To serve its goal of integrating academics and technology, the center has developed a "rotisserie model" for conducting on-line discussions and promoting interaction over the Web. Rotisserie essentially means that center affiliates can add their own input to the site and have its displayed.

The center's educational software is non-proprietary, meaning that users of the center's Web sites can change the actual programming of educational software downloaded in order to make them better serve their needs.

Nesson describes the focal point of the open code work, a plan to create an "H2O" consortium that would "benefit from a commons of open code teaching and learning tools."

The water metaphor illustrates the ease of flow and transparency that Nesson identifies with open code.

In a recent e-mail message to legal and Internet scholars across the country, Nesson, Zittrain and Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies Lawrence Lessig laid out their vision of the Internet's potential for revolutionizing education.

"The Net offers amazing prospects for transforming the way we teach, both adjunct to physical-world classrooms and in its own right as a teaching medium," the message read.

Recipients of the e-mail have been invited to a conference on May 20 at which the formation of a new non-profit organization will be discussed.

The message states that "membership and leadership [of the new organization will be] open to all individuals, research centers, and universities who wish to contribute to its vision and/or actively sponsor the development of open software for pedagogy."

Other Priorities

Along with open code, Nesson lists open content, open governance, security and open commerce as the center's chief areas of research.

Nesson says content issues lie within Lessig's domain at the center, as Lessig specializes in the field of intellectual property rights.

The primary example of the center's content work is its involvement in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Eldritch Press, an on-line provider of scholarly texts and classic works.

According to Zittrain, who joined Nesson, Lessig and two Boston attorneys in signing the Eldritch filing, the case is "about openness" and is being discussed on-line thanks to open code.

The "open governance" component of the center deals with the regulation of domain names--Web site addresses--around the world that are all currently entrusted to a non-profit company known as ICANN.

Zittrain says the center is preparing a study that outlines how ICANN might become subject to oversight by Internet users.