BBC Learning’s Open Lab{#c7nw}, a brilliant new website for the open source development of educational resources, is now live. Not unlike the Open Source Schools site, Open Lab is about fostering a community around the notion of sharing: content, knowledge and experience. By developing resources as open source, teachers and developers will be able to build on the great work started through Open Lab, and the BBC are keen that everyone has a chance to contribute, so are looking for ideas and feedback as well as development projects. As a way of getting teachers, students and developers working together on a creating tools and resources, the BBC has here a project with huge potential for not only developing great code, but also for transforming the way educational software gets written.

Open Lab’s open source approach isn’t limited to software, with a recognition of the importance open standards, Web 2.0 ‘mash-ups’{#l} and open content{#csj-} , as well as open access content from the BBC, through the Beeb It{#i3rw} learning resource finder extension for Firefox.

Open Lab is closely linked to the BBC’s existing Backstage{#k0ff} project. The aim is to support the BBC’s public commitment to openness through:

• Supporting the development of free to use, learning focused code, applications and projects
• Encouraging innovation through open tools and content
• Facilitating cross-sector communication and knowledge transfer
• Contributing to the UK open source community
• Supplying innovative and fresh learning resources.

So, what sort of open source code would you like to help develop? Ideas direct to the BBC{#vo4q}.