Community Council/Meetings/Third/Guidelines for embedding links to third party media/straw dog 2

As a possible alternative to the first straw dog and as input (e.g. cut and paste) to the third, this page presents a motion on enabling media rich wikieducator pages which is not centred on "embedding 3rd party links". It speaks to meeting the needs of educators and learners in accordance with the values of WikiEducator. --Kim Tucker 23:33, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

=Straw Dog Motion 2: Enabling Media Rich WikiEducation=

Motion

 * The WikiEducator Community Council establish a Community Workgroup to formulate a proposal for the WCC to consider by special resolution on implementing a facility on WikiEducator which enables educators to embed multi-media on WikiEducator pages. Once the proposal is accepted by the Council (this may take a few iterations), the team will be required to implement the facility for testing during a trial period.


 * The process of embedding multi-media in pages must be simple for users, in accordance with WikiEducator valuesWE Main page, and minimise risks associated with streaming media from 3rd party repositories.


 * The proposal is to take account of all the discussions on the topic during the Third WikiEducator Community Council meeting.

Terms of Reference
The Workgroup's tasks will include:


 * 1) Refine and extend the  guidelines and use cases by reviewing all submissions made during the meeting
 * 2) Determine investment implications for WikiEducator including partnerships, software development, bandwidth and on-going support.
 * 3) Formulate a proposal for the WCC to consider by special resolution.
 * 4) Once the proposal is approved, and required resources are available, implement the required facility on WikiEducator for testing during a trial period.

The workgroup(s) will consist of a team of educators and technical people working in close collaboration.

The WikiEducator Community Council will facilitate this process by


 * liaising with potential partners or collaborators (e.g. organisations working on similar issues such as the Wikimedia Foundation)
 * sourcing funds and other resources which may be required to implement the solution
 * supporting the workgroup in terms of reviewing the proposal and
 * assisting in any way possible as required by the workgroup.

Guidelines and requirements
When embedding media on a WikiEducator page ensure that all of the following apply irrespective of the source:


 * 1) the content is a "free cultural work" (e.g. in the public domain, licensed CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, GNU FDL, ...)
 * 2) use of the content on the page constitutes a reasonable claim of Fair Use or Dealings
 * 3) the resource is correctly attributed
 * 4) ... please add ...

If you have composed the resource yourself, upload the file and complete the required meta-data (e.g. attribution, license, ...). The system will directly accept free file formats, automatically convert to free file formats where this is possible, and otherwise direct the user to free software or services for file manipulation and conversion if required.

If the resource is obtained from an on-line 3rd party source, the system will incorporate existing meta-data (such as its license and attribution) automatically if possible or prompt the user, automatically convert it to a free file format, transfer the file to a trusted host and link to it. A trusted host is one with which WikiEducator has an agreement on storing and sharing media files. Such agreements will only be made with services running on GNU Affero (or other acceptably) licensed software and with providers whose privacy and other relevant policies are consistent with those of WikiEducator.

The resource may be deleted if its meta-data is found to be incomplete or inaccurate. The verification process will include:


 * 1) On upload, an e-mail will be sent to the person who uploaded it indicating that the file has been received and is subject to moderation for obvious violations of copyright, fair use, offensiveness, ....
 * 2) If any shortcomings are found, the file will be hidden from public view and the user who uploaded the file notified to update the metadata or remove the file within 5 days.
 * 3) * If no action is taken, the file will be removed.
 * 4) WikiEducators may report a media file if deemed inappropriate, offensive or short on meta-data, etc.. Action will be taken depending on the particular problem:
 * 5) * inappropriate, or offensive material will be deleted
 * 6) * misattributions and other meta-data shortcomings will be corrected if possible, or the file will be deleted
 * 7) * other actions depending on the particular case.

Post meeting actions

 * Assuming the motion is approved, establish one or more work groups to execute the terms of reference above.
 * Support the workgroup.
 * Possible resourcing activities - people, funds, ....
 * Review the proposal
 * Approve proposal when implementation of the proposed solution is feasible and meets all criteria.

Questions and discussion

 * Kim, Leigh and others --- does this straw dog 2 proposal provide a feasible solution / alternative to Leigh's suggested process for embedding and reformatting?  How might this work in practice?  Does this draft use case scenario describe what you have in mind? Draft use case scenario: - A user identifies an appropriately licensed third party media resource and puts a "link" in WE, there is an automated procedure to validate/confirm the property rights, there is some web-service that converts the media file into open file formats, when completed the video streams on a WE page (either hosted locally on WE or with a "trusted host")  --Wayne Mackintosh 00:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC).


 * Yes - additional use cases may be developed above -- Kim Tucker 08:41, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Kim these are very informative use case scenarios -- really appreciate the time and effort you've put in. I think the use cases you illustrate address both usability issues for educators as well as effective ways to automate our requirements for free cultural works licensing. Seems to me that a good way forward would be for us to think about a WCC appointed Workgroup to take all these inputs, including the meeting discussions and formulate a proposal for the WCC to consider by special resolution. Of course -- all interested WCC members can join the workgroup. Just worried that we're not going to have enough time to do a good job here, and I'd like to have have our Lead Software engineer to helps us with the technical side, as well as inviting any other techies from our community, including folk from WMF, Mozilla, Internet Archive etc.. mmm this looks exciting and would be a great addition to the free culture. What do members of the meeting think? --Wayne Mackintosh 04:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Draft motion to establish such a workgroup above. - Kim Tucker 10:19, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Kim, you should come work over on Wikiversity. They follow the principles you note - to the letter. Wikieducator on the other hand, currently supports MP3 and Flash. Personally, I think that is a good thing, and that volunteers in WE (such as yourself) could go through and prepare free and open format versions of what is currently contained on WE in those formats. Leighblackall 22:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * File conversion seems tedious - a computer can do it ... before the file has a chance to be copied onto a WE page. Yes, I resonate with the principles adopted by WMF ... and the values of WE. - Kim Tucker 22:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)