My name is Dr. Jane-Frances Obiageli Agbu. I am from Onitsha, a small but vibrant town in the Eastern part of Nigeria in West Africa. I work with the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). I was the Head of NOUN-OER unit from 2014 till July 2016. Currently, I am the Dean of Faculty of Health Sciences of NOUN, which gives me the opportunity to focus on OER-Health. I am also an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology.

Photo by Jane-Frances Agbu, CC BY.

It is natural to view anything that is ‘open’ and ‘freely available’ with a sort of hesitation or anxiety. It is also natural to presume these types of resources to be of less quality because of our contemporary instinct that almost everything should be paid for, and that the more these materials are hoarded, the pricier they will be. The open movement, with its initiatives around ‘Open Education’, ‘Open Access’, and ‘Open Educational Resources’, can make many people very uncomfortable.

I embraced the concept and practices of Open Education in 2006 when I joined the National Open University of Nigeria. Back then, I was a mother of three very young, and I needed to work close to home. NOUN was just five minutes away from my home. It was a perfect situation, and with very minimal knowledge about open education, I applied and got a job there. At the time, NOUN then was just three years old. However, they offered robust training for new entrants in the open education space, since the concept and practice was relatively new in Nigeria.

My friends and colleagues, who were so used to the conventional face-to-face mode of education, were disappointed with me. They asked me, ‘What is “open” about the open university?’ and said, “You should seek appointment in a ‘normal’ university in order to be respected and advance your career”. these comments were both troublesome and motivating. I wondered whether I made a mistake joining NOUN, but a chance encounter in an elevator with one of our students got me thinking. He simply asked, ‘Do you work here?’, and when I nodded my head, he said ‘thank you for giving me the opportunity to work and learn’. It was heartwarming, and 10 years later I am happily still an advocate of open education.

I became more involved in the Open Educational Resources movement in 2013. It was another chance encounter because the invitation to the workshop that introduced me to OER was initially meant for a senior Professor at my University, but he was busy and I was asked to attend. The workshop took place in Abuja, Nigeria and was organized by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) in collaboration with UNESCO and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). There, I met Abel Caine of UNESCO and Alex Gakuru of Creative Commons. Alex said something that really stuck with me: “We are Africans, we live communal lives, we cook together, we work together. It is in us to share, so why are we not sharing knowledge?” I was incredibly captivated with this statement, and I wrote a long proposal to my institution on the need to embrace OER. A year and half later, I was asked to champion OER within NOUN. With support from UNESCO, we were able to organize an OER workshop to educate policy makers, university faculty, and course content developers. In December 2015 we shared our experiences with the Federal government of Nigeria.

You’ll see that my journey toward embracing open education and Open Educational Resources has not been a straightforward one, but it is a life that leaves me with smiles and appreciation. Mysteriously, it appears that some angels have crossed my path in this journey and further helped me to understand the beauty of opening up knowledge for common good.

While pondering on the palpable anxiety for the ‘open’ movement, let me share with you a bit more of my thinking:

• Naturally, with whatever knowledge we have, we want to be the “sage on the stage rather than a guide on the side”. This famous statement from Allison King brings back floods of memories for me. I can still visualize my former professors speaking eloquently in class, filling students with respect and awe. I felt anxious and wondered if I could ever get to be as knowledgeable as my professors. They were knowledge personified. But for me, open education has demystified this sort of reverence toward dissemination of knowledge. Open Educational Resources—with its five Rs (retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute) and the flexible license options of Creative Commons—has humanized and democratized teaching and learning. Surely there are some that still believe in sole ownership of knowledge. Those people will continue to feel threatened by the ‘open movement’, but we’ve seen the incredible opportunities of open education, and we’ll continue on our path.
• Some are also hesitant to share knowledge because of fear of scrutiny. This of course is a natural instinct (no one likes to be criticised), but overcoming this shows that you view criticism as an avenue of learning and improvement. I think we will come to see that the costs of being ‘closed’ are much greater than the costs of being ‘open’, and that in the long run ‘open’ will be more personally gratifying, and help the most people.
• Also, is it possible that this initial anxiety toward being more open is triggered by the desire for conformity? It is a lot easier to move with the popular opinion, while advocates of OER and other open initiatives are still in the minority. But we must realize that it takes courage to walk with the less-traveled crowd. And we will realize that we are not alone, and that there is an increasing support network of educators, students, and advocates to rely on and collaborate with.

Photo by Jane-Frances Agbu, CC BY.

