Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Repositories and Licensing

Wayne Mackintosh of WikiEducator has suggested that the repository subsections (general, science, social science and humanities) in the Get section of the educator mini-handbook need to have more information about licensing. As the list of repositories has been compiled, it is clear there are significant differences in licensing, but they are not immediately apparent from reading the repository description. The mini-handbook should inform educators about these differences without overwhelming them. To do so, here are some possible solutions:
  1. An indication of free cultural works approved/non-approved.
  2. Some sort of coding along the four freedoms as outlined by freedomdefined.org.
  3. Simply display the license and provide deeper explanations in the licensing section.
I would like to hear your opinion on how to display repository licensing information. Leave a comment or make a suggestion on the general repository talk page. 
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1 comment:

karen said...

I agree that this is necessary. Not only is there the difference between "freedom defined" (libre) free vs. otherwise-open resources (CC NC, ND, etc.), but MANY of the resources in repositories like OER Commons, etc. really aren't open at all.

One suggestion is to do code repositories/works by license, such as:

PD
CC-by
CC SA
CC-NC or ND
GFDL
SA-other
Other/custom

This isn't a comprehensive list but might be a starting point.

April 16, 2008 at 4:18 PM

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