Leonardo has chosen to place the horizon line not at the neck, as he did with Ginevra de' Benci, but on a level with the eyes, thus linking the figure with the landscape and emphasizing the mysterious nature of the painting.[40]Mona Lisa has no clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at this time for genteel women to pluck these hairs, as they were considered unsightly.[44][45] In 2007, French engineer Pascal Cotte announced that his ultra-high resolution scans of the painting provide evidence that Mona Lisa was originally painted with eyelashes and with visible eyebrows, but that these had gradually disappeared over time, perhaps as a result of overcleaning.[46] Cotte discovered the painting had been reworked several times, with changes made to the size of the Mona Lisa's face and the direction of her gaze. He also found that in one layer the subject was depicted wearing numerous hairpins and a headdress adorned with pearls which was later scrubbed out and overpainted.[47]There has been much speculation regarding the painting's model and landscape. For example, Leonardo probably painted his model faithfully since her beauty is not seen as being among the best, "even when measured by late quattrocento (15th century) or even twenty-first century standards."[48] Some art historians in Eastern art, such as Yukio Yashiro, also argue that the landscape in the background of the picture was influenced by Chinese paintings.[49] However, this thesis has been contested for lack of clear evidence.[49]Research in 2008 by a geomorphology professor at Urbino University and an artist-photographer revealed likenesses of Mona Lisa's landscapes to some views in the Montefeltro region in the Italian provinces of Pesaro, Urbino and Rimini.[50][51]ConservationThe Mona Lisa has survived for more than 500 years, and an international commission convened in 1952 noted that "the picture is in a remarkable state of preservation."[52] This is partly due to the result of a variety of conservation treatments the painting has undergone. A detailed analysis in 1933 by Madame de Gironde revealed that earlier restorers had "acted with a great deal of restraint."[52] Nevertheless, applications of varnish made to the painting had darkened even by the end of the 16th century, and an aggressive 1809 cleaning and revarnishing removed some of the uppermost portion of the paint layer, resulting in a washed-out appearance to the face of the figure. Despite the treatments, the Mona Lisa has been well cared for throughout its history, and although the panel's warping caused the curators "some worry",[53] the 2004–05 conservation team was optimistic about the future of the work.[52]Poplar panelAt some point, the Mona Lisa was removed from its original frame. The unconstrained poplar panel warped freely with changes in humidity, and as a result, a crack developed near the top of the panel, extending down to the hairline of the figure. In the mid-18th century to early 19th century, two butterfly-shaped walnut braces were inserted into the back of the panel to a depth of about 1/3 the thickness of the panel. This intervention was skillfully executed, and successfully stabilized the crack. Sometime between 1888 and 1905, or perhaps during the picture's theft, the upper brace fell out. A later restorer glued and lined the resulting socket and crack with cloth. The flexible oak frame (added 1951) and cross braces (1970) help to keep the panel from warping further.[citation needed]The picture is kept under strict, climate-controlled conditions in its bulletproof glass case. The humidity is maintained at 50% ±10%, and the temperature is maintained between 18 and 21 °C. To compensate for fluctuations in relative humidity, the case is supplemented with a bed of silica gel treated to provide 55% relative humidity.[52]FrameBecause the Mona Lisa's poplar support expands and contracts with changes in humidity, the picture has experienced some warping. In response to warping and swelling experienced during its storage during World War II, and to prepare the picture for an exhibit to honor the anniversary of Leonardo's 500th birthday, the Mona Lisa was fitted in 1951 with a flexible oak frame with beech crosspieces. This flexible frame, which is used in addition to the decorative frame described below, exerts pressure on the panel to keep it from warping further. In 1970, the beech crosspieces were switched to maple after it was found that the beechwood had been infested with insects. In 2004–05, a conservation and study team replaced the maple crosspieces with sycamore ones, and an additional metal crosspiece was added for scientific measurement of the panel's warp.The Mona Lisa has had many different decorative frames in its history, owing to changes in taste over the centuries. In 1909, the Comtesse de Béhague gave the portrait its current frame,[54] a Renaissance-era work consistent with the historical period of the Mona Lisa. The edges of the painting have been trimmed at least once in its history to fit the picture into various frames, but no part of the original paint layer has been trimmed.