In March 2016, I was selected as one of the participants for Institute of Open Leadership (IOL2). I met other beautiful individuals that share a similar vision for ‘open’. In a lush garden up high in mountains of Cape Town, we shared our experiences, our projects, and open policy plans. The beauty remains with me as we continue to receive guidance from our mentors and share information amongst the IOL2 fellows.

IOL2 Fellows + Mentors, by Cable Green , CC BY 2.0

Here are some useful links related to my work:

• The Best of Two Open Worlds at the National Open University of Nigeria
• Embracing the Philosophy of Open Educational Resources
• “It upholds the dignity of mankind”: The power of OER in West Africa
• OER for Teachers video

The post Pondering the Future of Open Education in Nigeria appeared first on Creative Commons.

I am Dr. Roshan Kumar Karn, a medical graduate from Institute of Medicine, Tribhuwan University Teaching Hospital. I established an organization called Open Access Nepal as an affiliate chapter of SPARC and the Right to Research Coalition. We are dedicated to promoting the policies and principles of Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data.

In March 2016, the second Institute for Open Leadership (IOL2) was a fantastic gathering organized by Creative Commons. I had the immense opportunity to attend this event, and the discussions that I had with the mentors and global participants still echoes in my thoughts.

After we launched Open Access Nepal in 2014, we’ve been advancing open access and open educational resources in Nepal through different events. IOL2 was the best podium for me to gain a better understanding about open licenses as well as use and re-use of open resources. This knowledge and experience has helped me to work on an open licensing policy within my institute, and at the ministry level.

After IOL2, Open Access Nepal took three approaches to advance open access to scholarly communication. One was to pursue the establishment of a Creative Commons affiliate in Nepal in order to raise awareness about the use and reuse of openly licensed resources.

Institute of Medicine Open Access Contract with Faculty and Grantees

The second approach was to develop an institutional policy that promotes research publications in open journals, thus advancing science, technology and innovation. As a medical doctor it was imperative for me to create a policy within my institute, which produces much of the medical research in Nepal. Most of the faculty and professors in my institute want to opt out of an open access approach, preferring a conventional model of publishing which restricts access to research and scientific publication. The consequence of this is that the next generation of students and early career researchers can’t get access to this research. Therefore, I worked with the administration to “give teeth” to open publishing practices by suggesting that promotion or contract renewal clauses contain a preference for open access publishing. We also made few changes in the wording of contracts signed between faculty, grantees, and the Institute of Medicine. After IOL2, we felt that the language of the contract needed to be stronger to ensure that it was mandatory for the faculty and grantees to publish their research in Open Access journals and deposit their research in the Central Open Access Repository of Nepal.

(The table below written in Nepali is the copy of promotion/contract renewal clause devised by my institute.)

Changes made in the clauses regarding promotion and contract renewal (Translated from Nepali into English)

• At least 3 research publications will be mandatory for the promotion of permanent faculty and 2 research publications will be required for contract renewal of temporary personnel for the first renewal and promotion.
• Faculty members have the liberty to publish their research articles in any journal worldwide but a faculty will be eligible for the marks needed for promotion and contract renewal only if their research publication is openly available and a copy of that article is deposited in the Journal of Institute of Medicine (JIOM).
• The materials covered by this clause must have an applicable Creative Commons License including proper attributions. The reuse of already present content will make use of the most current version of CC BY license.

Open Access Policy at the Ministry of Education

The third approach will likely be the most impactful measure to advance openness in science and education: We are currently drafting an open access policy that will be presented to the Ministry of Education in Nepal. We have had a series of informal talks about the things that could be included (listed below) in the national policy to advance open access to scientific publications. These include:

• Open Access policies and principles
• Formulation of open access policy guidelines/toolkit
• Components of Open Access
• Defining the availability of scientific publications in open journals
• Use of open licenses along with proper attributions
• Definite contract between grant recipient from the Govt. of Nepal and the appropriate dissemination of their research
• Intellectual property rights
• Open Access training to students, early career researchers, journal representatives and faculties
• Use/Re-Use of existing open resources
• Making resources openly available
• Quality standards/assessment of grantees’ research
• Measures of making open access sustainable
• Awareness about Open Access, OER (local events, in campus programs, national level events)

We are drafting a national policy to address all the above issues, in addition to other that will make “open” the default option in Nepal.

I am very grateful to Creative Commons, fellows, mentors, and the Open Policy Network for providing me this great opportunity to attend the IOL2. I look forward to any feedback and suggestions you have about my open policy project.

