A Shared Culture. “Attribution Only” as Default Policy—Otago Polytechnic on the How and Why of CC BY. Jane Park, April 22nd, 2008 A month ago, I blogged about CC’s Role in Open Access at Otago Polytechnic; specifically, on their adoption of CC BY as their default IP policy.
For those who don’t already know, Otago Polytechnic made a novel decision last year to essentially reverse the standard policy of most educational institutions. While other university staff must obtain permissions to release their work under a license different from “all rights reserved” copyright, Otago Polytechnic staff must explain why they don’t want material published openly under CC BY, should they desire standard (restrictive) copyright or another license. Not only does this eliminate all the red tape before getting your work out in the open, it sets open access as an educational imperative. Intellectual property and the future of copyright: 30 key issues. This article looks at the subjects of intellectual property rights and copyright from a range of perspectives.
This is all quite a minefield, and in the context of the curriculum it's easy for it to become either boring (bogged down in legalistic mumbo-jumbo) or reduced to a set of "Don'ts". What I've tried to do here is summarise a range of viewpoints in the form of brief statements and questions, and suggest ways in which the material might be used in a school context. I have also tried to keep myself out of it, in the sense that I've reported, as faithfully as I can, a range of views expressed at a conference I attended, without attempting to put my own spin on them.
How this article has been written This was the subject of a recent Westminster eForum event.