[52]Cleaning and touch-upThe first and most extensive recorded cleaning, revarnishing, and touch-up of the Mona Lisa was an 1809 wash and revarnishing undertaken by Jean-Marie Hooghstoel, who was responsible for restoration of paintings for the galleries of the Musée Napoléon. The work involved cleaning with spirits, touch-up of colour, and revarnishing the painting. In 1906, Louvre restorer Eugène Denizard performed watercolour retouches on areas of the paint layer disturbed by the crack in the panel. Denizard also retouched the edges of the picture with varnish, to mask areas that had been covered initially by an older frame. In 1913, when the painting was recovered after its theft, Denizard was again called upon to work on the Mona Lisa. Denizard was directed to clean the picture without solvent, and to lightly touch up several scratches to the painting with watercolour. In 1952, the varnish layer over the background in the painting was evened out. After the second 1956 attack, restorer Jean-Gabriel Goulinat was directed to touch up the damage to Mona Lisa's left elbow with watercolour.[52]In 1977, a new insect infestation was discovered in the back of the panel as a result of crosspieces installed to keep the painting from warping. This was treated on the spot with carbon tetrachloride, and later with an ethylene oxide treatment. In 1985, the spot was again treated with carbon tetrachloride as a preventive measure.[52]DisplayMona Lisa behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre MuseumOn 6 April 2005—following a period of curatorial maintenance, recording, and analysis—the painting was moved to a new location within the museum's Salle des États. It is displayed in a purpose-built, climate-controlled enclosure behind bulletproof glass.[55] Since 2005 the painting has been illuminated by an LED lamp, and in 2013 a new 20 watt LED lamp was installed, specially designed for this painting. The lamp has a Colour Rendering Index up to 98, and minimizes infrared and ultraviolet radiation which could otherwise degrade the painting.[56] The renovation of the gallery where the painting now resides was financed by the Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television.[57] About 6 million people view the painting at the Louvre each year.[18]Fame2014: Mona Lisa is among the greatest attractions in the LouvreToday the Mona Lisa is considered the most famous painting in the world but until the 20th century, Mona Lisa was one among many and not the "most famous painting" as it is now termed.[58] Once part of the king's collection, the Mona Lisa was among the very first artworks to be exhibited in Louvre, which became a national museum after the French Revolution. From the 19th century Leonardo began to be revered as a genius and the painting's popularity grew from the middle of the 19th century when French intelligentsia developed a theme that the painting was somehow mysterious and a representation of the femme fatal.[59] In 1878, the Baedeker guide called it "the most celebrated work of Leonardo in the Louvre".[60] but it was known more by the intellectual elite than the general public.US President John F. Kennedy, Madeleine Malraux, André Malraux, Jacqueline Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson at the unveiling of the Mona Lisa at the National Gallery of Art during its visit to Washington D.C., 8 January 1963The 1911 theft and the subsequent return was reported worldwide, leading to a massive increase in public recognition of the painting. During the 20th century it was an object for mass reproduction, merchandising, lampooning and speculation, and was claimed to have been reproduced in "300 paintings and 2,000 advertisements".[60]From December 1962 to March 1963, the French government lent it to the United States to be displayed in New York City and Washington, D.C.[61] It was shipped on the new liner SS France. In New York an estimated 1.7 million people queued "in order to cast a glance at the Mona Lisa for 20 seconds or so."[60] In 1974, the painting was exhibited in Tokyo and Moscow.[62]In 2014, 9.3 million people visited the Louvre,[63] Former director Henri Loyrette reckoned that "80 percent of the people only want to see the Mona Lisa."[64]ValueBefore the 1962–63 tour, the painting was assessed for insurance at $100 million. The insurance was not bought. Instead, more was spent on security.[65] Adjusted for inflation using the US Consumer Price Index, $100 million in 1962 is around US$782 million in 2015[66] making it, in practice, by far the most valued painting in the world.In 2014 a France 24 article suggested that the painting could be sold to help ease the national debt, although it was noted that the Mona Lisa and other such art works were prohibited from being sold due to French heritage law, which states that "Collections held in museums that belong to public bodies are considered public property and cannot be otherwise."