The post Building an Institutional Open Access Policy In Nepal appeared first on Creative Commons.

I was privileged to attend the second Institute for Open Leadership (IOL2), held in Cape Town, in March of this year. It was an amazing experience, during which I worked with various mentors and a small group of fellow open colleagues from around the world. One of the plusses of the Institute was hearing about the challenges that everyone faced and how they had gone about, or were going about overcoming them albeit, in some cases, with what many would consider relatively small wins. That, however, is the nature of the OER world. Lots of small wins are what ultimately lead to the big wins.

IOL Fellows atop Table Mountain, by bella_velo, CC BY 2.0

One issue that emerged is that there are no quick fixes when it comes to promoting the concept of open educational resources (OER). Tertiary institutions are a particularly difficult nut to crack, as the concept of knowledge sharing is not a popular one in what is, more often than not, an environment in which research ideas are cultivated and jealously guarded in the safe spaces of minds and offices. Not surprisingly, this does not make for fertile ground in which to plant the idea of knowledge sharing, but we persevere.

The fact that the OER movement has not quite taken off has been a cause of frustration for many of us for some time now. To those of us involved in the movement, the benefits of sharing would appear be a ‘no brainer’. However, over the course of my time as an OER Specialist at my current institution, I have had time to reflect on why the concept of OER is such a difficult one to communicate, even on a basic level.

To put things into perspective: We are on the brink of finalizing a joint Open Access/Open Educational Resources policy. We have been working on an internal online OER course and a booklet on Creative Commons licensing and OER, both of which will soon be released. We are also currently in the process of developing a range of courses together with the Office of Student Support in the Faculty of Health Sciences, which are intended to support the first year experience and will be released with an open license. I should be elated by these wins but, in my opinion, the impetus created by them will be difficult to maintain without a larger mindset change—that goes well beyond the reach of our current two-year project.

Many people become rather uncomfortable when you start to talk about openness in this somewhat esoteric vein, which is why I suspect so many OER projects are expected to produce facts, stats, quantity and research. What I think mitigates against the full success of projects which use this sort of approach, and structure, is that the concept of openness is not, at its heart, a purely quantitative or researchable one. True openness, and a willingness to share, will not flourish in an environment that is dominated, primarily, by a production line or microscopic analysis. It seems to me that we have become too cautious about addressing the real face of openness which is, in essence, an altruistic project which should ultimately benefit the world at large. In my opinion, it is the main reason why so many open initiatives disappear into the ether once the funding dries up. We have lost sight of the real spirit of the open movement because we are reluctant to admit that it doesn’t lend itself readily to the commercial, quantitative structures of our world.

We have been conditioned to believe that by being truly open to the world and people around us that we will lose something of ourselves and gain nothing in return. In some circumstances this may be true but, in reality, the world will gain something from us and something of our unique perspective on the world. All of us have knowledge to share, openly and freely, that will be of benefit to others and that can be repurposed in a way that will communicate that benefit across a range of cultures.

Openness and trust go hand-in-glove. Trust can only come from a willingness to share which, in the final analysis, stems from a concern for the common good. It really is as simple as that. That, in my opinion, is the foundation upon which the future of the open movement lies. If we don’t come from that starting point, we will remain trapped in theoretical frameworks, and the initial impetus of the movement will eventually be relegated to the world of academic research. Is that something we really want, or do we still believe that the open movement will ultimately be of benefit to the world at large?

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As a Ugandan science educator with a background in computer science, I have witnessed thousands of kids dropping out of school because their parents cannot afford buying the textbooks that schools require. This is exacerbated by the fact that teachers have limited access to affordable and up-to-date educational content. Only recently, I was appointed as a board member of a school that does not have a single textbook!

Photo by Vincent Kizza, CC BY 4.0

When I was introduced to Open Educational Resources around 2011, it appeared to me that these resources could go a long way in helping to solve our predicament in Uganda. Since then, I’ve spent time researching OER and the concept of “openness”, but I didn’t fully understand more complex issues like open licensing. For that reason, the invitation to attend the 2nd Institute for Open Leadership seemed like an incredible opportunity to learn more about open licensing, and how it could assist us in improving access to educational materials in schools.

