[cc-education] cc.edu survey results and deja vu

Stephen Downes Stephen.Downes at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Wed Dec 10 17:44:09 EST 2003


David Wiley wrote:

Three quotes, which illustrate my point:

1.

> Four (4) votes for “d) that the materials should only be used in the 
> context of a formal educational institution (e.g., not to be used for 
> self-study by individuals not enrolled as students in a formal school)”
>
2.

> I’ll expose an assumption I am making. I believe that the best way to 
> make inroads with an education license is to have it mean, as 
> reasonably as possible, what people commonly think an “educational 
> license” means.

3.

>     (i) You do so in a manner that is directly related to and of
>     material assistance to the primary teaching and learning
>     activities of an educational institution, and
>     (ii) You do so solely for educational purposes.
>     An “educational institution” is a school or other organization
>     primarily and directly engaged in facilitating teaching and learning.
>

Simple reflection shows you cannot have all three. The proposal outlined 
in (3) is not what is commonly understood by 'educational', as evidenced 
in (1), since 4 votes out of 15 is clearly a minority (and the lowest 
scoring out of the five options). Given (1), you can either have (2) or 
(3), not both.

> I know people hated the strong tie to formal learning, but that’s what 
> educational use means to the US legal system as reported to us by 
> Kevin Rothman, the pro bono lawyer attached to the cc.edu project. And 
> I see very little point in producing a license which is both (a) out 
> of touch with what the common person thinks it should be, and (b) out 
> of touch with what the courts think it should be.
>
Quite right.

Which is why my initial reaction to the proposal was: there is very 
little point in producing this.

If 'educational use' is going to be tied to some U.S. court's narrow 
interpretation of the meaning of the term, then I'm not interested, and 
would indeed caution people to avoid creating or using material branded 
with such a restrictive license.

> As I’ve said before, a careful reading of this language will show 
> that, while using the court’s historical conception of “education,” 
> this language enables a significant amount of informal learning not 
> available in other education licenses.
>
> Also, notice the final phrase “An ‘educational institution’ is a 
> school or other organization primarily and directly engaged in 
> facilitating teaching and learning.” An organization like Open 
> Education or somesuch might be able to play an interesting role in 
> increasing the numbr people who would qualify under this language.
>
> Waiting for your responses.…
>
My response is that after all the discussion, negotiation and 
conciliation which seemed to lead to a consensus view, I am disappointed 
to find that we are back to the starting point with the original 
proposal. Such a state of affairs would in other people lead to a state 
of cynicism about the process and the product.

-- Stephen
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