We have exciting news…we published the keynotes from the 2021 CC Global Summit!

Alongside the 170+ sessions that took place at this year’s virtual event, we hosted five keynotes from global leaders in the open movement, who shared their work in open data, science and health, software and law. We’re excited to share these recordings of the keynotes with you today!

Achal Prabhala

This was our first keynote of the CC Global Summit, entitled “On the Margins of Creative Commons and Open,” by Achal Prabhala, Coordinator of the AccessIBSA project. Achal is a writer, researcher, recent fellow of the Shuttleworth Foundation, and longtime activist for access to medicines and vaccines. AccessIBSA campaigns to expand access and speed up the discovery of new drugs in India, Brazil and South Africa. In this keynote, Achal challenges the Creative Commons movement to look beyond traditional epistemological frameworks and consider allying with forces that achieve the same goals, but don’t use the same means.

Cecilia Oliveira

This was our second keynote of the CC Global Summit by Cecília Olliveira, an investigative journalist, researcher and Executive Director of Fogo Cruzado. Fogo Cruzado, which translates to cross-fire, is a Brazilian-based community-driven open data platform that collects and cross-checks real-time data on armed violence with a goal of reduce gun crime. In this keynote, Cecília shares her motivation for starting Fogo Cruzado in 2016 and the incredible impact the organisation has had in reducing armed violence in Rio de Janeiro and Recife over the past five years!

Audrey Tang 

This was our third keynote of the CC Global Summit, entitled “Digital Social Innovation,” by Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister in charge of Social Innovation. Audrey Tang is one of the world’s leading computer scientists, and among other things, is known for revitalizing the computer languages Perl and Haskell, as well as building the online spreadsheet system EtherCalc in collaboration with Dan Bricklin. In this keynote, Audrey shares how Taiwan has used open data and transparent governance to empower its citizens to code their own way out of a pandemic, and the lessons other nations can adopt from their digital playbook. Check out the slides >> 

Angela Odour Lungati

This was our fourth keynote of the CC Global Summit by Angela Oduor Lungati, Executive Director at Ushahidi, and recently appointed Board Member of the Creative Commons Board of Directors. Ushahidi is a global non-profit technology company that helps communities quickly collect and share information that enables them to raise voices, inform decisions and influence change. Angela shares her insights as a technologist, community builder, and open-source software advocate who is passionate about building and using appropriate technology tools to create an impact in the lives of marginalized groups. 

Lawrence Lessig

This was our final keynote of the CC Global Summit by Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, law professor, attorney, and political activist. As Creative Commons celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, Lessig reflects on how CC began, what it has accomplished, and what he hopes to see in the next twenty years and beyond. In this keynote, Lessig discusses some of the most pressing issues affecting the open ecosystem and the internet right now, and discusses what lessons can be learned from the prosecution and regulation of Big Tobacco—its media misinformation and disinformation, and its political interference.

What’s next?

Next up, we’ll be sharing the nine panel presentations that took place during the 2021 CC Global Summit—keep an eye on the CC blog & Youtube channel over the next two weeks. Once that is completed, we’ll start releasing as many of the other amazing sessions that took place as possible. We ask for your patience and understanding during this process. Thank you!

Missed the CC Global Summit? Take a look at our wrap-up!

The post The 2021 CC Global Summit Keynotes Are Here! appeared first on Creative Commons.

1600+ attendees | 300+ presenters | 170+ sessions | 90+ countries

The 2021 CC Global Summit (20-24 September) was our biggest and boldest event yet! The CC Global Summit is an annual highlight for the Creative Commons vast global network, this year being CC’s 20th anniversary and a milestone year for the Open movement more broadly—it was even more special.

The week was filled with engaging and thought-provoking sessions on the advances and challenges facing free and open culture today: open vs. privacy, the promotion of open GLAM, the unknowns of artificial intelligence, the climate crisis, developments in OER, the possibilities of NFTs, and so much more. 

This year, we had over 90 countries represented at Summit (50% more than last year!) from every corner of the globe. This means so much to us, as one of the core values of the 2021-2025 Creative Commons strategy is global inclusivity—we were on a mission to make this years summit more inclusive and diverse than ever before. Thanks to our sponsors and generous community donations, we were able to enhance our language supports, including live captioning and interpretation of our major program elements. We also launched our first-ever Summit Access Fund, which provided small dollar grants to help our community members and presenters cover internet and technology-related costs to attend the event. We are committed to building on this for future events, please share your experience in the Post-Summit Survey.  

