development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

["Downes, Stephen" <Stephen.Downes AT nrc-cnrc.gc.ca>]

Hiya,

This is new and not part of the previously discussed proposal:

"In the area where you click to include more information about your 
work a few keywords would be entered automatically to improve user 
search-ability of educationally licensed work."

If you require more information before issuing the license, then
you have just defeated the objective of making it easier to get
the license.

Moreover, you have created a cost to obtaining the license: the
donation of information to the CC search system. Some people
who want a CC-Edu license may not want to be included in the
search.

The process should be differently ordered. Once *having* obtained
the license text, users should then be given the opportunity
to donate information (and, of course, the choice to not do it).

I will leave discussion of the idea of putting it in the education
corner to others, save only to add the observations that, first, this
also defeats the objective of making it simple, and second, it makes
it much easier (and therefore more likely) that special and additional
conditions will be proposed (the first of which we just saw).

-- Stephen

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Stephen Downes ~ Senior Researcher ~ National Research Council Canada
Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
http://www.downes.ca stephen AT downes.ca 
stephen.downes AT nrc.ca http://www.iit.nrc.ca/e-learning.html
Subscribe to my free daily newsletter featuring news and articles 
about online knowledge, learning, community
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/subscribe.cgi 
or read it at http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Laura Lynch [mailto:llynch AT stanford.edu] 
> Sent: October 9, 2003 9:59 PM
> To: development of an education license or license option for 
> Creative Commons
> Subject: RE: [cc-education] A radical alternative proposal
> 
> 
> Hello-
> 
> Well today's team meeting produced some interesting discussion about 
> the education license and how it might work best for users.  David 
> Wiley's idea of linking to the education license from the educators 
> and scholars corner would be the best and most user friendly way of 
> making the license available to licensors.  The licensing process 
> would work something like this:
> 
> Go to Educators and Scholars Corner.
> Choose Education License.
> You'll be lead to the Choose Your License page w/options filled in.
> In the area where you click to include more information about your 
> work a few keywords would be entered automatically to improve user 
> search-ability of educationally licensed work.
> Add Creative Commons Education logo to your work.
> 
> There is some resistance to making education an option on the 
> original 'choose your license' page because our goal is to keep the 
> license building page as simple as possible.  While education is only 
> one additional option it will inevitably lead to other groups (i.e. 
> webcaster's) wanting to add their brand as an option as well.  I like 
> the idea of the license being linked from the educators and scholars 
> corner because it provides a space for future projects in support of 
> freely available educational material.
> 
> Any thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> Laura
> 
> 
> >Hi all,
> >
> >I'd just like to introduce myself to the group. My name is Heather 
> >Ford - I'm a fellow at the Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship Program 
> >at Stanford (http://reuters.stanford.edu) and am going to be working 
> >on interactive learning material to teach tolerance in South African 
> >schools. I'm from South Africa and have been working for 
> >non-profits, including the Association for Progressive 
> >Communications (www.apc.org) for the past 4 years - especially in 
> >the field of communications policy advocacy. I've helped develop a 
> >number of modules for the APC - on Internet policy, the World Summit 
> >on the Information Society, women and war - and have used the CC 
> >licenses for this content.
> >
> >I'm really interested in the discussion going on here, but I'm not 
> >sure I get it fully, so you'll have to bear with me.
> >
> >All I can say is that I agree with Stephen about the nature of CC 
> >licenses and the reason that they are being seen as such an 
> >excellent alternative for freer content online - and it would be 
> >important to retain the freedom of those licenses in the future.
> >
> >But I'm really interested to hear from Dave exactly why there would 
> >be the need for a more restrictive license?
> >
> >I'm also really keen to figure out how CC can be made easier for 
> >curriculum developers. At the moment, it is pretty easy to add your 
> >work to the commons, but less easy to find relevant works to use in 
> >development. For example, all the projects (curriculum, articles, 
