I’m delighted to announce that Creative Commons has selected Catherine Stihler to be its next CEO.
Catherine has been a champion for openness as both a legislator and practitioner for more than 20 years. She currently serves as CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation, an organization whose work is fully aligned with the values and mission of Creative Commons. During her tenure, she has successfully redefined OKF’s vision and mission, reengaged its global chapters, and increased its international profile.
Prior to her work with OKF, Catherine was a longtime Member of the European Parliament. As one of Scotland’s most respected legislators, she was active on digital policy issues including copyright reform, citizen privacy and data protection, and improving public access to digital tools. Among her many achievements, she founded the Parliament’s All-Party Library Group, promoting and advocating for the importance of libraries in the digital age.
It’s been a pleasure getting to know Catherine, and hearing her ideas for how Creative Commons can make a meaningful and long-lasting impact in a moment of tremendous global change. The CC Board has been so impressed by her inclusive and collaborative leadership skills, her vision for the future of our organization, and her passion for CC’s mission of eliminating legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges. We, along with the CC staff, are truly thrilled to begin working together with her.
Next year we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Creative Commons. That’s two decades of making the world a more open and equitable place through sharing. It’s a huge milestone for CC and the perfect time to welcome a new leader to guide us into our next era. It coincides with events that make the need to remove unnecessary obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity clearer and more urgent than ever. Our current health and environmental emergencies, including the emergency of systemic racism and inequality, are global crises that require collective action and wisdom. CC’s modest but critical role in addressing these crises is to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and creativity that empower that collective action and nourish that collective wisdom.
We enter this next chapter at Creative Commons with gratitude to our Interim CEO Cable Green, who will resume his critical leadership role as Director of Open Education; to former CEO Ryan Merkley, now a key collaborator in his role at the Wikimedia Foundation; and to the Open Knowledge Foundation, with whom we look forward to continued collaboration. Thanks also to the Creative Commons staff, CC Global Network, funders, and Board of Directors; as well as Kathleen Yazbak and her team at Viewcrest Advisors. All of their insights shaped our search process and will lay the foundation for our future success.
Catherine will officially join us on August 17. Until then, please join me in welcoming her to Creative Commons.
Image: Jonathan Poritz, Director of Teaching and Learning and an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Physics, both at Colorado State University-Pueblo.
Creative Commons provides educators and the expertise they need to harness Open Educational Resources (OER). We strive to make education more accessible to more people around the world. One way we do this is through our CC Certificate training, which is licensed CC BY 4.0 and available for use.
Today, we’re delighted to announce our training materials are now available as audio files licensed CC BY 4.0. Thanks to the fantastic work of Jonathan Poritz, we can now offer materials in another format for learners. Jonathan Poritz has been contributing to open education efforts for nearly a decade* and facilitates CC Certificate courses regularly.
To celebrate the recent additions to our open licensed CC Certificate resources, we asked Jonathan a few questions. Our interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
CC: Thank you for your hours of work making the CC Certificate OER available in a new format, and improving the accessibility of our resources. What a gift. Can you tell us about your process for this?
Poritz: So the process was pretty simple: I just went into my clothes closet and read the whole thing to my laptop. The clothes closet seems to be the place with the best acoustics in my house.
Editor’s note: Jonathan elaborated in a conversation with CC Certificate participants, noting: “I would go in there, close the door, and record for a while. … when I was too hot…I’d take a break out in the world!”
I’m actually not being facetious here. I work a lot in Open Educational Resources (OER) at my university and in my home state (Colorado, USA). When I talk to people about making and using OER, one thing I like to emphasize is that only OER gives teachers and learners real agency: because of the open licensing—Creative Commons licensing, which enables OER—a teacher can retain, reuse, redistribute, revise, and remix OER. In other words, only OER allows for real pedagogical academic freedom, real autonomy, and agency for teachers and learners.