[67]LegacySee also: Mona Lisa replicas and reinterpretationsRaphael's Young Woman with Unicorn, (c. 1506)Raphael's Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (c. 1514–15)Before its completion the Mona Lisa had already begun to influence contemporary Florentine painting. Raphael, who had been to Leonardo's workshop several times, promptly used elements of the portrait's composition and format in several of his works, such as Young Woman with Unicorn (c. 1506[68]), and Portrait of Maddalena Doni (c. 1506). Celebrated later paintings by Raphael, La velata (1515-16) and Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (c. 1514–15), continued to borrow from Leonardo's painting. Zollner states that "None of Leonardo's works would exert more influence upon the evolution of the genre than the Mona Lisa. It became the definitive example of the Renaissance portrait and perhaps for this reason is seen not jut as the likeness of a real person, but also as the embodiment of an ideal."[69]Early commentators such as Vasari and André Félibien praised the picture for its realism, but by the Victorian era writers began to regard the Mona Lisa as imbued with a sense of mystery and romance. In 1859 Théophile Gautier wrote that the Mona Lisa was a "sphinx of beauty who smiles so mysteriously" and that "Beneath the form expressed one feels a thought that is vague, infinite, inexpressible. One is moved, troubled ... repressed desires, hopes that drive one to despair, stir painfully." Walter Pater's famous essay of 1869 described the sitter as "older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in the deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her."[70] By the early 20th century some critics started to feel the painting had become a repository for subjective exegeses and theories,[71] and upon the paintings theft in 1911, Renaissance historian Bernard Berenson admitted that it had "simply become an incubus, and I was glad to be rid of her."[71][72]Le rire (The Laugh) by Eugène Bataille, or Sapeck (1883)L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp (1919)The avant-garde art world has made note of the undeniable fact of the Mona Lisa's popularity. Because of the painting's overwhelming stature, Dadaists and Surrealists often produce modifications and caricatures. Already in 1883, Le rire, an image of a Mona Lisa smoking a pipe, by Sapeck (Eugène Bataille), was shown at the "Incoherents" show in Paris. In 1919, Marcel Duchamp, one of the most influential modern artists, created L.H.O.O.Q., a Mona Lisa parody made by adorning a cheap reproduction with a moustache and a goatee. Duchamp added an inscription, which when read out loud in French sounds like "Elle a chaud au cul" meaning: "she has a hot ass", implying the woman in the painting is in a state of sexual excitement and intended as a Freudian joke.[73] According to Rhonda R. Shearer, the apparent reproduction is in fact a copy partly modelled on Duchamp's own face.[74]Salvador Dalí, famous for his surrealist work, painted Self portrait as Mona Lisa in 1954.[75] In 1963 following the painting's visit to the United States, Andy Warhol created serigraph prints of multiple Mona Lisas called Thirty are Better than One, like his works of Marilyn Monroe (Twenty-five Coloured Marilyns, 1962), Elvis Presley (1964) and Campbell's soup (1961–62).[76] The Mona Lisa continues to inspire artists around the world. A French urban artist known pseudonymously as Invader has created versions on city walls in Paris and Tokyo using his trademark mosaic style.[77] A collection of Mona Lisa parodies may be found on YouTube.[78] A number of recent Mona Lisa parodies are collected at Many Mona Lisas, including copies of those by Warhol, Dali, and Terry Gilliam. A recent New Yorker magazine cartoon parodies the supposed enigma of the Mona Lisa smile in an animation showing progressively maniacal smiles.Early copiesPrado Museum La GiocondaA version of Mona Lisa known as Mujer de mano de Leonardo Abince (English: Leonardo da Vinci’s handy woman) held in Madrid's Museo del Prado was for centuries considered to be a work of da Vinci himself. However, since its restoration in 2012 it is considered to be a work by one of Leonardo's pupils, painted in da Vinci's studio while the other (Louvre version) was being painted.[79] Their conclusion, based on analysis obtained after the picture underwent extensive restoration, that the painting is probably by Salaí (1480-1524) or by Melzi (1493-1572). This has been called into question by others.[80]The restored painting is from a slightly different perspective than the original Mona Lisa, leading to the speculation that it is part of the world's first stereoscopic image pair.[81][82]Isleworth Mona LisaMain article: Isleworth Mona LisaA version of the Mona Lisa known as the Isleworth Mona Lisa was first bought by an English nobleman in 1778 and was rediscovered in 1913 by Hugh Blaker, an art connoisseur. The painting was presented to the media in 2012 by the Mona Lisa Foundation.[83] The owners claim that Leonardo contributed to the painting, a theory that Leonardo experts such as Zöllner and Kemp deny has any substance.[84