Tag: creativecommons

Open Education

Open Up: OER for Higher Ed Teaching, Learning, and Support Services

Laura Pasquini

In my previous blog post on Creative Commons, I shared a bit about copyright and the rights users can apply when sharing/licensing their work. This is often a common practice for those who create “works” (e.g. media, photos, designs, writing, songs, etc.); however, more educators need to consider how they actually share in open ways. Opening up your practice in higher ed is not a new concept – but sadly, open licensing is not a commonly used practice among my peers who teach, publish, and support learners. I think we could do better go get even postsecondary educators (graduate students, staff, faculty, and administrators) to join this open movement by educating and informing them about open licensing and OER practices.

Let’s first get on the same page by review the UNESCO’s (May 2019) definition of Open Educational Resources (OER):

“Teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, reuse, repurpose, adaptation, and redistribution by others.”

Openness in higher education is often used by librarians, instructors, and a handful of other professionals around campus. Storing, archiving, and sharing artifacts from our work in academia is often left to those publishing, authors, and academic librarians. I think we could do better as individual professionals, at our institutions, and even within our professional organizations/associations. For example, when is the last time a conference or workshop suggested you share your presentation, paper, etc. with a given license on it for it to be reused, remixed, or adapted?

For those of you who are interested and want to get acquainted with the land of the OER, have I got a resource for you! There is an excellent OPEN toolkit on the topic of open licensing recently released by the National Forum Teaching & Learning (NF T&L) in Ireland,

This past week, NF T&L also offered an Introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Licensing to accompany this open publication. [Thanks for hosting and sharing about this, @catherinecronin]:

The National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit

The National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit outlines the National Forum’s commitment to open licensing, which enables the creation and sharing of open educational resources. The toolkit provides a detailed description of Creative Commons (CC) licenses, the global standard for open licensing, as well as a 4-step guide to choosing, creating and adding CC licenses to resources in order to make them OER, i.e. able to be shared, reused and adapted in different institutional, disciplinary and program contexts.

Reference:

National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. (2019, May 15). The National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit in teachingandlearning.ie Retrieved from https://www.teachingandlearning.ie/publication/the-national-forum-open-licensing-toolkit/.

This webinar and toolkit offers some great ways to start thinking about and applying OER into your daily work in higher ed. I have been a big fan of The 5 R’s for OER (from The Power of Open Educational Resources by @opencontent) for a while as I always appreciate an open educational remix. The 5 R’s offer ways to have control of rights, accessing others work, and updating works for your own projects and work (if permitted, and licensed):

  1. Retain: make and own a copy
  2. Reuse: use in a wide range of ways
  3. Revise: adapt, modify, and improve
  4. Remix: combine two or more
  5. Redistribute: share with others

Professionals using OER are not just limited to higher education (e.g. libraries, faculty, students, researchers or administrators), but a number of businesses, NGOs, publishers, museums, government, galleries, and more are finding open licensing helpful in their occupational domains. Beyond the CC Search (https://search.creativecommons.org/), there are OER repositories that house openly licensed materials, images, media, files, lessons, books, etc. Here is a short list (not exclusive) of OER repositories mentioned in the NF T&L webinar and a few others I like to use for teaching, learning, and projects:

As you search, find, and perhaps use one of the 5 R’s, you can then choose to share your work by selecting the appropriate open license. This continues the cycle of openness as you disseminate your practices and scholarship openly for others to access. If you search and find an OER object for your teaching, learning, and/or services on campus, you will want to include TASL with the open license for attribution:

  • Title: name of item, object, media, or work
  • Author: who created said “thing”
  • Source: this is the URL or website where it was found or retrieved from
  • License: include the CC BY open license label

In the @CreativeCommons regularily updated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) list, there is a wealth of information and resources, regarding the legal and use copyright laws. These are the typical questions you might have and seek answer for to understand more about CC BY licenses. Two shared in the webinar, were the following questions (with linked/URL responses):

Can I combine material under different Creative Commons licenses in my work?

Answered in the URL connected to the question, but I thought I’d share this visual. This chart offers a helpful crosswalk of how you can use CC BY work, and how you can remix and license your work after using a particular CC BY object. This is very useful for when you might want to remix or reuse OER content for teaching, learning, and support services AND redistribute this updated version of your work:

If I create a collection that includes a work offered under a CC license, which license(s) may I choose for the collection?

This chart identifies what licensing can and cannot be use commercially if utilizing any Creative Commons licensed materials. Beyond attribution and use, it is important to note the legal* rights and protections of works with CC BY licenses.

Thanks for a helpful 101 for open licensing and OER resources NF T&L: http://bit.ly/NF-OER — I look forward to following along with your educational offerings and I will definitely share these with my colleagues to expand openness in postsecondary education.

*I am not a lawyer, nor should you consider this specific legal advice when it comes to copyright. Just overarching advise and direction of where to get started. Get a copyright lawyer and/or campus attorney to inquire more about intellectual property and copyright. Thanks!
Library, Library Science, Open Education

To Share Your Work, You Gotta Put a @CreativeCommons License On It!