I think of myself as a “Z-professor,” in that I only use OER in my teaching. The “Z-this” and “Z-that” terminology is used in the OER world to describe things like zero textbook cost degree programs, also called “Z-Degrees” or “Zed Creds.” These programs use entirely OER or other zero-cost resources, so I’m used to having that kind of agency. When it occurred to me that an audio version of the CC Certificate materials should be made and that it would enable more learners to access this fantastic resource, I just went into my closet and recorded it!
A Zed Cred/Z-Degree is a “set of courses in a specific program area that allows a student to earn a credential, such as an associate degree or certificate program, with zero textbook costs by way of using open educational resources and/or free library materials.” Source: BCcampus Open Education program.
I knew I didn’t need to ask permission to do this because the CC Certificate materials are licensed CC BY 4.0, so I have all the permissions I need. Regarding the technical process, I happened to already have a pretty good external microphone, and the Audacity audio editing software, which is FLOSS (free/libre/open-source software).
CC: Do you have other ideas for how CC might increase the accessibility of our training resources? Or, ideas for people who are curious about accessing the CC Certificate course content?
Poritz: Another version of the audiobook! When I got to the end of the full reading, I had more experience doing this than when I started, so I will do a better job the next time. Fortunately, the CC team around the CC Certificate course regularly revises and improves the course materials, so I will have a chance to do a new audio version in a few months.
In a larger sense, it might be a good idea to get a real accessibility expert to look over the materials—I certainly do not have such expertise! I knew about reading books out loud because I used to read math books for Reading for the Blind when I was a university student myself (100,000 years ago), but a real accessibility expert might have things to say.
Image: Jonathan Poritz recording audio in his closet at home! This image is licensed CC BY 4.0.
It seems to me that another thing CC can do is along the lines of that periodic revisit and improvement of the CC Certificate course materials. It means that the materials are always tracking the best and most current knowledge about law, practices, policies, resources, etc. I know that there are also discussions about how to improve the course in other ways (e.g. to use more methods of open pedagogy, to make it more relevant to a very international audience, etc.). This is a highly non-trivial task! There are so many different legal systems around the world, and so many local traditions of educational and cultural production and consumption, it is hard for CC to make something that is localized to every one of those situations. But (as you know!) there are some steps in this direction already. For example, facilitators accept assignments from participants in their local languages, when the facilitators can read the languages, or when the participant attaches an automatic translation which they have checked for reasonable accuracy. And, I understand, there are some additional translations of the course materials into other languages coming out soon!
To your second question: CC has given the world an amazing gift by releasing these materials with a CC BY license. It should go a long way to making this knowledge more widely accessible, across geographic and economic barriers. The cost of formally taking the CC Certificate course does remain an obstacle, although the scholarship program has made tremendous inroads into that.
I do believe that taking the course provides benefits that just reading the CC BY licensed materials does not. Aside from the direct interaction with the other participants (and the section facilitator), there is always a sense of joining an absolutely amazing global community around openness that comes from working together on the course. I’m humbled by the privilege of meeting and learning about these truly amazing groups of people and what they are doing, every single time I facilitate a course.
CC: After so many hours sweating in your clothes closet, what’s next? What do you hope to see in Open Education efforts given the “great pivot” to online teaching we’ve seen?
Poritz: I have great hope, but also great fear about what’s happening right now in this great pivot. As should be clear from the things I’ve said above, I think Open Education has a lot of solutions to offer to many issues in education. In fact, as a “Z-professor,” I think “open” is the only way to go with education!
This crisis could help educators work (rush!) toward more open practices, or move in the opposite direction. We in open communities must work to clarify and promote the solutions that open education offers—and a great many of us already are. We also need to highlight how problematic the closed approaches are to learners.
If I had to list the issues which bedevil open education right now, my list might include:
General lack of knowledge of open practices with which things like the CC Certificate course can help enormously.
Lack of ancillary materials (automatic homework systems, test banks, etc.) for many OER, which many people are working to overcome.
Difficulty in finding existing OER for particular purposes, which again, people are improving. For example, there are various OER search tools, and CC Search is getting better all the time.
Complex platforms to create and remix OER: also an area of rapid work and improvement.
Spotty record on accessibility for OER, although commercial resources are actually not all that much better!
