week 10: share for the greater good, better, best.
1. What type of authorship license you would choose for your Learning Module Project (you Assignment 2 or Assignment 3)?
Our online course is being developed in Eliademy. Eliademy began to crowdsource OER (Open Educational Resources), and the following is an excerpt from their website:
“OER are educational resources such as texts, images, videos, assignments, courses, etc. which are freely accessible to anyone and can be used to teach and learn. They can be part of the public domain or released under a license allowing free use, adaptation and distribution. According to the OER Research Hub, teachers notably share OER in the format of videos, images, lesson plans and quizzes [2]. Online courses are also increasingly released as OER, even if they are still only a few. This trend represents a huge progress in the democratization of education for a number of reasons.”
Since Eliademy’s mandate has always been “democratization of education”, or free education for all, I feel like the course we are developing could be shared in the same spirit to further the cause. I believe all educational materials should be shared and remixed for the greater good – this is how we all get better, and how information gets distributed amongst various parties. My personal material/resources have been shared using a “share and share alike” policy, and educators can remix the material to reflect what they are doing in the classroom, however, I ask that the license be non-commercial (they cannot make money off of what I am giving away for free), and give proper attribution to myself, the author. In turn, they are to “sharealike”, which means that if they choose to remix the material, they will use the same license to share the work to others. It does depend on the type of work. If it’s something I haven’t spent a great deal of time on, I am more lenient. But, if it’s a project that I have dedicated a lot of time and energy to, I typically opt for the license stated above. I am still learning about all of the types of licenses through Creative Commons, and am open to any suggestions/clarifications!
2. If that is a group project, what your colleagues would choose? What negotiations procedure, you would offer to your group members to come to an agreement on the licensing options for your project?
I did participate in a group, and I would negotiate on the terms stated above. Eliademy’s platform (and my personal stance) is Open Source, but I would certainly be open to my group members’ thoughts and opinions!
3. How does the discussion of copyright and Internet freedom influence your teaching?
In my position, I consult with teachers and students about various aspects of educational technology. I typically incorporate teaching about the importance of proper attribution (at times it comes up as a teachable moment, but mostly it is deliberate because I am teaching about how to conduct research online) and plagiarism. I use Common Sense Media’s videos and other learning materials, and during the span of a research project I am spearheading, I will be teaching Research Tool in Google apps, and how that can enhance group (and individual, but my research focuses on collaborative inquiry) research projects. The importance of not claiming work as your own if it isn’t is at the forefront, since this is a very real issue when kids get into secondary and post-secondary education. As our students are delving into producing their own digital content (we are still in the beginning stages, but I am predicting that this will be a focus in the upcoming school year), they need to know about how to effectively share their work online, and an informed decision as to how to do so can only come after knowing all of the facts of intellectual property, and moral/ethical obligations/considerations when producing content to be shared online.
Reference(s)
(2015). The importance of OER online courses in the … – Eliademy. Retrieved July 29, 2015, from https://eliademy.com/blog/2015/04/23/the-importance-of-oer-online-courses-in-the-democratization-of-education/.