Laura Pasquini

Per my last post, I’m fully immersed in the land of the digital libraries this summer and I will be pulling together a digital library (DL) of my own based on a research project I am wrapping up this summer: Networked Communities of Practice

We have a few publications coming out soon, a few under review, a couple recently revised/resubmitted, and a couple more in development. In addition to the traditional scholarly outlets (e.g. journal articles or conference proceedings), we’re also working on sharing more about the two-year investigation into the lived, digital/social experiences of higher education professionals (e.g. graduate students, staff, and faculty) in other ways. .

One project this summer from this study, is to broaden the impact of our work to disseminate the research findings, practical implications, data sets, and networked practices/communities through non-academic, digital avenues. We hope to offer ways to find and use the data archives (e.g. open data sets, communities, etc.) and provide professional development resources for others to connect to these learning networks.

During our search, discovery, and conversations with participants, we have discovered a number of professional learning networks, online communities of practice, and a wealth of training resources to share with postsecondary educators in a digital collection. Specific digital objects and born digital items can be organized and itemized for others to gain access and utilize. Materials within this digital library (DL) are only able to include public domain, fair use, and open educational resources (OER), that is, Creative Common licensed objects. I am in the midst of reaching out and educating a few communities for how they can digitize and effectively share (based on copyright permissions) how to best share their work or groups archives via this DL project.Here are a few proposed digital objects I hope to include in my collection:

That being said. Just because you upload, post, and share about your networked learning, practice, or community — does NOT make it an eligible digital object for inclusion in this digital library project. I hope to support individuals, groups, organizations, and communities who might want to be included in this archived library resource — especially if they do not have any license on their work and may want to be part of this digital collection.

Basically, I have been singing in my head: “If you want me to share your work, community, or professional learning resource — you will have to put a Creative Commons license on it!” Point of information, based on the copyright Beyoncé in this video, I would not be able to include this in my digital library:

To review and offer more information about this process, I thought give a few definitions of what can be included in this digital library collection.

Copyright

The copyright details how to share material while still respecting the rights of the content creators. This itemizes the permission of use and designates rights for protected materials. Copyright law applies to all works, including print, media, and electronic formats. For example, books, magazines, online articles, songs, screenplays, choreography, art, software, work, software, podcasts, and photos are all protected under copyright law. Those items that are not covered under copyright include ideas, facts, some data, and government items. When in doubt, get permission or determine if it is required or not. Don’t believe the big copyright myths, especially when it comes to digital collections and objects. Here are a few helpful copyright guides/resources from UNT:

Public Domain

The public domain refers to creative materials or works that are not protected by intellectual property laws, including copyright, trademark, or patent laws. These materials are owned by the public, not an individual author, artist, or creator.  Public domain materials and work may be used without obtaining any permission; however, no one is permitted to claim ownership for it. More information about the Public Domain, “Collective Works,” and when copyright expires can be found at the Copyright & Fair Use Website via Stanford Universityand Teaching Copyright via the EFF.

Fair Use

As defined by the US Copyright Office (2019), “Fair Use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use.” When considering if objects or materials are under fair use, you should examine the four requirements:

  1. The purpose is for nonprofit, noncommercial educational use (typical cases).
  2. The nature of the copyrighted work is consistent with the proposed use.
  3. The amount and substantial of the original work involved some small uses can be considered an infringement, that is, a small portion involves the core idea in the copyrighted work.
  4. The effect of using the copyrighted work is not likely to deprive the copyright holder of sales or market interest.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons offers copyright licenses and tools to allow for content to be shared beyond the traditional “all rights reserved” setting and decide on the best form of attribution for their work. The goal is to refine how copyright works and allows content creators to choose if they want to retain copyright while letting others copy, distribute, and make use of part of their work. You can decide what the copyright is and how others may use your photo, music, or works. In a video, Grigas (2017) describes how Creative Commons licenses provide:

“everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.“

To enhance your learning, training, and/or presentation materials, you may want to find creative commons and public domain images, videos, music, or media. Certain websites, such as Flickr Creative Commons, even offer users content with specific attribution for use. There is even a Creative Commons Search to aggregate even more content to share, use and remix, including media, images, video, audio, music, photography, and web resources. Besides Flickr, there are a number of other helpful sites to locate Public Domain or Creative Commons images. Additionally, there are ways to attribute and provide CC by licenses via other online accounts including YouTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Archive.org, and your blog or website. Here are some resources from about copyright and Creative Commons to support your putting a #CC license on  your work:

Image by @laurapasquiniImage c/o laurapasquini on Flickr CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0

Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons licenses

There are six main Creative Commons licenses you can use when you choose to publish your work under CC terms. The six CC licenses are based on four conditions. The four conditions and the six licenses are described below.

License Conditions

When using a Creative Commons license, creators choose a set of conditions they wish to apply to their work.

Attribution Attribution (by)

All CC licenses require that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request, but not in a way that suggests you endorse them or their use. If they want to use your work without giving you credit or for endorsement purposes, they must get your permission first.

ShareAlike ShareAlike (sa)

You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify your work, as long as they distribute any modified work on the same terms. If they want to distribute modified works under other terms, they must get your permission first.