Photo by Vincent Kizza, CC BY 4.0

I’ll remember the IOL fellowship meeting in Cape Town for a very long time. For the first time in my life, I met with world-class professionals passionate about sharing their knowledge, skills, and experience. It was very refreshing to learn from people who have had experience in doing all types of “open” projects, and it seemed like every question I raised was answered from the diverse group of participants. In addition to assisting me in my work within open education, we discussed related concepts such as open data, open science research, open business models, and the application of open concepts in the museums sector. I was also able for the first time in my life to see a fully open textbook in print form (as most of the time they are offered only in digital format). This was very interesting and I’m grateful to Kelsey Wiens of CC South Africa for sharing her experiences of working on an open textbook project there. The institute meeting was relaxed and fun-filled, so this was great!

Photo by Vincent Kizza, CC BY 4.0

Initially, my open policy project was focused primarily on advocacy for open textbook policy adoption. I wanted to figure out the best way to support the new national school curriculum that will be launching in 2017. At first, the target for the policy was the Ugandan government, but during the fellowship my mentor David Ernest (who was extremely kind and helpful!) pushed me to diversify my project. My revised policy project engages individual teachers in school clusters to create OERs in support of teaching at their schools. It also aims to engage government on both the local and national levels. The open educational resources that are created by the schools will be used as the raw materials to later be aggregated into creating complete open textbooks.

My greatest achievement thus far has been at the level of the school cluster: I’ve been able to convince the National Curriculum Development Centre to re-think their contract with commercial publishers. So far, they’ve not re-signed it, which is a good signal that they are reconsidering how educational materials could be provisioned for the schools. I hope to continue working with them on advocating for openly licensed textbooks. Learn more about our work for the Ugandan schools.

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I had the privilege of participating in the second Institute for Open Leadership (IOL), held in Cape Town and hosted by Creative Commons and the Open Policy Network. The institute was attended by people from various places around the world, all with incredible projects. For the last nine years I’ve been active in the area of documentation and museum collections management. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Museology and a Master’s in Information Science. Currently I work as collection manager of Museu da Imigração de São Paulo (Immigration Museum of São Paulo). I also teach Museology at the ETEC Parque da Juventude, where I instruct classes on museums and databases.

At the Institute for Open Leadership, I came in contact with a world little known by me: the world of initiatives supporting open knowledge, open science, open education, and much more. Moreover, as a GLAM professional (“GLAM” is an acronym for “galleries, libraries, archives, and museums”), I had the opportunity to get varied feedback on my open policy proposal I had prepared for the institute. The IOL meeting was very important for me, and in a sense was a watershed moment for the project I am leading at the Immigration Museum.

Lithuanian necklace selected to be part of the exhibition, by Conrado Secassi. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Initially, my project was focused on the following problems: what can we explore by sharing the contents of a large, rich cultural heritage collection if we do not have much information about the underlying author’s rights, rights of publicity, or personality rights? How do we begin to transform the Museu da Imigração into an institution interested in opening its collections despite these limitations?

Many professionals working in GLAM institutions constantly face problems related to intellectual property and authors’ rights in the content of their collections. We are thus led to focus on restriction rather than sharing, which deserves attention, but for which there is no simple, prompt solution. By directly addressing these questions within the scope of my project, I hoped to find advice and best practices from other related GLAM professionals. I needed to get a better answer for how to share other than “it cannot be done.”

As I met IOL participants and learned about their projects, I heard many interesting stories about how universities and other research institutions were able to establish open policies through short, medium, and long-term initiatives. I also learned that the design and implementation of successful open licensing policies will (and should) work through different stages and levels. Finally, I learned it’s crucial to start small with my project, and to work with materials that will bring benefits for the people directly involved. And this, I can now say, was the real turning point for the Museu da Imigração’s project.

Ryukyu hat selected to be part of the exhibition, by Letícia Sá. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Instead of focusing on the thicket of IP concerns with some of the part of our collection, I revised my project to instead explore those materials that could be used and shared in a more open way. In other words, the project was redesigned to start with items from the collection which were already free from any author’s rights restrictions, and which could, for instance, be photographed by the Museu da Imigração’s current team. The museum could— as the author of photos, texts, images, and audiovisual materials about the collection—make those objects available on the web through blogs, social media, and other platforms. At the same time, the museum could establish how this content could be re-used by anybody  through the adoption of Creative Commons licenses.

Upon my return to Brazil, my first major task was to educate the Museu da Imigração’s technical teams on Creative Commons, and to get buy-in with them on what should be done to adopt an open policy at our museum. My colleagues immediately agreed that we should pursue the project, and we decided that our pilot initiative would start with all of the content produced for a temporary exhibit called O Caminho das Coisas (The Way of Things).

