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Dear Rory, Cable, Stephen, and everyone:

[[[[Summary: Instead of, or in addition to, trying to make the CORRECT decision on behalf of the many, how can we empower the many to make informed decisions THEMSELVES?]]]]

Whatever structural decision is made here, it will immediately be necessary for many individual researchers to make their own decisions about what license they wish to, or are willing to, use.

But even in the audience for a call for research like this, there is a great deal of confusion about the differences among free licenses.

What can we do to serve the growing need for content creators to learn about, for instance, the practical differences between CC BY and CC BY-SA?

Many people will go to Wikipedia to scaffold their understanding; but what they find about free licenses will not, to put it mildly, be very helpful:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_license
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_content#Licenses

Writing about free licenses in a way that is well sourced, and accessible to a non-expert audience, takes work. I believe those of us who know something about the field have a duty to ensure that pages like this are helpful, and contribute to the world's understanding of OER and related concepts.

What can be done to improve these articles? What source material can we dig into? It's worth pointing out: the web site Freedom Defined has a lot of good detail about the NC and ND provisions (http://freedomdefined.org/NC), but since it is an open edit wiki, it lacks the authority that would make it a good source for Wikipedia. Just like the discussions on this email list.

So: where have things like ND and NC been discussed in high quality publications? If they haven't been, who on this list can address that gap? How can we help the world learn about the differences among open content licenses?

-Pete
--
Pete Forsyth
Project Lead, Communicate OER
http://enwp.org/WP:COMMOER




On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 11:48 AM, rory <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Cable, et al.
With all due respect to Stephen, I would argue that if academics want the grant, then they can adjust their "principles" . We should insist on the most open licence for this call: CC-BY or CC-BY-SA
Academics who have a problem with that can NOT apply. I understand that and that is their decision. I think we can live with that but  the content's value is diminished whe there are all kinds of different restrictions.
IRRODL has insisted on a CC-BY licence for many years and we have not yet come across any academic refusing to contribute because of the licence. So, from that perspective, I have NO worries that this will limit researchers. Even Stephen has published under CC-BY-SA. See the COL edited book - his chapter https://oerknowledgecloud.org/?q=content/role-open-educational-resources-personal-learning
So, I am sure that even Stephen can adjust his "principles" from time to time. And I thank him for his flexibility in contributing his excellent chapter to the COL OER book.

All the best.

Rory

Rory McGreal
UNESCO/COL Chair in OER
Athabasca University
On 2013-06-09 11:41 AM, Cable Green wrote:
Hi All:

I had a good hour+ talk with Stephen Downes this morning re: my CC BY recommendation below. I want to thank Stephen for his time for continuing to challenge assumptions in OER and other open spaces.

Stephen pointed out many academic researchers (Stephen included) may not apply for one of these MOOC research grants if CC BY is required, but that researchers might apply if other CC licenses were allowed.  For example, Stephen chooses to publish under BY NC. He further argued that not allowing for the full suite of CC license choices may limit which researchers do the MOOC research, which may in turn limit which voices come forth and contribute to the analysis of MOOCs. (Stephen - if I'm missing your key points, please correct me...)

Creative Commons has six open copyright licenses precisely because different communities and individuals have different open licensing needs in different contexts.

Given this particular context, this grant might want to engage a mix of potential MOOC researchers and get their feedback on which open licenses they would prefer to publish under... and then provide CC license choices that meet the goals and needs of both the grant and the researchers.

Respectfully submitted,

Cable


Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.    - Hubert H. Humphrey

==================

On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Cable Green <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Rory and George:

Might it be possible to:
  1. Add the following to the web site footer?
  2. Require CC BY licenses (in the grant requirements) on all MOOC research works resulting from these sub-grants?

Thank you for considering,

Cable


Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
@cgreen
http://creativecommons.org/education
reuse, revise, remix & redistribute

 

On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 3:45 PM, rory <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Athabasca University is leading the call for Research on MOOCs with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation.

For information about this opportunity, visit

http://www.moocresearch.com/research-initiative/about

Rory

Rory McGreal
UNESCO/COL Chair in OER
Athabasca University





--


Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
@cgreen
http://creativecommons.org/education
reuse, revise, remix & redistribute

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