The CC team has been evaluating our progress toward our 2021-2025 strategy. Through that process, we have noticed the ways we have been organically adjusting to the social and technical shifts around us, as well as the ebbs and flows of funding availability. It would be an understatement to say that much has changed since we developed the strategy in 2020 and launched it in 2021. Turns out that our predictions and plans set forth in 2020 are not as helpful in the reality of 2024 and likely even less so for 2025 and beyond.
Rather than continuing to progress through the existing strategy, we have determined that the stronger, and dare we say more strategic, approach is to conduct a strategy refresh.
Refreshing Our Strategy
Organizational strategies are meant to be living documents that guide the efforts of the organization towards its north star—the mission and vision. What we thought would be a strategy that would guide us into 2025 has actually been the foundation of us better understanding CC’s role in a post-pandemic time of significant technological development with generative AI, a much needed social and racial justice reckoning globally, and a rapidly shifting socio-economic environment, all affecting our team and our community.
This strategic refresh process will build on past strategies, leveraging what has worked and learning from what hasn’t. Rather than a strategic shift for CC, we are steering this process with the goal of returning to the core of CC, as a movement, as a community, and as legal and technical infrastructure. Our goal is to emerge with an updated strategy that takes into account generative AI alongside the human act of creating and sharing; paired with a sound operational and sustainable organizational layer.
Intentional Engagement with our Community
Community involvement and engagement with this process will be critical for its success. As the CC team and Board grapple with the directions that this strategic refresh will take, we want to hear from you. What role do you see for CC in the future? How can CC support you and your community in stewarding openness practices and making available the knowledge that will help to solve the greatest challenges of our time? What are the elements that make a strong and effective CC, today, tomorrow, and into the future?
In June, we will begin scheduling a series of open community and stakeholder sessions to be held throughout July and August. Participation information will be shared on our blog and via social media. If you wish to indicate your early interest in participating, please sign up to our mailing list. We are looking forward to connecting with you on this process and we can’t wait to hear your insights on the future of CC.
Public Domain Digitization Advocacy across GLAM Institutions in Nigeria
Àlàáfíàbámí Ọládipúpọ̀
The Public Domain consists of materials from which society derives knowledge and inspiration to create new cultural and creative works. Having a great interest in the Public Domain, Free Knowledge Africa has tasked itself with organizing a series of events and projects fashioned to promote Public Domain works in Nigeria. In doing so, we have been able to document over a thousand works in the Public Domain database we are currently building and have been able to digitize a few of them.
This proposed activity, funded by the Creative Commons Open Culture Activity fund, seeks to advocate for the Public Domain within GLAM Institutions across Nigeria. Our primary goal is to inspire these institutions to embrace openness and digitize the valuable works within their collections. Building upon our established connections with the National Library of Nigeria, developed through previous projects, we aim to extend our outreach to 5 state branches and encourage the adoption of Open Access practices.
Beyond advocacy, our initiative includes the identification and digitization of approximately 100 Public Domain works from each library, totalling at least 500 digitized works. Subsequently, we plan to upload these digitized materials and create Wikidata Items for a minimum of 500 Public Domain Works in Nigeria.
Expected outcomes include heightened awareness and acceptance of Open Access principles among GLAM Institutions, leading to increased digitization efforts. The project aims to significantly contribute to the preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage, making a substantial impact on the accessibility and appreciation of Public Domain materials in Nigeria.
The Gateway to Amazonian Knowledge: A Project for Openly Disseminating Cultural Collections from Belém
João Alexandre Peschanski
“The Gateway to Amazonian Knowledge” project intends to openly disseminate cultural collections from Belém — especially connected to biodiversity and traditional culture — emphasizing the crucial role of open knowledge in preparing for COP-30 in Belém. This initiative involves a collaborative process to enhance content donation from local institutions, with a particular focus on strengthening partnerships with the Emílio Goeldi Museum. By fostering open access to cultural resources, the project seeks to enrich understanding and appreciation of Amazonian heritage while promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing on a global scale. This specific project will be part of a broader campaign called Wiki Loves Pará, that is especially geared towards contributing textual content about the Brazilian Amazonian Forest into Wikipedia.
Unearthing Ghana’s Hidden Heritage: Exploring Historical Artifacts in Northern Kingdoms
Mohammed Awal Alhassan
The northern half of Ghana, steeped in a rich and often overlooked history, harbors a treasure trove of undocumented artifacts. Within its borders lie the ancient Dagbon, Mamprugu, and Waala Kingdoms—custodians of a cultural heritage spanning centuries. Our project aims to explore and document these artifacts, increasing awareness through Wikipedia articles and images/videos on Wikimedia Commons. Additionally, we will create structured data for these artifacts using Wikidata, which could be utilized in the future to develop visualization tools and other resources.
Tangible items such as traditional woven fabrics like “smock” clothing, handmade beads, wooden sculptures, swords, bows and arrows, traditional drums, and handmade pottery items such as bowls, jars, and decorative pieces all reflect the region’s historical connections to weaponry and hunting practices, and as well reflect the local craftsmanship and cultural heritage making them valuable artifacts that reflect local craftsmanship and traditions.
