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CC+
One of the big announcements at the celebrations of Creative Commons’ fifth birthday was the release of the CC+ (CCPlus) licensing arrangement which combines existing CC licenses with ability to also explicitly point to additional licensing (for example, terms for commercial use on an NC CC license). From the CC blog:
CC+ is a protocol to enable a simple way for users to get rights beyond the rights granted by a CC license. For example, a Creative Commons license might offer noncommercial rights. With CC+, the license can also provide a link to enter into transactions beyond access to noncommercial rights — most obviously commercial rights, but also services of use such as warranty and ability to use without attribution, or even access to physical media.
“Imagine you have all of your photos on Flickr, offered to the world under the CC Attribution-NonCommercial license,” said Lawrence Lessig, CEO of Creative Commons. “CC+ will enable you to continue offering your work to the public for noncommercial use, but will also give you an easy way to sell commercial licensing rights to those who want to use your work for profit.”
While CC+ isn’t exactly new – it was always possible legally – the simplification of this arrangement is sure to see a lot more people explicating the terms under which they’d released material commercially and, hopefully, this encourage commercial producers to use material in this form.
In case you prefer you explanations to be more engaging, here’s a video explaining CC+:
If the video is a little hard to watch at this size, head to the full-size version on blip.tv or download a QuickTime movie version (56Mb). Alternatively, you can check the CC+ page or download the explanatory PDF.
One of the reasons I really like CC+ is that I can really see its value for media produced by students; CC licenses really encourage others to view and share, but having commercial uses spelt out means that if what students create is good enough, they could also see it making money for them!
Cultural Capital a winner for Creative Commons!
As I’m sure you’re aware, the Creative Commons organisation is in the midst of their annual fundraising efforts. CC are also concurrently holding their second annual CC Swag Photo Contest on Flickr. I’ve entered a couple of photos thus far (and hope to get time to try a few more), and I was delighted to hear today that my ‘Cultural Capital’ shot was this week’s winner (there are 6 weekly winners, then two of those win overall). For those interested, my picture:
The basic idea is a simple one: the ethos and practice of sharing at the heart of the Creative Commons is building the cultural capital of the future (unlike many uses of full copyright which are being used, at times, to lock out creativity and thus diminish culture per se).
The Creative Commons folk are aiming to have at least 100 photos for the CC Swag Photo contest this year, so I’m looking forward to seeing the photos others come up with in the next month.
And don’t forget, if you’ve not already, please donate and support the Creative Commons! 🙂
From YouTube to UniTube?
It would appear that the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has the dubious honours of being the first Australian university to have their own YouTube channel. In the past couple of months, there have been a number of reports of US universities setting up on YouTube. For example, this article from News.com on UC Berkeley’s channel:
YouTube is now an important teaching tool at UC Berkeley.
The school announced on Wednesday that it has begun posting entire course lectures on the Web’s No.1 video-sharing site.
Berkeley officials claimed in a statement that the university is the first to make full course lectures available on YouTube. The school said that over 300 hours of videotaped courses will be available at youtube.com/ucberkeley.
Berkeley said it will continue to expand the offering. The topics of study found on YouTube included chemistry, physics, biology and even a lecture on search-engine technology given in 2005 by Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
“UC Berkeley on YouTube will provide a public window into university life, academics, events and athletics, which will build on our rich tradition of open educational content for the larger community,” said Christina Maslach, UC Berkeley’s vice provost for undergraduate education in a statement.
Similarly excited press has greeted other US universities, this article on the University of Southern California’s channel (Via). However, the I think educational administrator and web 2.0 aficionado Greg Whitby notes probably wins the most excited prize for his take on the UNSW channel (Via):
While it’s a great marketing strategy, it recognises where today’s students are. Although the channel will broadcast some lecturers in an attempt to reach potential students, it captures the ubquitous nature and popularity of Web 2.0.
This is the democratisation of knowledge – no longer contained within lecture theatres or classrooms but shared. Learning becomes accessible, anywhere, anytime. Transportable, transparent, relevant and exciting.
The University of NSW is to be applauded but we still lag behind. iTunes has developed a store dedicated to education called University. It’s ‘the campus that never sleeps’ – allowing universities across the US to upload audio/video lectures, interviews, debates, presentations for students – any age, anywhere. And it’s free. It’s astounding and exciting to think that a cohort of students and teachers from a school western Sydney can watch a biology lecture from MIT.
The challenge for us is to open our K-12 classrooms to a new audience – to share knowledge as professionals and to showcase quality learning and teaching as we move from isolated classrooms to a connected global learning environment.
