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Open Education Week offers a global festival of open education efforts. As we take stock of the offerings, it’s heartening to look at how individual efforts can feed into larger system’s change. In our Open Education Week 2023 blog post, we highlight community members’ approaches and tools, opening access to education and knowledge. Below, we share how a recent CC Certificate Bootcamp strengthens open education in California Community Colleges. 

This January, Creative Commons led a CC Certificate Bootcamp, or condensed training for 12 faculty and staff from 11 California Community Colleges implementing Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) degree programs. Building on a successful pilot ZTC Pathways program, the California Legislator invested $115 million to expand Zero Textbook Cost degrees and OER within the California community college system. The California ZTC programs reduce the overall cost of education and reduce the time to degree completion for California community college students. With the average costs of course textbooks estimated at $100/student/course, ZTC programs have the potential to save students nearly a billion dollars in the coming years, offering a more than 800% return on investment, according to SPARC. 

The CC Certificate Bootcamp provided needed training and tools for ZTC program staff to legally and effectively implement the open licensing requirements of the $115 investment. 

But, beyond open licensing lessons, the CC training strengthened a network of open advocates. The week offered engagement with copyright lawyers, and open advocates, space for collaborative brainstorming, play, and iterative problem solving. From participant-focused brainstorms emerged three clear interventions to address needs in the ZTC program development and expansion. Participant work kickstarted (1) a guide to support faculty in using and integrating LibreTexts OER in Canvas; (2) a ZTC Conversion Faculty Resource guide, sharing resources for both OER liaisons and interested faculty supporting the process of ZTC course development; and (3) the outline of wholistic considerations and needs for roadmapping ZTC programs efficiently and effectively, as the Michelson 20MM Foundation highlighted.  In less than two months since the bootcamp, faculty and staff have continued to collaborate and champion for OER in their institutions, by:

• Presenting simple guides and presentations for faculty and administrators to absorb to mitigate overwhelm with the program;
• Presenting Creative Commons License tutorials, as well as additional needs for adjacent networks, at professional development days, to the Academic Senate and Deans of various departments;
• Planning OER conferences;
• Launching a survey for the ZTC program;
• Setting up mapping to the degrees in smartsheets, which can pull survey data to courses and identify what courses have been converted to ZTCs;
• Sharing a guide about what the ZTC funding (with legislation definitions, how is the funding working and more) 

CC Bootcamp collaborations moved beyond the initial goals of supporting cost savings for students–faculty and staff worked toward interventions addressing barriers to teaching and learning in their systems. As Cailyn Nagle notes, OER are worth more than their cost savings. “They have the power to free, to be liberatory. When educators are able to craft the ideal materials their students can use without barriers, and librarians are able to curate that knowledge for everyone’s benefit, we come closer to the promise of Open.” We applaud California Community Colleges increased collaborative work–strengthening a foundation for that freedom. 

As we revel in the offerings of Open Education Week and our collaborations, I hope we can draw from the energy of California Community Colleges’ faculty and staff, striving toward increasingly liberatory structures in the future. 

CC thanks the Michelson 20MM Foundation for generously funding the bootcamp. 

Special thanks also go to the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges for their liaison work, expertise and support, to Skyline College for hosting the event, and to Fresno Pacific University for providing professional development credits to faculty.

 

At Creative Commons, we offer an array of learning and training opportunities to support our global community in developing open licensing expertise and a deeper understanding of recommended practices for better sharing. Visit the CC Trainings page to learn about our workshops, consulting options, lectures, and our CC Certificate courses.

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Over the last year, innovation and use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has proliferated, providing new ways for people to create content from art to zines, and everything in between. At CC, we’ve been watching these experiments in creativity while considering what it all means for what we call better sharing: sharing that is contextual, inclusive, just, equitable, reciprocal, and sustainable. What will generative AI mean for CC’s mission to overcome legal obstacles in sharing knowledge and creativity to address the world’s most pressing challenges?

Supporting community-driven solutions has always been at the heart of CC’s approach to sharing and creativity. In February, we held open meetings with our community to start to explore what CC might do new or differently in a world filling with AI-generated creations. Over 65 people registered to participate in the conversation from all over the world, including artists, educators, lawyers, librarians, policymakers, scholars, scientists, students, technologists, and more.

To get the conversation started, we asked participants to consider some framing questions:

• How can CC and its community help to ensure AI participates in better sharing for all and contributes to a public interest commons?
• How can CC best enable creators to shape how their works contribute to training AI?
• How can CC clarify the copyright status of works generated using AI?

The conversations were wide ranging, touching on some of the specifics of how generative AI actually works, how current copyright laws intersect with AI inputs and outputs, and ideas around where CC and our community might focus, including expanding CC’s educational offerings and policy advocacy on AI topics, mechanisms for rightsholders to opt in and/or out of AI training datasets, and mechanisms to better record and cite the provenance of works generated both by humans and AI. You can read and comment on the raw notes from all three community meetings.

