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Lessig on Digital Barbarism
Lawrence Lessig has posted a review of David Halperin's recent book, Digital Barbarism.
Halperin, who authored the (in)famous New York Times article calling for perpetual copyright, has now compiled his ideas into a book. Lessig offers a much-needed critique, including citing misconceptions about Creative Commons (Halperin conflates it not only with "freeware" with software... more
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Open Education Showcase: Initiatives in Australia
delia (Australia) · Jun 17th, 2007 2:18 am · 22 votes · no comments made
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There appears to a hive of free for education activity occurring in Australia and the 2007 iSummit conference provides a fantastic opportunity to share with you the number of important Australian government funded Free for Education initiatives.
Why the need for Free for Education Initiatives?
* Escalating Copyright Costs
The Australian Education sector is facing escalating Copyright Costs under the compulsory educational licences set out in the Australian Copyright Act.
The largest paying licence is the Part VB compulsory licence which allows educational institutions to copy and communicate limited amounts of print and electronic copyright material for educational purposes. Changes to the way schools are charged for copying and communication in 2002 (from a flat fee to a per page rate) have caused copyright fees for schools to increase exponentially since that time (from $A9.6m in 1999 to $A51.8m in 2006).
Schools have responded by developing and implementing “Smart Copying” initiatives designed to reduce costs and introduce best practice copyright management in schools.
* The Challenge of New Technologies
The Australian Education sector has enthusiastically adopted new technologies such as podcasting, digital whiteboards, video reticulation systems, learning and content management systems and so on. However, ICT technologies do increase our copyright costs. Our key challenge is to establish ways of using new technologies in sustainable way.
National Educational Access Licence for Schools (NEALS)
NEALS is one of the first of the Smart Copying initiatives. NEALS is a unique agreement between the Commonwealth education department, all state and territory education departments and the non-government private and catholic school sectors. Schools can use each other’s administration and non commercial curriculum materials, free of charge. The parties are able to specifically exclude commercially valuable or sensitive material they do not want to include under NEALS.
There is also the option for third party licensors such as government departments or non profit organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund to licence materials to NEALS as “free for education” materials.
We hope to encourage government departments and statutory companies to join NEALS as a third party licensors. These organizations are being encouraged to join NEALS on the basis that their publications have been produced using public funds and members of the public (including school students) should not have to pay a second time to use them.
The Australian Tax Office, for example, has indicated it is interested in joining NEALS. Other educational bodies such as Curriculum Corporation (a Commonwealth Ministerial company) are in the process of joining NEALS.
At this stage NEALS covers Australian schools only but there is some talk about including New Zealand schools in the future.
In order to promote NEALS and also to assist Copyright Collecting Societies to exclude NEALS works from remuneration, most new publications and websites are marked with a NEAL logo on each page. For example, Department of Education, Tasmania and ACT Department of Education.
AEShareNet
AEShareNet was the first publicly funded “Free for Education” initiative in Australia. It was established as an independent Ministerial company by Australian education ministers to provide the vocational education sector with a broad range of materials under a series of standard licences. The model applies equally successfully to the school and university sectors.
AEShareNet “free for education materials” are made available under Instant Licences. Mediated Licences are available for trading materials for which fees are charged. The various licences are identified by distinct “marks”.
The four free instant AEShareNet licences are similar to Creative Commons licence in requiring attribution, allowing different degrees of modification and sharing of derivative works:
* AEShareNet –FfE – Free for Education:
Material carrying this mark may be freely used and copied for educational purposes but the owner retains control over other uses. This mark can be applied to any material but AEShareNet suggested uses include government information sheets, technical specifications, marketing materials and content on a publicly accessible website.
* AEShareNet – U – Unlocked Content:
This material may be freely copied, adapted and used by anyone. Exact copies must retain the owners’ copyright statement and the AEShareNet-U mark. However, enhancements may only carry the licensee’s copyright statement. Intended for use where the original owner does not require acknowledgement in further modifications. This licence can be used, for example, for professional development materials to be adapted for the users own needs.
* AEShareNet – S – Share and Return:
Material may be used and enhanced by anyone free of charge but copyright in published modifications lies with the original owner so there is only one licensor who can then maintain the material. Typical uses would be learning resources.
* AEShareNet – P – Preserve Integrity:
Available to be freely copied but may not be modified and must retain owner’s copyright notice. AEShareNet suggests the use of this licence for curriculum documents, research reports, statistical information and so on. According to AEShareNet it is suitable when material needs to be widely accessible but requiring a single authoritative source.
At the time of writing AEShareNet has merged into another company known as TVET which will continue to manage the AEShareNet suite of licences.
The Learning Federation (TLF)
TLF is jointly funded by the Commonwealth and all state and territory education departments to provide high quality online curriculum resources for Australian schools. TLF curriculum content is distributed via the web repositories of the various educational jurisdictions. The jurisdictions then distribute the materials to their schools through their education portals. Unlike AEShareNet, TLF pays “up front” third party content licence fees on behalf of Australian schools.
The TLF has formed relationships with a broad range of cultural institutions to access curriculum resources (eg photographs, original documents, film and music excerpts). These are provided to schools as both stand alone content and incorporated into multimedia resources that focus on Australia’s cultural heritage. Participating institutions include the National Museum of Australia, the National Film and Sound Archive, Australian Children’s Television Foundation, National Library of Australia and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Other Free for Education Initiatives
* Film Australia Digital Learning
A number of other organizations are now moving to provide their resources free of charge for educational purposes. For example, the Commonwealth funded national film body, Film Australia Limited, recently launched Film Australia Digital Learning to provide teachers and curriculum developers access to over 400 free Australian video clips. The clips can be downloaded and are provided with dedicated curriculum notes and class activities.
* Enhance TV Website
Under the Copyright Act (Part VA) Australian schools are entitled to copy and communicate television and radio broadcasts for educational purposes. The audio-visual collecting society Screenrights, which administers this licence, now provides associated online resources to schools through its “Enhance TV” website. These include high quality Teachers Notes prepared by educational experts on specific television and radio programs as well as resources “bundled” together on particular educational themes. These are provided free of charge to schools and, by agreement with Screenrights, are not included in remunerable copying and communication under statutory licence. Also see:Enhance TV Study Guides
* Australian Film Commission (AFC)
The AFC’s School Screen program provides free screenings of Australian films to schools around Australia. They focus particularly on regional areas where students lack the opportunity to see films on a regular basis. The AFC also provides high quality study guides to Australian films free of charge to schools via its website. Also see AFC School Screen Resources Webpage
tags: australia education summit07
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