Do we need a table or info on licensing?
Seth,
I wondering whether or not we should include information on the licensing of the different repositories so as to distinguish between the free cultural works approved and "non-approved" sites ....
Cheers Wayne
Wayne,
That's a great point. When I was adding Thinkfinity yesterday I was a little concerned that the differences in licensing would not be apparent without a more careful reading. I am a little stuck on the best way to present the licensing information. In my mind there are a few different options:
- Use a binary free cultural works approved/non-approved flag
- Some sort of coding (icons, color, etc.) along the four freedoms as defined at freedomdefined.org.
- List the license and rely on the licensing section to help clarify the distinctions.
I think the kind of licensing information we want to display will determine whether or not we want to keep it in a list or put it in a table.
I also think I'm going to write a blog post and ask for additional feedback.
Sincerely,
Seth
perhaps a page colour index. Red for all rights reserved. Orange for CC NC etc. Yellow for GPL and Share Alike. Green for CC By. and rainbows for Public Domain :)
I like the addition of licensing info, but it may be worth noting somewhere that most of these repositories include materials licensed under a variety of licenses and that individual items should be consulted. (As an example, many of these repositories include lots of stuff that is not open at all, because, I suppose, people don't understand OER.)
I've added a few sentences addressing before the listings begin (though I'm not 100% happy about how I've phrased it on the first try). I'll respond to the openness issue in the All Rights Reserved? thread.
Agree with Seth's point 3 above (i.e. refer to the licensing section for explanations).
The coding and colour schemes are also good ideas which could be used on this page (and other pages listing resources).
Personally, I would prefer tables with a column for licensing which could contain a colour-coded icon/symbol/label etc.
Structuring the types of repositories in other ways (and ordering sections accordingly) is tricky.
Ideally, we should think of the educator-reader and the most typical usage scenario which could suggest the order of criteria?
Profile the educator:
- Subject area (e.g. I am a physics teacher looking for ...)
- Educational level (e.g. K-12 materials ...)
- Something ready-made and complete (e.g. OCW full course, text book, reading materials, ...)
- Something to incorporate or adapt (finer-grain) (e.g. image or other media file)
- Educational level (e.g. K-12 materials ...)
Licensing (like file formats and quality) is an important cross-cutting concern, but this is about finding resources.
This thought may have implications for the ordering of the sections:
Consider:
- Find your own resources
- Subject Based repositories:
- Science repositories
- Social science repositories
- Humanities repositories
- General (OER) repositories
- Search Engines
- Open textbooks
- Individual project sites
This would work if the reality was that specialised repositories (i.e. by subject and edu level) are a better place to start than using general search engines.
(and many of the "general" repositories are aggregations of specialist areas - OCW, Wikiversity, ...)
So, at this point I do not have a strong opinion, but would be interested in what anyone else thinks. (Suggestion of something to consider for future editions?
>>The coding and colour schemes are also good ideas which could be used on this page (and other pages listing resources).
The coloring scheme could be implemented in this edition, but I will have to see what time is left. Putting everything in a table may also be possible.
>>(and many of the "general" repositories are aggregations of specialist areas - OCW, Wikiversity, ...)
I agree to a certain extent. Yes, OCW and Wikiversity can be separated out into different course areas. However, some, like Kaltura or Flickr, can't be easily separated and necessitates a "general" listing.
>>Ideally, we should think of the educator-reader and the most typical usage scenario which could suggest the order of criteria? >>Profile the educator:
...
I've added this suggestion to future edition suggestions page, as I don't think we'll have time to implement it (I also have some misgivings about the approach).