NonCommercial NonCommercial (nc)

You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and (unless you have chosen NoDerivatives) modify and use your work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get your permission first.

NoDerivatives NoDerivatives (nd)

You let others copy, distribute, display and perform only original copies of your work. If they want to modify your work, they must get your permission first.

License Types

Creative Commons offers six copyright licenses, based on combinations of the four conditions outlined above.

Open Education

Getting Started with Copyright, Fair Use, The Public Domain, and Creative Commons

Laura Pasquini

There are no shortages of articles, resources, videos, and ideas found online to support our educational planning.  With the vast amount of ways to create and disseminate learning materials, it is critical to appropriately share, curate, remix, and adapt educational content. In open education, it is important to understand how to attribute and identify copyright, fair use, and intellectual property.

Flickr image c/o Langwitches

In gathering resources for my courses and to encourage appropriate attribution as my students to create, this is a quick overview and definitions of copyright, fair use, the public domain, and the creative commons.

Copyright

The Basics of Copyright 

[Video; 6:19 minutes]This is an introductory video in copyright law, specifically about how to share copyrighted material at work while still respecting the rights of the content creators. Will you require permission before using materials? Do you ask permission before using protected content?

This is an introductory video in copyright law, specifically about how to share copyrighted material at work while still respecting the rights of the content creators. Will you require permission before using materials? Do you ask permission before using protected content?

  • Copyright law applies to all works, including print, media, and electronic mediums
  • Protected: Books, magazines, online articles, songs, screens plays, choreography, art,  software, work, software, podcasts, and photos
  • Not Protected: Ideas, facts & data; government items
  • Know the facts about copyright, not the myths
  • Get permission if required (when in doubt get permission)
  • Just because you found it online, & it is publicly available does not mean it is free to use
  • Not sure? Just ASK! Legal counsel at your workplace or an information professional (in the College of Information) or at the UNT Library for advice.
  • UNT Copyright Resources https://copyright.unt.edu/
  • CLEAR Copyright Guide for Instructors http://clear.unt.edu/copyright
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation: Teaching Copyright Resources 

Flickr image c/o Horia Valarn

Fair Use

Fair Use from copyright.gov:

“Fair Use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use.”

Specifically, there are four requirements for fair use of materials:

    1. The purpose is for nonprofit, noncommercial educational use (typical cases).
    2. The nature of the copyrighted work is consistent with the proposed use.
    3. The amount and substantial of the original work involved some small uses can be considered an infringement, that is, a small portion involves the core idea in the copyrighted work.
    4. The effect of using the copyrighted work is not likely to deprive the copyright holder of sales or market interest.

Public Domain

The “public domain” relates to creative materials or works that are not protected by intellectual property laws, including copyright, trademark, or patent laws. These materials are owned by the public, not an individual author, artist, or creator.  Public domain materials and work may be used without obtaining any permission; however, no one is permitted to claim ownership for it. More information about the Public Domain, “Collective Works,” and when copyright expires can be found at the Copyright & Fair Use Website via Stanford University and Teaching Copyright via the EFF.

 Creative Commons  

Wanna Work Together? from Creative Commons on Vimeo. Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools allow for content to be shared beyond the traditional “all rights reserved” setting and decide on the best form of attribution for their work. The goal is to refine how copyright works and allows content creators to CHOOSE if they want to retain copyright while letting others copy, distribute, and make use of part of their work. You can decide what the copyright is and how others may use your photo, music, or works. Creative Commons licenses provide:

“everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.“

To enhance your learning, training, and/or presentation materials, you may want to find creative commons and public domain images, videos, music, or media. Certain websites, such as Flickr Creative Commons, even offer users content with specific attribution for use. There is even a Creative Commons Search to aggregate even more content to share, use and remix, including media, images, video, audio, music, photography, and web resources. Besides Flickr, there are a number of other helpful sites to locate Public Domain or Creative Commons images. Additionally, there are ways to attribute and provide CC by licenses via other online accounts including YouTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Archive.org, and your blog or website.

Want to learn more about Creative Commons and Open Educational Resources (OERs)? Check out UNT CLEAR‘s Creative Commons Guide and the UBC’s OER Accessibility Toolkit.

Collaboration, Higher Education, K-12, Open Education

Get Creative (Commons)

Laura Pasquini

cclogolarge

is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

[They] provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

Creative Commons (CC) is quite relevant for all faculty & instructors who put together online course materials for students. It allows for content, such as images, videos, writing and music, to be shared freely and some access rights to the intellectual property. As classrooms expand and more material is shared openly, it is important for educators to be aware of how to use Creative Commons, and the implications for teaching & learning. Here are a few videos that best explain CC.

If you look at the Content Directories of CC is utilized by many companies, and even educational institutions. Some faculty started to challenge the traditional methods of research collection and how intellectual property is shared with others. One faculty shares how to encourage this open education movement in a publication called –  Open Doors and Open Minds.

The recent development and contribution from Creative Commons is the DiscoverEd search engine,  which provides accessible searches for open educational resources. This allows educators to access and share teaching and learning materials in an effective, easy way.

The question is… Wanna Work Together?