We’d like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who made this event one of our best yet, keynote speakers, panelists, presenters, sponsors, performers and attendees. A special mention to our volunteers, who again amazed us with their energy, responsiveness, and dedication throughout the event. 

What Next?

We have finally published the keynotes from the 2021 CC Global Summit (watch them here)! Over the next two weeks, we’ll be sharing the nine panel presentations that took place during the Summit—keep an eye on the CC blog & Youtube channel. Once that is completed, we’ll start releasing as many of the other amazing session recordings as possible. We ask for your patience and understanding during this process. Thank you!

We also released a campaign featuring the 2021 CC Global Summit artwork by queer South Asian illustrator, Sonaksha Iyengar. You can now purchase t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and tote bags with this year’s artwork, and support Creative Commons at the same time! Want to make your own CC Summit-inspired pieces? Download the artwork here. 

As a nonprofit, Creative Commons relies on the generosity of the public to make events, like the CC Global Summit, possible. Every dollar helps us continue to unlock and expand the limits of open, driving innovation, collaboration, and creativity. Please join us in pushing the boundaries of open by making a gift to CC today!

The post Reflections from the 2021 CC Global Summit appeared first on Creative Commons.

The CC license suite was foundational to the creation of Creative Commons. To this day, the stewardship of CC licenses and public domain tools remains one of the core functions of the organization.

At this milestone of the 20th anniversary of Creative Commons, we are embarking on a public consultation around CC’s stewardship. Specifically, we seek to collectively define the principles and responsibilities that CC should and will uphold in its role as stewards of the CC legal tools. And we want you to participate.

The public consultation draft is open to all for written comment. (This is hosted on Google Docs; there is also a copy on our site for comments by email.)

You may also answer a few specific questions in a short survey.

This effort will assist with: 

• Resource allocation 
• Prioritization 
• Accountability 
• Transparency
• Making space for others to fill gaps that CC cannot 
• Resiliency of the licenses and public domain tools 
• Rebuilding an active community of people around the world invested in the licenses and public domain tools

Our initial draft is an attempt to make explicit the values and the practices CC has followed over the years, and to identify where CC should continue investing its efforts, where it needs to improve, and what it should no longer continue. As we consider the work of Creative Commons in the next decade and look to new endeavors and projects, we want to ensure we effectively sustain and nurture our existing tools. We can’t do this effectively without the CC community. Please help us define what good stewardship looks like by contributing to this consultation. 

More information about the process and timeline as well as call details are available on the License Stewardship landing page. We aim to publish this renewed Stewardship Commitment in December 2021.

The post License Stewardship consultation appeared first on Creative Commons.

The price of college textbooks in the United States (and many other countries) has skyrocketed over the past 30 years. Two-thirds of college students say that they’ve delayed buying a textbook because it was too expensive—even though 90% of those students worry that not having the textbook will affect their course grade. In addition, more than 80% of faculty agree that the cost of course materials is a serious problem.

Against this backdrop, a new sales model known as “Inclusive Access” has taken off. Also known as automatic textbook billing, this model adds the cost of digital course content into students’ tuition and fees. Hardly known five years ago, one in three college students reported participating in at least one Inclusive Access course during the 2020-21 academic year.

How exactly does Inclusive Access work? Does it really really save students money? What about this kind of program is “inclusive”? Straightforward answers to these questions aren’t always easy to find.

InclusiveAccess.org is a community-driven initiative to raise awareness of the facts about automatic textbook billing. The site aims to be a one-stop shop for information, tools, and other resources that can help administrators, faculty, students, and policymakers make smart decisions about how to address textbook costs on campus.

InclusiveAccess.org was developed by SPARC with generous support from the Michelson 20MM Foundation. Partners include AAC&U, Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, Creative Commons, DigiTex, Student PIRGs, Open Education Global, and OpenStax. The initiative is also forming an advisory committee with representation from a broad range of stakeholders across higher education.

Creative Commons and our partners hope that InclusiveAccess.org will help decision makers fully consider and understand how automatic textbook billing can impact their institution and students. We also hope that it empowers students to ask important questions about how they are charged for textbooks, and to exercise freedom over how they access course materials.