Readers of any of my blogs will know I’m also an advocate for integrating certain web 2.0 tools into learning and teaching. However, these announcements seem oddly familiar to me – it’s just like the press that came out as pretty much every university in the world embraced podcasting one after another, each pushing out press releases about embracing the future. However, what didn’t happen half as readily was the pedagogical discussion about how podcasting should or could be used in education. Nor, I have to say, are we seeing much interrogation of the use of online video via YouTube or other services. Let me be clear: there is certainly value in using YouTube in particular ways in education. However, as I argued about podcasting in the past, it’s probably more important to focus on working out new ways to engage students (such as having them create content for podcasting or to post on YouTube) rather than primarily just replicating the top-down structures of lecture delivery. (I don’t have a problem with recorded lectures, I should add, I just don’t think that’s all we should worry about.)
It’s also worth keeping in mind that YouTube is a two-way street as demonstrated by clips of teachers at their worst appearing on YouTube.
Special Journal Issue on "Social Network Sites"
The latest edition of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication is live, and contains an outstanding special section on “social network sites” edited by danah boyd and Nicole Ellison. I’ve not had a chance to read all the articles, yet, but I can say with certainty that danah boyd and Nicole Ellison’s “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” is definitely going to be one of those oft-cited and even more often read papers in university courses! Here’s the announcement from danah’s blog:
JCMC Special Theme Issue on “Social Network Sites”
Guest Editors: danah boyd and Nicole Ellison
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/[X] “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” by danah boyd and Nicole Ellison
[X]“Signals in Social Supernets” by Judith Donath
[X]“Social Network Profiles as Taste Performances” by Hugo Liu
[X]“Whose Space? Differences Among Users and Non-Users of Social Network Sites” by Eszter Hargittai
[X]“Cying for Me, Cying for Us: Relational Dialectics in a Korean Social Network Site” by Kyung-Hee Kim and Haejin Yun
[X]“Public Discourse, Community Concerns, and Civic Engagement: Exploring Black Social Networking Traditions on BlackPlanet.com” by Dara Byrne
[X]“Mobile Social Networks and Social Practice: A Case Study of Dodgeball” by Lee Humphreys
[X]“Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube” by Patricia Lange
While not getting quite as much blog attention, it’s also worth noting that there are a number of other great papers in this issue of JCMC, too. In particular, I found these two very engaging:
[X] The Creative Commons and Copyright Protection in the Digital Era: Uses of Creative Commons Licenses by Minjeong Kim; and
[X] Every Blog Has Its Day: Politically Interested Internet Users’ Perceptions of Blog Credibility by Thomas J. Johnson, Barbara K. Kaye, Shannon L. Bichard, and W. Joann Wong
Podcamp Perth Wrapup
Last weekend was Australia’s first Podcamp, right here in Perth. It was pretty good with an engaging mix of tech, talk and interesting folks. I don’t have time to hunt down all the many, many blogposts and photos from Podcamp, but Simone van Hattem links to most of them in her blog, or else you can check Technorati or Flickr. I was intending to add audio to my presentation slides, but the audio didn’t quite eventuate. However, Stewart Greenhill did an excellent job capturing video of many of the Podcamp sessions, and so if anyone wants to hear the session on Podcasting in Education which was led by Sue Waters and I, here you go:
(Yes, I do use a lot of gestures!)
For those who prefer a static image, here’s one picture of me attempting a ‘Presentation 2.0’ style of slides mainly because I wanted to try something a bit different (but also to keep my co-presenter Sue happy):
I also rather like this photo, of white and black Macs at play:
(Photos by CW.)
PS Yes, it’s October 31st, but, no, most Australian don’t celebrate Halloween. However, if we did, I’d definitely give the most candy to anyone who knocked on my door who was geeky enough to be wearing this.
Podcamp Perth
So, as I’m sure you remember, Australia’s first Podcamp happens today in Perth. It’s a free event and is held at Central TAFE in East Perth, so if you’re just remembering now, please still feel free to come along! Sue Waters and I are facilitating a session on Podcasting in/as Education at some point during the day (we sort the actual schedule out first thing in the morning). Here and the few slides I’ll be using:
| View | Upload your own
There aren’t that many slides, as the whole point of an unconference is that everyone participates, so the sessions should be a lot more like a conversation that just presentations. My understanding is that the short presentation bits are really to help focus the conversation, not dominate it.
To check in on the blogging and podcasting during the day, and afterwards, watch the tag “podcampperth07“.
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