development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

[Steve Foerster <steve AT longlever.com>]

David W. wrote:

<< My feeling exactly. The point of cc.edu is to take the complexity 
(read: lots of choices) out of CC for educators who want to share but 
don't have time to evaluate the possible permutations of several license 
options. CC.edu does nothing to lessen the choice set before them. It 
simply provides a gentler path to entry. Once they get in and move 
around some and figure out what's going on, they may explore other 
options. The CC.edu is meant to be something we can hold up and call the 
education world to rally around. >>

Understood.  (I have to say, though, that I find the CC license 
selection process to be so straightforward and easy to understand that 
it's a bit unsettling to think that ostensible leaders in education 
might have that much difficulty using it!)


<< First usable [EduCommons] system, with public development projects 
running inside, sometime late spring or early summer. We're currently 
hiring two additional fulltime programmers to work on this and the OLS 
project. >>

Very good.  Since you have technical and financial support covered, what 
other support for EduCommons could you use?


<< Whatever license meets a base set of criteria similar to the Open 
Source Definition or Debian Social Contract; in other words, they have 
to license their material as Open Content. >>

Will EduCommons determine the list of compliant licenses ahead of time?


<< The creators will own the material, but will have chosen to license 
the material via one of the approved licenses. >>

As an example, let's say there's a "Principles of Marketing" textbook 
and instructor guide that is largely written by three authors (none of 
whom writes a majority), with some additional material by five other 
authors.  Who has standing if some third party uses the material 
contrary to its licensing?

I ask because the Free Software Foundation has a standing offer to 
software developers that they will legally defend any software ownership 
of which is donated to them.  That strikes me as something that makes sense.


<< Still finalizing the dates, but they will be between January 19 and 
30.  The location will be beautiful Logan UT. =) >>

Logan is indeed beautiful, and the slacker in me knows a good skiing 
opportunity when he hears one. :)  Keep us posted!


<< [New World] sounds cool. Is there a website or someplace where we can 
read more about this? >>

Not quite.  All of the documentation is out of date; we've changed a 
number of aspects of the plan because we want to comply from the start 
with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and the 
European higher education standards coming out of the Bologna Process. 
I'll let you know when we've updated our material.

-=Steve=-