Hey Derek, Great to see your post @ Terra Incognita.
The University of the Western Cape is a leader in progressing FLOSS for education and FORE. I was particularly pleased to read your comment about many of the “free” content licenses being anything but free .Especially those CC licenses incorporating NC and ND restrictions.
Fortunately the free knowledge movement has made some progress in this regard, largely due to the interventions of the Wikimedia Foundation and support from the Free Software Foundation. Recently the Creative Commons have included a Free Cultural Works 1 approved logo on the two CC licenses that meet these requirements. See for example:
CC-BY 2 and
CC-BY-SA 3
Increasingly, education institutions are now signing the Cape Town Open Education Declaration “ which I think is a good thing. At last we are seeing a return to the true values of education “ namely to share knowledge freely. However, these commitments need to be followed up with appropriate reward and incentive mechanisms at the institutional level within the academy. One example is the implementation of progressive and supportive IP policies.
I know that UWC has a progressive IP policy and has been a pioneer in this area. What advice can you give institutions who have signed the Cape Town Declaration in taking the next steps in supporting their commitments? How did UWC go about changing and implementing its IP policy? What lessons have you learned from the process?
It seems to me that once an institution commits through a supportive IP policy “ the growth in FORE is impressive. A good example is Otago Polytechnic in new Zealand. They have implemented a new IP policy where all resources default to a CC-BY license. Since the implementation of this policy “ free content development at the Otago Polytechnic 4 has been prolific and inspiring.
Great post Derek - thanks. Wayne
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