Going forward, CC will house community conversation about generative AI within our Copyright Platform, where you can learn more about how anyone can join and contribute to work at the intersection of generative AI, better sharing, and CC’s mission.

We thank everyone who has contributed to the discussion so far, not only in these meetings, but in the AI webinars we held during Nov 2022, and all the other ways we’ve been in touch. We encourage you to keep helping us think through the complex questions that AI technologies and practices raise for all of us who are working to support a commons in the public interest.

Stay in touch with CC: subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon & Twitter), or join CC on Slack.

The post CC Community Input: Better Sharing for Generative AI appeared first on Creative Commons.

Angie shares that “…if memory does not pass from one person to another then it is forgotten.” In this episode we learn about the unique barriers faced by institutions and organizations in an Argentinian and South American context as well as the unique ways Wikimedia Argentina supports efforts to open up collections of cultural heritage and memory.

Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos that highlight the benefits and barriers of open culture as well as inspiration and advice on the subject of opening up cultural heritage. Angie Cervellera is the Program Manager of Open Culture and Knowledge at Wikimedia Argentina and works with local organizations and institutions to open up collections.

Angie responds to the following questions:

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Want to hear more insights from Open Culture experts from around the world? Watch more episodes of Open Culture VOICES here >>

The post Angie Cervellera — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 5 appeared first on Creative Commons.

We are thrilled to announce that the Creative Commons 4.0 License Suite and deeds have been officially translated into two new languages: Danish and Frisian, bringing the total number of official translations of the legal codes to 30! This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication and hard work of our community volunteers. We want to express our gratitude to all the volunteers who have helped us with translation. If you would like to get involved in future translation efforts, contact legal@creativecommons.org.

The addition of these translations is a significant milestone, as it enables even more people to access and use Creative Commons licenses in their native tongue. The Danish translation of CC 4.0 licenses and deeds was first started in 2019 by a team of official translators from the European Commission, coordinated by Pedro Malaquias. In 2022, the Danish Agency for Digital Government requested the translation to be completed, with the aim of recommending the use of CC licenses to public authorities and administrations. Peter Leth led the effort to complete the Danish translation.

Here is the CC BY 4.0 deed.

In addition, the Western Frisian language is now available for CC 4.0 licenses and deeds. Spoken by about 350,000 people in Fryslân, a province in the north of the Netherlands, the Western Frisian language is closer to English than Dutch or German, making it a unique language on the European mainland. This translation was made possible thanks to the initiative of Friduwih Riemersma, a poetry translator, with help from CC Netherlands volunteer and copyright lawyer Maarten Zeinstra. This translation allows for greater inclusivity and accessibility for the Frisian-speaking community.

Here is the CC BY 4.0 deed.

Finally, the CC0 public domain release and deed are now available in German. The lack of an official German translation of CC0 was a significant barrier to the adoption of Creative Commons legal tools in Germany, and the translation will now enable the German-speaking community to use CC0 as a standard legal tool for their work. The German translation was made possible thanks to the hard work of Till Jaeger, Ruth Oppenheimer, Paul Klimpel, Stefan Kaufmann, Maximilian Gausepohl, and John Weitzmann.

Here is the CC0 deed.

We hope these translations will allow more people to understand and use the Creative Commons licenses and other legal tools, leading to a more open and accessible world. Congratulations to all the teams involved in these efforts, and a big thank you to all the supporters and contributors who made these translations possible.

Contributing to the translation of CC licenses is an excellent way to show your support for our work and help make the world a more open and accessible place. To get involved with our future translation projects, please reach out to legal@creativecommons.org.

The post New official translations of CC legal tools published in Danish, Frisian, and German appeared first on Creative Commons.

As we gear up for Open Education Week 2023 (6 – 10 March), Creative Commons wants to recognize the contributions of our open education and related open communities. In the past several months, our community members have shared their knowledge and inquiry through lightning talks, panel discussions, presentations, and working groups. The list below offers a glimpse into some of the areas of knowledge shared, and is not exhaustive. While most events focus directly on open education topics, we recognize the rich areas of overlap with our open culture and copyright communities, and have shared a glimpse into some related efforts as well.