I think the community can step up to improve accessibility, similar to how a random person with a quiet clothes closet can record any work with an open license and make it accessible to more people.
I’m headed back to the closet to record! Maybe I’ll tackle a math OER textbook I wrote next—it should be an interesting challenge to try to describe all the equations, graphs, and diagrams!
*In addition to his work with the CC Certificate, Jonathan is the Director of Teaching and Learning and an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Physics, both at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He is also a member of the Colorado Department of Higher Education’s Open Educational Resources Council. Learn more about Jonathan here.
The CC Certificate is an in-depth course about CC licenses, open practices, and the ethos of the Commons. The course is composed of readings, quizzes, discussions, and practical exercises to develop learners’ open skills. We provide personalized engagement with expert facilitators and copyright lawyers in the field.
We’re excited to introduce the three Creative Commons Global Network (CCGN) Platforms: Open Glam, Copyright, and Open Education! These Platforms are created with our community in mind, and everyone is free to join.
Open GLAM Network Platform
Following the work that started in 2017, the Open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) Platform is currently working to provide a space to share resources, enhance collaboration, and raise awareness on open access to digital cultural heritage, working with GLAM professionals and open advocates. The plan for 2020 includes the publication of the Declaration on Open Access for Cultural Heritage and a White Paper that informs the Declaration. We also plan on providing the community with different channels to engage, network, and discuss issues regarding open GLAM.
With this year’s funding, we have put together a plan that sets out to:
Build a map and visualization of GLAM institutions that are implementing open access policies and initiatives around the world
Document case studies and stories of open GLAM, with a special focus on countries in Africa, as well as underrepresented communities across the world
Coming to the webinars and proposing subjects to discuss
Copyright Network Platform
The Copyright Platform brings together experts in copyright law and policy to push for policy, legislative, and regulatory change in copyright at the international and national levels that upholds the public interest, as well as enriches and protects the public domain. For details on the Platform’s goals, principles, objectives, and rationale, click here. In 2020, this Platform will undertake projects and activities aimed at fulfilling these goals and principles.
For example, the Platform could act as:
A forum to exchange good practices, case studies and practical examples
A network of contacts, local focal points, and experts
A place to collaborate on projects and activities
Priorities and activities for this year will be proposed, discussed, and agreed upon collectively by the Platform members. The current plan serves as a wellspring of ideas and proposes a process to allocate $20,000 USD for selected activities.
Anyone interested in joining the Platform and taking part in its activities can:
The Open Education Platform brings together a global open education community (1000+ members from 75+ countries) to support and facilitate multinational, collaborative open education content, practices, and policy activities. We envision a world in which everyone has universal access to effective open education resources and meaningful learning opportunities. For details on the Platform’s goals, principles, and objectives, click here.
In 2020, this Platform will undertake projects and activities aimed at fulfilling these collaboratively developed goals and principles. Activities will be proposed and decided by Platform members and funded with $20,000 USD. We’re currently finalizing the Platform’s activities timeline.
Anyone interested in open education is most welcome to join the Platform and take part in its activities by:
It’s official, the 2020 CC Global Summit, to be held 19-24 October 2020, will be entirely online and free of cost! After consulting with our community, we’ve also decided to hold the event in a variety of timezones and include programming in five languages: Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, and Spanish. By doing so, we hope this virtual version of the CC Global Summit will provide the open community with an intimate and localized space to gather and connect.
After revising the CC Global Summit, we’ve decided to once again open our Call for Proposals (CFP) to better reflect the dynamics of our world today, including proposals that address issues regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the global movement against racial injustice. This CFP also welcomes proposals that take into account the changing medium of the CC Global Summit, from an in-person gathering to a virtual event. Finally, while the official language of the event is English, we highly encourage proposals in any of the five languages we’re supporting this year: Arabic, English, French, Mandarin, and Spanish.
In this CFP, we’re asking for proposals that address the topics and issues outlined in the tracks below with a focus on actionable insights and outcomes—from case studies to workshops and storytelling sessions.