> >books) that I have worked on at the APC have been registered under 
> >the Creative Commons licenses. This was pretty easy to do. What is 
> >not easy, is finding specific images etc that I could use for use in 
> >designing our curricula etc. I know that this first stage of the CC 
> >project is really about getting the word out there about the new 
> >licenses, and I know that different formats of works are being 
> >developed as we speak, but as the database grows, it will become 
> >increasingly important to give value back to those in the community 
> >and give more of an incentive to those wanting to contribute works 
> >other than music.
> >
> >One of the ideas that I thought of was if we could get even a small 
> >search working such as the one on Google, where you have different 
> >tabs to find CC works.
> >
> >Anyway, its really good to meet all of you - virtually at least.
> >
> >Look forward to taking part in more discussions :)
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >Heather.
> >
> >
> >
> >At 05:50 PM 10/7/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> >>Hiya,
> >>
> >>We can agree, but you put a pretty big BUT right in the middle...
> >>
> >>>  BUT, I don't think the existence of the Education License would
> >>  > necessarily prevent work on a separate, more restrictive
> >>>  license. What
> >>>  happens next will just depend on what real, normal users want.
> >>
> >>There may be a separate, more restrictive license, but I would
> >>vigorously oppose their being branded as Creative Commons licenses.
> >>
> >>There are alternative approaches to the creation of more restrictive
> >>licenses. We are working with ODRL here at NRC and have developed
> >>a wizard system (which will be released one day really soon) that
> >>allows developers and publishers to create what we call licensing
> >>'models' that can incorporate any number of licensing options.
> >>
> >>In my view, Creative Commons licensing should be reserved for
> >>content that can be freely used by everyone; that was its purpose
> >>and intent, and that's what it is widely understood to be. We
> >>can work together, even, toward creating a system that supports
> >>a variety of licensing options. But let's not dilute what Creative
> >>Commons stands for.
> >>
> >>As for "what real, normal users want," this is why I have harped
> >>on open decision-making processes. I don't think anyone, not even
> >>me ;) can claim to be representative of the General Will without
> >>some means of determining what that Will may happen to be.
> >>
> >>-- Stephen
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  > -----Original Message-----
> >>>  From: David Wiley [mailto:david.wiley AT usu.edu]
> >>>  Sent: October 7, 2003 6:30 PM
> >>>  To: development of an education license or license option for
> >>>  Creative Commons
> >>>  Subject: Re: [cc-education] A radical alternative proposal
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>  Downes, Stephen wrote:
> >>>
> >>>  >What we are calling the 'Educational License' is 
> equivalent to the
> >>>  >'Attribution non-commercial share-alike' license, as 
> described at
> >>>  >http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/
> >>>  >
> >>>  >
> >>>  Yep
> >>>
> >>>  >That the 'Educational License' is a difference of name 
> and branding
> >>>  >only, not a difference of terms and conditions, of the By-NC-SA
> >>>  >license.
> >>>  >
> >>>  >
> >>>  Yep
> >>>
> >>>  >And that this will *continue* to be the case (in other
> >>>  words, there is
> >>>  >a committment on the part of Creative Commons not to
> >>>  introduce further
> >>>  >conditions or restrictions after a user base has been 
> established).
> >>>  >
> >>>  >
> >>>  Yep. We couldn't bait and switch legally. "Oh, that license
> >>>  you chose?
> >>>  We've changed it's conditions now. Just FYI." We're not 
> long distance
> >>>  providers.  =)
> >>>
> >>>  BUT, I don't think the existence of the Education License would
> >>>  necessarily prevent work on a separate, more restrictive
> >>>  license. What
> >>>  happens next will just depend on what real, normal users want.
> >>>
> >>>  >And that the 'Educational License' is offered as a handy-dandy
> >>>  >short-cut through the license-creation wizard, again, 
> not creating a
> >>>  >new type of licensing, but rather, offering a convenient,
> >>>  easy-to-find
> >>>  >option for educators.
> >>>  >
> >>>  >
> >>>  Yep
> >>>
> >>>  >If this is the proposal, I endorse the proposal.
> >>>  >
> >>>  >
> >>>  Glad to hear it! See, we can agree! ; )
> >>>
> >>  > D
> 
> 
> -- 
> *******
> Laura E. Lynch
> Office Manager
> Creative Commons
> 559 Nathan Abbott Way
> Stanford, CA 94305-8610
> vox: 650.725.2565
> fax: 650.723.8440
> laura AT creativecommons.org
> _______________________________________________
> cc-education mailing list
> cc-education AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-education
>