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cc-education - Re: [cc-education] A radical alternative proposal

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Subject: development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

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  • From: Laura Lynch <llynch AT stanford.edu>
  • To: development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons <cc-education AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-education] A radical alternative proposal
  • Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 18:10:32 -0700

I'm writing to introduce myself to the list. I work with Creative Commons and have followed the education list from the beginning. Recently I've been providing weekly updates to the team about the latest happenings on the education list. From here on out, I'll be an avenue for the team to offer insights and suggestions, as well as my own suggestions. I'm not in any way stepping into David Wiley's role as the list manager, I'm simply the team liaison.

I think the idea of branding the license as educational rather than creating an entirely new license makes good sense. It seems clear that with proper marketing the education license will appeal to educators and increase the number of licensors. The works that are education friendly will be highlighted by some kind of education logo or addition to the license URL and therefore searchable. This will certainly be useful to educators, students, researchers, etc. who can make use of the material in their own work. I'm wondering if this newly licensed material could become even more useful to educators. What if the licensor was given the option to include a lesson plan or project idea with their work?

So far the team has expressed curiosity about the implementation of this option/license. Would works licensed as education friendly be highlighted by a new logo? If so, what would it look like? Where would the option to license your work as education friendly come into the licensing process? From David Wiley's last email it might make sense for this option to be added to "Step 2-Review Your Choices." If you choose a BY-NC-SA license, you would be given the option to make your license education friendly.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Laura Lynch

George Siemens wrote:

"What if we simply "rebranded" the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license the "Educational Use license," got a different colored icon, and took advantage of the name and icon change to make marketing inroads with educators?"

I like the idea. Marketing and awareness is the biggest challenge. I feel
the existing CC licenses cover the needs of most educators.

I agree that marketing and awareness are the main challenges. I also think its true that existing licenses cover the needs of most educators. As I have read, reread, and pondered both the conversations we've been having on the list and my own desires to increase the amount of freely available educational materials, I've tried to understand the best path forward for this project. The whole goal is to increase the net amount of materials available for educational use. This means we need to target the largest possible group of people with this new license, if the assumption is true that larger numbers of people using the license will mean larger amounts of content made available.

Curious: David, obviously, this is a big change from the original proposal
(and I think a positive one)...but how does this relate to the posts you've
made previously about the needs of some educators, due to the nature of
their work, to be able to limit the license only for educational use. One of
the main premises of the original proposal was the exclusion of
non-education uses. Are you dropping that requirement? Intending to include
in the future? Or how is that need expressed in the "new" version? (I'm
assuming noncommercial still allows military use, as an example)
I'm increasingly convinced by this conversation that the group of educators who would be willing to use the By-NC-SA as-is, if only they knew about it, is larger than the group who don't use it because the license is not restrictive enough. (This may seem obvious when stated this way, but is the kind of thing that becomes clearer through conversation -- who says we don't have a process here?) If there is consensus around this conjecture, then our mission becomes how to evangelize some configuration of the current CC to educators. So, giving the "By-NC-SA" another, more marketable name, like the "Education License," would be the first step toward reaching that broader audience.

"CC Education License" doesn't have to be the only name this particular configuration has. Other projects might want to give the By-NC-SA another label, and that would be just fine.

Thoughts?

D

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--
*******
Laura E. Lynch
Office Manager
Creative Commons
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610
vox: 650.725.2565
fax: 650.723.8440
llynch AT stanford.edu




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