Open access to cultural heritage/GLAM Rwanda
Nyirahabihirwe Clementine
In Rwanda there is a lack of awareness and understanding about open cultural practices in GLAMs.
Some proposed activities of this project are:
CC Chapter Rwanda aim to reach out new members online and offline and reach over 40 members for a baseline of 15 members, these will be achieved through special 4 online events and active social media engagement
CC Chapter Rwanda aims to reach out new members offline specifically in 10 GLAM institutions, through 3 workshops which will be held in 3 different districts (Huye, Nyanza, Kigali City) with 40 participants from different communities, districts and GLAMs. These workshops will enhance collaborative dialogue methodology among stakeholders, which will be designed as part of the project for its sustainability.
Explain them the importance of the visibility of GLAM collection on online, identify together the challenges and way forward for promoting them and increase their engagement in open GLAM practices.
Make the Rwandan community aware about Creative Common licenses/tools: Online training on Open practice, the use of Open CC licenses & attributions to increase the online visibility of GLAM collections.
Document taken pictures from GLAMs in Rwanda on Wikimedia Commons and improving Wikipedia articles.
Making resources from different GLAMs available to be used by anyone around the world through Creative Commons tools and licenses.
Provide Wikimedians around the World with Rwandan digitized resources to contribute to the continued improvement of Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and its sister projects (WikiSource, Wikidata, WikiCommons…).
Creation and engagement GLAM community: Offer opportunities for members to participate in meaningful activities and events that build GLAM community and foster engagement, seek out collaborations with other groups and organizations to increase the size and diversity of the community.
Encourage and support community members to take on leadership roles and responsibilities. In total we will have +30 participants (20 from five GLAM institutions + 10 CC Rwanda members + others who will be interested).
We plan to report back at the end of the year with the results of each project. Congratulations to the winners!
Wikimania 2024 is the biggest meeting of open movement activists and organizations this year. It offers a rare occasion for activists to meet in person. We are making use of this opportunity to bring together those working in the field of Openness, Free Knowledge, and the Digital Commons to talk about shared advocacy strategies: the political challenges of Knowledge Commons. We are counting on the participation of people already planning to attend Wikimania, and those who will come especially to attend our side event. We are expecting around 70 people to join our event.
Our goal is to establish relationships needed to design a shared advocacy vision that over time can result in stronger, collaborative advocacy work. To this end, the event will focus on three topics: 1) Legal and Policy issues, 2) Communication and Global Campaigns, and 3) Community activation and Sustainability.
Are you planning to attend Wikimania and interested in joining us for this event? Please fill out this interest form.
There are few opportunities to bring together the movement’s most engaged participants and discuss shared strategies for advocacy and ways of moving forward together. Wikimania’s 2024 motto is “Collaboration of the Open.” Our one-day side event to Wikimania is an opportunity to bring this motto to life.
CC’s Learning and Training team share highlights from a range of trainings, discussions, and engagements in the first few months of 2024. If you would like to explore CC Certificate courses or have a custom training, please email learning [at] creativecommons.org. We would look forward to working with you.
If the embedded timeline above is not working, the highlights are also listed below.
What’s next
In the coming months, we look forward to co-developing a public folder of CC training materials with CC communities around the world. Stay tuned for more information and how to get involved.
Meanwhile: would you like a CC training at your institution or community of practice? Learn more on our website and email learning [at] creativecommons.org for more information. We’d be delighted to help you continue to grow your knowledge of Creative Commons licensing and the open movement.
Timeline text
9 January: CC provided a short overview of OER and CC licenses as tools to support education and science in Ukraine. This was presented for Ukrainian conference “Open Knowledge in Ukrainian Universities: Open Educational Resources.” Recording available on YouTube.
20 January: At the 2024 ALA LibLearnX conference in January, CC presented: “3D Scanning for Cultural Heritage Institutions: Practical Skills and Considerations for Library Preservation.” In this hands-on workshop, participants learned the basics of how 3D scanning works and the importance of this technology for preserving cultural heritage and library collections. After a quick demonstration, we were able to dive into a deeper discussion about the copyright and open licensing considerations of this particular type of digital preservation.
26 February: CC provided a general CC licensing training for CC network colleagues in Rwanda. We thoroughly enjoy supporting CC network colleagues and are happy to provide one-hour trainings like this upon request.
29 February: In a keynote, titled “In Cyborg Luddite Solidarity,” we explored the challenges and promises generative AI poses for creators and open educators. From concerns around privacy, consent, bias, economic and environmental impacts, access to and control over technology further entrenching inequities, copyright, misinformation and more, generative AI remains a contentious advancement. Simultaneously, the benefits and promises witnessed in 2023 alone were awe-inspiring. AI advanced life-saving medical knowledge, enhanced educational curriculum alignment across national borders, and made creative expression more accessible to untrained creators. Using generative AI, international projects strengthened linguistic diversity online — work vital to addressing one of the major inequities of the internet. While our new landscape continues to evolve, we drew from the Luddite Movement and Cyborg Manifesto to highlight ethics from our collective pasts that may apply today.
Between 4 and 8 March, we celebratedOpen Education Week with a range of learning offerings.