Creators of the Commons – The faces, work, and stories of those building the Commons
Powering the Commons – Exploring the tools, technology, and communities that power the Commons
Open Education and Open Scholarship– Supporting communities that practice open access to education and scholarship
Open Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums – Improving and expanding open access to cultural heritage
Policy and Advocacy promoting the Commons – Strategies for legal action and copyright reform
We’re very excited to host the CC Global Summit virtually this year and for the opportunity to once again gather the open community under the umbrella of learning, sharing, and creating to begin an exercise of internal reflection on how to build a more equitable, inclusive and accessible world.
The deadline for proposals is 17 July 2020. Please review the guidelines before submitting your proposal!
As part of our initiative to support multiple languages, you can view this blog post in عربى| Français| Español| 简体中文.
In theory, publishing publicly funded television content under open licenses should be a no-brainer. As with publicly funded research, open licenses improve distribution, allow for remix creativity, and unlock access to popular free knowledge platforms such as Wikipedia.
In practice, however, advocates of open licenses in the realm of public-service media face several hurdles, such as:
Standard licensing procedures in the world of public-service media do not include open licensing options and are typically limited in time and in scope.
Therefore, releasing material under an open license requires renewed rights clearing efforts with all right holders involved to reflect the conditions set out in open licenses—given the often high number of creators and right holders involved in video content production, this is a difficult, time-consuming, and costly task.
Standard remuneration rules can make open licensing unattractive for creators.
One common provision, for example, requires public service broadcasters to pay repeated fees any time material is broadcast. With an open license, there are usually no required payments. As a result, remuneration schemes have to be changed to avoid or mitigate the loss of income for creators.
European Union competition law prohibits state subsidies that may distort competition.
Usually, free and open licenses don’t pose a problem in terms of competition law as long as no special advantage for an individual market actor is associated with using an open license. Generally, public broadcasters act with great caution when it comes to competition rules and many have concerns regarding licensing arrangements that could potentially set off competition issues.
There are fears of information manipulation.
In light of recent debates on disinformation and “fake news”, public-service media fear that the content they release might be deceivingly and fraudulently manipulated so as to misrepresent facts. While Creative Commons licenses generally permit the creation of derivative works or adaptations (unless the licensor chooses to release content under a NoDerivatives license) and attribution is a requirement for all CC licenses as is a link back to the original so users can see any changes made, they do not govern defamation, disinformation or fabrication of information, which are violations dealt with outside the scope of copyright. Still, there is a reticence in public media television to openly publish content due to such threats despite the aforementioned safeguards within the CC licenses.
German public broadcaster ZDF chooses open licensing
Given these hurdles, the recent initiative by the German national public-service television broadcaster ZDF (“Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen”, literally translated as “Second German Television”) and its documentary series Terra X is remarkable. After a test run with five CC-licensed videos on issues related to climate change in the fall of 2019, the ZDF just launcheda platform with 50 explainer videos and promised to add three additional videos each week. All videos are licensed under either CC BY or CC BY-SA, making them compatible with the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia (see theZDF press release, in German).
A screenshot of the “Terra X” webpage featuring a catalog of CC-BY and CC-BY-SA explainer videos. Access the videos here.
The videos on climate change published in 2019soon found their way into prominent Wikipedia articles, such as this one onclimate change, leading to hundreds of thousands of views. This illustrates how important the posting of content on Wikipedia, which requires the use of a CC BY or CC BY-SA license, is for public service-media, as it can considerably increase the size of the audience and the media’s reach. Earlier experiments by public broadcasters with open licenses had used restrictive license modules such as the Non-Commercial (NC) or NoDerivatives (ND) CC licenses, which reached a very limited audience.
With Terra X leading the way, it will be interesting to see how the “first” German public-service television broadcasterARD will respond. Hopefully, we will see productive competition between these two public-service broadcasters that will ultimately increase the amount of content available under open licenses produced by public-service media for the benefit of users in Germany and across the world.
After revising the CC Global Summit, we’ve decided to once again open our 
As part of our initiative to support multiple languages, you can view this blog post in 