The main reason for choosing this particular exhibition as our pilot project was the possibility of involving several professionals in the development of content and materials to be made available online under open licenses. Everybody could see—in a relatively short period of time—the impact of their work to increase the visibility of the collections and of materials produced by the teams. Another important motivation was the fact that this exhibit was the result of a joint research effort between the Museu da Imigração, migrant communities and their descendants, partner institutions, and former donors in order to obtain additional historical information about the institution’s collections.

We agreed to use Creative Commons licenses because the licenses are a clear, objective way of telling the public what can be done with the museum’s content we make available on the web. Moreover, by using Creative Commons licenses, the museum joins the great movement promoted by CC toward sharing, remix, and reuse of knowledge on a global scale.

Based on this decision, the images of objects selected for the exhibition were produced by the team, along with the exhibit’s accompanying educational materials. We also decided that the museum’s blog and its profile on Medium should be licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 from that moment on.

The platforms used for publicizing the images were Flickr (which is heavily used in Brazil by both professional and amateur photographers and institutions), Pinterest (not very popular in Brazil, although it has faithful followers), and Wikimedia Commons. As to the latter, we were happy for the valuable assistance from Rodrigo Padula, coordinator of the Brazilian Wikipedia Group on Education and Research, who helped us in loading the images and educational materials into Wikimedia Commons.

General overview of the exhibition, by Juliana Monteiro. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

O Caminho das Coisas opened on May 21 with a beautiful design meant to stir the public into reflecting on the historical path followed by the items through the lives of their owners until they reached the museum. In addition, QR codes were posted at various locations, inviting the public to view the images in the platforms I mentioned above. We also hoped viewers would share the images and tag the museum on social media.

Our pilot project was launched nearly two months ago, and we have already gained some interesting insights. The first is that the experience has been indeed very exciting and successful. In our team’s view, the 40+ images of key items in our collection that we posted to Flickr, Pinterest, and Wikimedia Commons have opened numerous possibilities for the material’s reuse. In addition, it represents a positive step forward in making the museum’s collections more widely available to different audiences. We are also planning new initiatives by reviewing and analyzing the data and research we’ve gleaned from this pilot.

Other aspects of the exhibition have shown our team that we still have a long, productive way ahead. We identified a major challenge for GLAM institutions in Brazil is to have the capacity and knowledge to be able to consider the “openness” of all collections as a normal, everyday activity. Right now only a few of our institutions are promoting open initiatives, and the public does not always understand what can be created with these type of materials. Also, the lack of tools to encourage people to do this may be a contributing factor to this scenario. Sure, we manage to secure likes on Facebook and shares on social media, but we still don’t know if or how the images are being reused in other contexts. Finally, there is a lack of knowledge about Creative Commons licenses—both on the part of the public and by institutions as well.

With this in mind, we know it is not enough simply to upload images onto the web – we need to tell people about them, contextualize them, and get feedback and cooperation from various audiences. Our use of social media in this experience showed us that we must adapt our way of communicating about open content in order to reach new and diverse groups of people. We have already learned, for instance, that it is not worth showing photos of details of objects on Wikimedia Commons, as these types of images are not useful for illustrating Wikipedia articles. However, they can be explored on Pinterest, where the public is more accustomed to searching for these kinds of specific detailed images.

We know that Flickr is a useful tool for photographers—even those interested in licensing photos for commercial use. At the same time, we might focus on using alternative popular platforms to talk about the project and invite the public to view, enjoy, and comment on our images. Of course, apps and sites such as Instagram and Facebook are quite popular in Brazil.

We are learning by trial and error. We want to test our ideas and see which ones will mature. My IoL grant made it possible for us to include the proposal of opening our collections as something the museum should address more systematically in our internal policies and public mission. We believe that through these steps we will be positively promoting a more open cultural heritage that is increasingly accessible to all.

The post Creative Commons and Museu da Imigração: notes on a Brazilian experience appeared first on Creative Commons.

Durante o Institute for Open Leadership, pude entrar em contato com um mundo até então pouco conhecido por mim: o mundo de iniciativas pró-conhecimento aberto, ciência aberta, educação aberta e muito mais. Além disso, enquanto profissional da área GLAM (“GLAM” é um acrônimo, em inglês, para “galleries, libraries, archives, and museums”, ou “galerias, bibliotecas, arquivos e museus”) tive a chance de receber diferentes retornos a respeito da proposta que apresentei para o instituto. Posso dizer, assim, que o IOL representou um momento importante e, de certa forma, um divisor de águas para o projeto que estou liderando na instituição onde atuo.

colar Lituano selecionado para fazer parte da exposição, por, by Conrado Secassi. CC BY-SA 4.0. Fonte: Wikimedia Commons.

