Jonathan L. Zittrain, the Berkman Center's executive director and an HLS lecturer, explains that the Harvard administration has "gotten worried over ownership issues."

Among the courses being offered through the Berkman Center this semester are "Homer's Poetic Justice," taught by Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature Gregory Nagy, and "Privacy in Cyberspace" with Bromley Professor of Law Arthur R. Miller.

The Berkman Center is calling each course a "lecture and discussion series" so that they will not be mistaken for real Harvard classes.

The Wonders of Open Code

One of the distinctive features of the center's academic software is its openness, explain Nesson and Zittrain.

To serve its goal of integrating academics and technology, the center ha s developed a "rotisserie model" for conducting on-line discussions and promoting interaction over the Web.

Like all Berkman innovations, the rotisserie software is non-proprietary, meaning that users of the center's Web sites can change the actual programming of the sites 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."