Globalized Creative Commons (Open Licensing)

The week our team joined the open course and read the first topic, open licensing, it happened along the wiki black out day and then Apple released the iBooks author feature. The Wiki and Apple iBook make me realize again the importance and impact of license of intellectual works. Hilton, Wiley, Stein, and Johnson (2010) listed the ‘R’s in OER: Reuse, Redistribute, Revise, and Remix, which are associated with the basic idea of Creative Commons license. It also explained why the CC license is an important element when we talk about Open Educational Resources.

In addition, the creative commons licensing idea has been globalized, the CC Affiliate Network includes teams from 85 countries (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Jurisdiction_Database); each affiliate has a creative commons website in local language. Theses websites are not simply translated from the original creative commons site, they also add creative ideas for promoting the concept of creative commons licensing. For instance, the creative commons Taiwan (http://creativecommons.tw/) used comics to show examples of how to use licensed materials and how to add license to your own works; the creative commons Australia produced a promotional animation, Creative Commons Mayer & Betle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3aZoe5VK-c) to explain the use of Creative Commons licensing.

These website and ideas are good examples of “think globally act locally”, and they tried to find best way to approach the target audience. As an instructional designer, the knowledge of creative commons license is definitely needed either when we adopt OER in the course or develop our own OER.


References:

• Hilton, J., Wiley, D., Stein, J., & Johnson, A. (2010). The four „R‟s of openness and ALMS analysis: frameworks for open educational resources. Open Learning, 25(1), 37-44.