CopyrightFairUse. Open Education. Tell the U.S. Department of Education: Open Licensing Matters. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is considering a rule change that would make the educational resources the Department funds a lot more accessible to educators and students—not just in the U.S., but around the world. We hope to see it adopted, and that it sets the standard for similar policies at other government agencies. Sign the petition The policy would require that grantees share all content that the ED funds under an open license. If the ED funds your work, you must share it under a license that allows anyone to use, edit, and redistribute it. For software, the license would also have to allow people to access and modify the source code. This is a great move. All federal grants are subject to a rule that allows the government itself to share grant-funded works with the public, but that rule has not been sufficient to make sure that sharing happens in practice. The existing policy also doesn’t cover reuse.
The EFF will be submitting a comment in support of the rule change. Expanding Opportunity through Open Educational Resources. Using advanced technology to dramatically expand the quality and reach of education has long been a key priority for the Obama Administration. In December 2013, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) issued a report exploring the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to expand access to higher education opportunities. Last month, the President announced a $2B down payment, and another $750M in private-sector commitments to deliver on the President’s ConnectEd initiative, which will connect 99% of American K-12 students to broadband by 2017 at no cost to American taxpayers.
This week, we are happy to be joining with educators, students, and technologists worldwide to recognize and celebrate Open Education Week. Open Educational Resources (“OER”) are educational resources that are released with copyright licenses allowing for their free use, continuous improvement, and modification by others. Building on this record of success, OSTP and the U.S. How to filter Google image searches by usage rights. Looking for an image online that you can legally and safely use on your own Web site? Google now makes it easier to find one. A new Usage Rights filter is now easily accessible on your search results page, as tweeted by Google software engineer Matt Cutts. Here's how you can tap into it: Run your search at the Google Images page, or just use Google's default search page and then filter the results by image.Click on the Search tools menu and then select the dropdown menu for Usage Rights. The images are typically ones licensed by Creative Commons or GNU Free Documentation, or are items in the public domain.
A Google help page describes the various licensing and usage options. Google has offered usage rights filtering for images since 2009. Creative Commons. The flip side of copyright - Creative Commons blog - Creative Commons. Timothy Vollmer, February 23rd, 2016 Fair Use Week 2016 is here, and we’re happy to celebrate it alongside many other organizations and individuals who believe in the importance of flexible exceptions to copyright law. There are now over 1 billion CC-licensed works available, and these will always be free for anyone to use and share. CC licenses work because of the existing contours of copyright. We sometimes complain about the numerous negative aspects of our collective copyright rules—such as absurdly long terms, disproportionate infringement penalties, and a pervasive permission culture.
At the same time, we also need to support and expand the features of our copyright law that make possible increased access to information, educational activities, and freedom of expression. The legal doctrine of fair use continues to get stronger. There are still threats to realizing the full potential of flexible limitations and exceptions to copyright. Open educational resources (OERs) There is no one, standard definition of open educational resources. However, the following broad definition of OERs from OER Commons seems to be generally accepted by the community: 'Open educational resources are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student or self-learner.
Examples of OER include: full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world.' OERs exist within a wider ‘open’ movement and context, explored below. The open movement Many of these have been driven by and created by communities that recognise the benefits to themselves, and sometimes to wider groups. What are educational resources? What are open educational resources? Engagement with OER can be light touch. Finding OERs. Copyright and Creative Commons Explained by Common Craft.