development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

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

A couple of things...

David Palmer. wrote:

> This would require organizing the internet to the same degree as
your, 
> if you are running Linux, /user and /home partitions. Don't get me
> wrong, this could be done, the technology is
available, just giving some
> idea of the magnitude of the project.

Obviously we cannot reorganize the internet. The suggestion is that
we *represent* a certain subsection of the internet (specifically, 
that part of the internet described by metadata records aggregated
by metadata harvesters) as though it were available locally (whether
the /user /home style is the best approach to this is left to 
implementation).

Metadata provided by resource providers may be in any of a variety
of formats - RSS, DC, IEEE-LOM, to name a few. Aggregators
adapt to the format, transform it (via XSLT or similar technologies)
and provide a standardized form of input to OpenOffice and 
other applications. The designers of OpenOffice may determine 
the standard format, since aggregators can adapt, but to make 
everyone's life easier an RSS or Atom flavour is recommended,
at least to begin (in the long run aggregators should provide
resource profiles as described in my paper).

David Palmer. wrote:

> This is what I meant in an earlier post.
> All of this would need to be established as a
standard (W3C?) or your
> search utility would be ineffective. On top of the
basic established
> standard 'tag', you could establish variants to
differentiate a text
> resource, say, from an image resource.

I would not build search into the OpenOffice application, since
it would require that the user download the searchable metadata
to a local repository, which is not an efficient system. Search
services should be provided by aggregators, using (say) standard
search formats. 

EOM

-- Stephen

On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 00:33, Stephen Downes wrote:
> Heather Ford wrote:
> > Thanks Stephen and David for your great comments on this.
> > > >
> > > > It is worthwhile to think of setting up an open system whereby
> > Open Office
> > > > users are able to tap directly into (CC and equivalent licensed)
> > RSS feeds
> > > > distributing free content. For example, a direct connection
> > between
> > > > OpenOffice and Wikipedia would be most useful.

This is actually relatively simple, dependent on degree of integration
required. Foldocs' button for Mozillas' bar, for example.

> >
> > This sounds really interesting, Stephen - would love you to explain
> > more
> > about how you think this could work/look. I've been thinking a lot
> > about
> > how to make this connection more direct than just having a list of
> > open
> > content on the cc website. I'd love to find a way of extending the
> > user-friendliness that CC is becoming well-known for, in developing
> > this
> > side more - but I'm still trying to work out how it would look.
> >
> Obvously I don't have all the details worked out in my mind. But there
> are two major aspects and an optional:
>
> 1. Treat the internet (or more specifically, the network of free
> content repositories) as though they were a local file system

This would require organizing the internet to the same degree as your,
if you are running Linux, /user and /home partitions. Don't get me
wrong, this could be done, the technology is available, just giving some
idea of the magnitude of the project.

> 2. Create more mechanisms within the software itself to access that
> file system

This is the crux. External to the programme this means search engines.
Incorporated into the programme, a combination search engine/specialist
browser.

> 3. (Optional) Provide usage metadata back to the system

An almost minor detail that could be incorporated into the server end,
and in many cases, already is.
>
> On the first point, the idea is that free learning (and other)
> resources are available for access from within the OpenOffice software
> in a manner analagous to the way that files are currently accessible.
> Thus, the system would allow anybody to open such material straight
> from the content repository into an OpenOffice application.
>
> This would most likely be instantiated as a three step operation:
>    - locate materials

Search engine or equivalent.

>    - view materials

Browser or equivalent.

>    - select (all or part) of materials for use

Editor, - Open Office Writer/Abiword, or in the case of images,
imagemagic, eye of gnome, or the gimp.
>
> The first part is key, since you can't simply browse hundreds of
> thousands of resources the way you can browse your hard drive

PLoS, etc., sites registered with a specialist search engine, or an
aspect of an already existing one.

Your hard drive _is_ browsed with a browser.

>  (you can't even browse some hard drives any more, including mine).
> Thus, an effective search mechanism would be required. Parts of the
> search criteria would be specified automatically by the means of
> access (see the second point). For example, if a user selected 'Insert
> an Image' then the search would look for free images, not text
> documents. The search should also try to draw on other environment
> variables. Knowing the user's language or country of origin would also
> provide preferences. If I were designing the search, I would allow the
> searcher to select default content repositories so I could pick
> repositories dedicated to a specific topic. For example, I would
> probably use something like Edu_RSS to search for related articles.
> The idea here is to treat the network of content repositories as a
> self-organizing networks, as described in the last section of my
> paper, Resource Profiles.
> http://www.downes.ca/files/resource_profiles.htm
>
> The second part is a mechanism to preview items before inserting them
> into your document. I don't know what to say about this, really.
>
> The third part is the payoff. Once the user has reviewed the resource,
> she selects either all or part of it. The resource is then copied
> directly into the docuemnt in the appropriate format. For example,
> suppose the user found a text on owls, and located a paragraph worth
> quoting. She highlights the paragraph and then double-clicks (say).
> The paragraph is then copied into the document, and a tag or caption
> is placed into the document identifying the bibliographical
> information and the creative commons (or equivalent) license
> information (this latter is key for commercial users, who will not
> reuse content unless they are certain, and can prove, that they have
> permission to use the content).
>
> On the second major point, we want to make access to these resources
> integral to the application itself. It is worth noting in passing that
> this is a service that should be provided by repositories (including
> the ContentForge being discussed) into any application, not just
> OpenOffice, though the authors of those applications would each need
> to write code to provide access and use of the content.
>
> In a program like OpenOffice, I would certainly include a function
> such as this into an 'Insert' option. But more. I would also allow a
> user to highlinght a word, double-click (say), and be shown a default
> set of resources for that word, such as definitions, encyclopedia
> entires, etc. Highlighting a person's name would yield a list of
> resources authored by the person, or (switch a toggle) a list of
> resources about that person. Certain keywords in the highlighted text
> would trigger certain sorts of search results (the user wouldn't need
> to learn these, the idea is that the system responds to what the user
> is asking for). For example, 'graph' would tend to return graphs,
> 'map' would return maps, 'flag' would return flags. Different
> repositories could handle this in their own way.

This is what I meant in an earlier post.
All of this would need to be established as a standard (W3C?) or your
search utility would be ineffective. On top of the basic established
standard 'tag', you could establish variants to differentiate a text
resource, say, from an image resource.
>
> On the third point, I would suggest that users be given the option to
> report usage of materials back to the system, much like RSS trackback,
> except that only metadata would be sent back (since the document does
> not have a URL just yet). The usage metadata sent back captures the
> context of use and helps describe the resource being used. This helps
> the aggregator more accurately process search results for future
> searches.
>
> Now again, this sort of content distribution system should not be
> restricted to open access. The same mechanism ContentForge uses to
> make content available to OpenOffice should also be available to allow
> people using Moodle to import (free) content into an online course. It
> follows, therefore, that the sort of content that could be offered
> through such a system could be something as simple as an image all the
> way to something as complicated as an animation, simulation, or port
> into an interactive environment.

This is important.
'If we do not believe in free speech for those we despise, we do not
believe in it at all.' - Noam Choamsky.
This information should be available 'cross platform' as previously
noted, so that it is freely available even to those who employ 'Internet
Exploiter.'
>
> -- Stephen

Regards,

David.
>
>
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