Check back at InclusiveAccess.org regularly for updates on the latest facts, news, and case studies on automatic textbook billing, as well as additional tools and resources. Join the email list and follow @TextbookBilling to get involved.

Of course, the problem of high textbook costs can be solved with CC-licensed Open Educational Resources (OER) as a way to promote more equitable access to course materials. See the UNESCO Recommendation on OER for actions your government and/or educational institution can take to support open education resources, practices and policy.

The post Introducing InclusiveAccess.org appeared first on Creative Commons.

On behalf of the entire Creative Commons Board of Directors, I am delighted to announce the appointment of three new members of the Board: Glenn Otis Brown, Angela Oduor Lungati, and Jeni Tennison. Glenn is one of CC’s original architects: he was our Executive Director from 2002-2005, and then served on the Board from 2009-2012. He returns to CC with a deep sense of our history and fresh ideas for our future. Angela and Jeni are both long-time supporters of Creative Commons and leaders in the open knowledge movement, who are joining the board with a wealth of experience in technology and innovation. We are truly honored and grateful to have all three of them join us at this critical stage in the development of CC, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary and look to the future of better sharing. 

These outstanding new Directors were selected following an open nomination process that harnessed the insights of the CC Global Network, led by Governance and Nominations Committee Chair Carolina Botero. Please join me in thanking Carolina for that service and in extending a warm welcome to Jeni, Angela, and Glenn!

About the new board members:

Angela Oduor Lungati

Angela is a technologist, community builder, and open-source software advocate who is passionate about building and using appropriate technology tools to create an impact in the lives of marginalized groups. She’s a first class honors’ graduate from Strathmore University, with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Information Technology. She has over ten years of experience in software development, global community engagement, and non-profit organizational management. She currently serves as the Executive Director at Ushahidi, a global non-profit technology company that helps communities quickly collect and share information that enables them to raise voices, inform decisions and influence change. She previously served as the Director of Community Engagement, creating and managing programs for Ushahidi’s diverse global community. She is also a co-founder of AkiraChix, a non-profit organization that nurtures generations of women who use technology to develop innovations and solutions for Africa. Angela joined us as a keynote speaker at this year’s Creative Commons Global Summit, and she was recently featured on an episode of our Open Minds podcast. 

Glenn Otis Brown

Glenn O. Brown works with a range of organizations on brand and identity, audience development, team building, and fundraising. In addition to advising start-ups and corporations, Glenn is on the board of directors of nonprofits The Texas Tribune and Words Without Borders, and is a senior advisor at MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication. Glenn has worked in creative and business roles at the intersection of media and technology at The Obama Foundation (Chief Digital Officer 2016-2020), Betaworks (Entrepreneur in Residence 2015-2016), Twitter (co-founder of Twitter Amplify video marketplace 2011-2015), and YouTube (head of U.S. music partnerships 2007-2011), and Google/YouTube (product counsel, 2005-2007). From 2002-2005, Glenn was CEO of Creative Commons, where he managed the launch of the first CC licenses and visual design framework, coined the phrase “Some Rights Reserved,” and drove early CC adoption among creators, communities, and platforms around the world. Glenn is a long-time movie buff, book lover, and amateur musician. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Austin, Texas.

Jeni Tennison

Jeni Tennison is the Vice President and Chief Strategy Adviser of the Open Data Institute, which is a UK based non-profit with a mission to work with companies and governments to build an open, trustworthy data ecosystem. She earned her PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Nottingham in the UK, then worked as an independent consultant, specializing in open data publishing and consumption. She was the technical architect and lead developer behind legislation.gov.uk, before joining the ODI as Technical Director in 2012, becoming CEO in 2016, and Vice President in 2020. She has a long-standing interest in open and web standards, served on the W3C’s Technical Architecture Group from 2011 to 2015, and co-chaired the W3C’s CSV on the Web Working Group. She is the co-chair of the Data Governance Working Group within the Global Partnership on AI, and sits on the Advisory Boards for the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and the Information Law and Policy Centre. She loves board games and is the proud co-creator of the open data board game, Datopolis.

The post Creative Commons Announces New Board Members: Angela Oduor Lungati, Glenn Otis Brown & Jeni Tennison appeared first on Creative Commons.