4 March: In Affordable Learning Kentucky’s virtual OE week symposium, CC delivered a talk titled “OER and Social Justice: Are We Keeping Our Promises?” We were grateful to engage with a new audience about the OER and its potential for even greater accessibility and social justice to empower learners from all facets of society.
4 March: This Licensing Q&A webinar was part of the Creative Commons Certificate courses, and was available to the public. Meredith Jacob is the CC US Public Lead and Director of the Project on Copyright and Open Licensing at the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law.
5 March: CC hosted a webinar focused on Wikidata, OER, and curriculum alignment in Ghana, Uruguay, and Italy, with special guests Nat Hernández Clavijoand Sailesh Patnaik. Clavijo and Patnaik shared the transformative potential of Wikidata in curriculum alignment through a review of Wikidata for Education, a project born in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana, in collaboration with UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition. The project aligned Wikipedia articles with school curricula, revolutionizing the way students access relevant information, and has since expanded to Uruguay and Italy. Recording link (English); Recording link (Español)
6 March: CC provided a training day in prep forMissouri’s A&OER Conference. Training days are great opportunities to ensure large groups have a baseline understanding of CC licenses, open practices, and open advocacy efforts.
7 March: In celebration of Open Education Week, OE Global’s Alan Levine interviewed CC Director of Learning and Training, Jennryn Wetzler. The podcast will be available on the OEGlobal Voices podcast page.
8 March: This Q&A webinar included an overview of CC’s recently released Recommended Best Practices for Better Sharing of Climate Data and the CC licenses and tools that support best practices. Our recommendations are a result of collaboration between Creative Commons, government agencies, and intergovernmental organizations including ECMWF, NASA, NOAA, and the World Resources Institute. They mark a significant milestone in our ongoing effort to enhance the accessibility, sharing, and reuse of open climate data to address the climate crisis. Our goal is to share strategies that align with existing data sharing principles and pave the way for a more interconnected and accessible future for climate data. These recommendations also align with the strategies and outcomes of the Open Climate Campaign, a partnership between Creative Commons, SPARC, and EIFL.
12 March – 2 April: CC piloted a series of webinars with ALA’s Core division about copyright, Creative Commons licensing, and the potential impact of emerging technologies on copyright and open access. Recording links are forthcoming.
21 March: This informational webinar was part of the Creative Commons Certificate courses, and was available to the public. Nancy Olson, Director of Distance Education and Instructional Technology at Barstow College provided practical guidance on Accessible OER.
5 April: CC co-presented a session at the Northeast OER Summit titled “Beyond Affordability: Collaboration, Reuse, Translation and Localization of OER in Ukraine.” Through storytelling of a recent event in 2023, Ukrainian colleagues and CC demonstrate the power of OER as a tool for cross country collaboration, connection and as support for learning communities in Ukraine. Presenters invited participants to join their collective story, exploring ways to support Ukrainian colleagues translating and localizing needed skills training amidst war.
17 April: Creative Commons announced the launch of “Introduction to Open Educational Resources,” our first professional development microcredential course and partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, commencing on 31 May.
On Wednesday, 8 May 2024, at 2:00 pm UTC, CC’s Open Culture Program will be hosting a new webinar in our Open Culture Live series titled “Open Culture in the Age of AI: Concerns, Hopes and Opportunities.”
At CC, we promote better sharing and open access to cultural heritage to help build and sustain vibrant and thriving societies. With generative AI entering the scene, what are some of the issues to consider to ensure institutions make the most of this new technology and avoid its pitfalls as they fulfill their missions? In this panel we will discuss some of the opportunities and risks that come along with embracing generative AI in cultural heritage institutions, and some ideas for engaging in this new technology for the benefit of institutions, creators, as well as curious visitors and learners.
Firstly, looking inwards, what are some of the ways in which cultural heritage might implement the use of AI to automate and improve labor-intensive processes as well as explore and enrich their data?
Secondly, looking outwards, when it comes to sharing their cultural heritage collections and related data online, potential use as AI training data is on the minds of many institutions. On the one hand, collections can offer important and useful training data for beneficial projects. Indeed, more diverse inputs to training datasets could aid in countering bias and ensuring outputs are more representative. On the other hand, especially in the age of AI, sharing collections needs to be done responsibly, respectfully and ethically, and institutions must remain guided by their public service missions. With generative AI here to stay, how can these considerations be adequately balanced? How can cultural heritage institutions play a role in contributing to the development of responsible AI?
We will be joined by a panel of experts including:
Suzanne Duncan, Chief Operating Officer at Te Hiku Media, New Zealand
Minne Atairu, interdisciplinary Artist, and doctoral student in the Art and Art Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, USA
Bart Melleti, Head of Knowledge Exchange at CREATe, University of Glasgow, Scotland
Michael Trizna, Data Scientist, Smithsonian Institution, USA
CC is a non-profit that relies on contributions to sustain our work. Support CC in our efforts to promote better sharing at creativecommons.org/donate.
What is Open Culture Live?
In this series, we tackle some of the more complex challenges that face the open culture movement, bringing in speakers with personal and professional expertise on the topic.