Community-Led Efforts

• CC Open Education Lightning Talks: Seven-minute presentations that offer glimpses into our open education community’s expertise. Over the last year, community members have presented on topics ranging from OER and the “work for hire” doctrine, building OER into capstone courses, funding opportunities within open education, open educational resources (OER) as tools for social justice, work/life balance, climate change and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the LibreTexts and Curationist platforms. Learn about open licensing and OER, copyright, the public domain, and more in these pithy tutorials!
  • August 2022 CC Open Education Lightning Talks: Included discussions on building OER into capstone courses, funding opportunities within open education, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
    • “Open Syllabus: UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science” by Jennifer Miller, civic technologist and open knowledge advocate.
    • “More OER for Free!” by Jonathan Poritz, former mathematics faculty member and OER Coordinator at a public university in Colorado, USA, and ongoing facilitator for the CC Certificate course.
    • “Open Climate Campaign” by Dr. Cable Green, Director of Open Knowledge at Creative Commons, and Dr. Monica Granados, Assistant Director for Creative Commons Open Climate program.
    • “Building OER into Capstone Courses” by Dr. Carolyn Stevenson, faculty member and faculty advisor for Purdue University Global, School of General Education, Department of Professional Studies.
    • “Improve It Challenge” by Jamison Miller, Open Education advocate and PhD candidate at William and Mary School of Education.
  • February 2023 CC Open Education Lightning Talks: Topics included reimagining open education as social justice, using machine translation algorithms for non-English language OER textbooks, and integrating values and ethics in OER for climate change and the SDGs. 
    • “Reimagining Open Education as Social Justice” by Ravon Ruffin, Educational Programs Manager at MHz Foundation, and Amanda Figueroa, Community Director at MHz Foundation.
    • “LibreTexts 101: Building the Textbook of the Future” by Delmar Larsen, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and Founder and Director of the LibreTexts project.
    • “Using Machine Translation Algorithms to Effectively generate Non-English language OER Textbooks” by Delmar Larsen, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and Founder and Director of the LibreTexts project.
    • “Integration of Values and Ethics in OER for Climate Change and the SDGs” by Dr. Suma Parahakaran, head of the Faculty of Education at Manipal Globalnxt.
    • “OER as a Social Justice tool, the case of digital accessibility” by Nicolas Simon, Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology, and Social Work at Eastern Connecticut State University.
    • “Get the Balance Right: Using Mindfulness OER for Intentional Work and Life Practices” by Dr. Carolyn Stevenson, faculty member and faculty advisor for Purdue University Global, School of General Education, Department of Professional Studies.
• Anticolonial Knowledge: Discussion with Stacy Allison-Cassin: a Q&A discussion led by moderator Jen Hughes, CC Certificate Facilitator and Archives, New Media and Educational Initiatives Librarian at Salt Lake Community College, and featured Stacy Allison-Cassin, PhD, Assistant Professor at the School of Information Management at Dalhousie University. The discussion focused on the challenges and considerations for anti-colonial knowledge efforts within knowledge institutions. Watch the recording.
• February 2023 SDSN US Summit on Transformative Education, Panel Discussion: Sustainability Education: Nonformal and Informal Education (Dr. Green’s slides): The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) spans six continents and draws upon the knowledge and educational capacity of over 1,600-member institutions. The panel speakers included CC’s Dr. Cable Green, Amlata Persaud of Childhood Education International, Karen Robinson of Human Rights Org, Toland Kister of Hudron Riverpark.org, and Tim Mahoney (moderator). Watch the recording.

Additional community efforts from the fields of open culture, open climate and copyright 

• CC’s copyright platform 2022 working groups share their highlights: Led by André Houang and Emine Yildirim, the two working groups presented their position papers on international user rights and data sharing policies. View their highlights.
• CC’s open culture platform 2022 five working groups share their highlights: In 2022, CC’s open culture platform had five working groups, each focused on different areas of interest. These included the Digital Community Heritage Working Group led by Bettina Fabos and Mariana Ziku; the Traditional Knowledge and Copyright Intersections Working Group led by Connor Benedict and Alhassan Mohammed Awal; the Open GLAM for Smaller Organizations Working Group led by Connor Benedict and Abdul Dube; the CC Licenses for Cultural Heritage Institutions Working Group led by Deborah De Angelis and Tomoaki Watanabe; and the Practical Resources for the Open Culture Sector Working Group led by Revekka Kefalea and Jesse Carson. View their highlights.
• Open Culture VOICES Archives: A series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. CC asks each guest four questions about the benefits, barriers, inspiration, and advice to share about open culture. Watch the latest episode from season 2.
• February 2023 Scanning 3D: Cultural Heritage Preservation, Access and Revitalization: In February 2023, we hosted a global Q&A and panel discussion on 3D scanning for cultural heritage preservation, access, and revitalization. The discussion focused on the legal, policy, cultural, and ethical considerations surrounding this topic.
  The speakers included Michael Weinberg, Executive Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at the NYU School of Law; Cosmo Wenman, an open access advocate and 3D design and fabrication consultant; Teresa Nobre, Legal Director of COMMUNIA; Thomas Flynn, Cultural Heritage Lead at Sketchfab; Jonas Heide Smith, Head of Digital at SMK – National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst); and Jennryn Wetzler, Director of Learning and Training at Creative Commons, who served as the moderator. Watch the recording.

CC is grateful to community members in these conversations and others. Their thoughtful presentations enrich Open Education Week, and our broader open knowledge and open culture work.

 

To find out what else Creative Commons is doing to celebrate Open Education, visit the Open Education Week website. 

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