Inicialmente, o projeto era focado nos seguintes problemas: o que podemos explorar em uma coleção grande e rica por meio de compartilhamento de conteúdos, se nós não tivermos informações sobre os direitos de autor incidentes, bem como os direitos de reprodução ou de personalidade? Como podemos transformar o Museu da Imigração em uma instituição interessada em abrir suas coleções apesar das limitações envolvidas?

Muitos profissionais que trabalham em instituições GLAM constantemente enfrentam problemas relacionados à propriedade intelectual e direitos de autor relacionados às suas coleções. Por essa razão, é muito comum que sejamos imediatamente direcionados a focar nas restrições muito mais do que nas possibilidades de compartilhamento – que, claro, demandam atenção, mas que não possuem uma solução rápida ou imediata. Ao colocar tais questões no escopo do meu projeto, eu esperava encontrar respostas e boas práticas de outros profissionais GLAM. Eu necessitava encontrar uma resposta melhor à questão sobre como compartilhar melhor do que “isso não pode ser feito”.

Ao conhecer os outros projetos e os participantes do IOL, pude ouvir muitas histórias interessantes sobre como universidades e outras instituições de pesquisa conseguiram estabelecer políticas abertas mediante algumas ações de curto, médio e longo prazos – às vezes, algumas ações eram muito básicas, porém estrategicamente importantes. Pude aprender também que processos de criação e aplicação de políticas abertas podem (e devem) ter diferentes etapas e níveis. Finalmente, aprendi que seria crucial começar aos poucos o meu projeto e com aquilo que iria trazer benefícios diretos para as pessoas diretamente envolvidas. E aqui posso dizer que reside o principal turning point para o projeto do Museu da Imigração.

chapéu de Ryukyu selecionado para fazer parte da exposição, por Letícia Sá. CC BY-SA 4.0. Fonte: Wikimedia Commons.

Ao invés de focar nas questões de propriedade intelectual mais difíceis relacionadas à parte da nossa coleção, revisei meu projeto para que ele pudesse, ao contrário, explorar aqueles materiais que poderiam ser usados e compartilhados de uma forma mais aberta. Em outras palavras, o projeto foi redesenhado para começar com itens da coleção que eram livres de quaisquer restrições de direitos de autor, e que poderia, por exemplo, ser fotografados pela equipe atual do Museu da Imigração. Desta forma, o museu poderia – enquanto autor de fotos, textos, imagens e materiais audiovisuais sobre a coleção – tornar tais objetos disponíveis na web por meio de blogs, redes sociais e outras plataformas. Ao mesmo tempo, o museu poderia estabelecer como este conteúdo poder ser reusado por qualquer pessoa ao adotar as licenças Creative Commons.

Já de volta ao Brasil, a primeira grande tarefa realizada por mim foi conversar com as diferentes equipes técnicas do Museu da Imigração a respeito do que é o Creative Commons e convencê-las sobre o que poderia ser feito para começarmos uma política aberta em nossa instituição. Meus colegas imediatamente concordaram de que deveríamos ir adiante com o projeto, e decidimos que nossa iniciativa piloto começaria com todo o conteúdo produzido para a exposição temporária O Caminho das Coisas.

O principal motivo para escolher esta exposição particular como nosso projeto piloto foi a possibilidade de envolvimento direto de vários profissionais no desenvolvimento de conteúdos e materiais para disponibilização online com licença aberta. Assim, todos teriam a chance de ver – em um período relativamente curto de tempo – o impacto de seu trabalho contribuindo para o aumento da visibilidade do acervo e de outros materiais produzidos pelas próprias equipes. Outro motivo importante também foi que essa exposição era o resultado de um processo colaborativo de pesquisa do Museu da Imigração com comunidades de migrantes e descendentes, instituições parceiras e antigos doadores, cujo alvo é levantar mais informações sobre o acervo da instituição.

Nós concordamos em usar as licenças Creative Commons porque elas constituem um jeito claro e objetivo de comunicar ao público o que pode ser feito com o conteúdo produzido pelo museu e que disponibilizamos na web. Além disso, ao usar as licenças Creative Commons, o museu participa de um grande movimento promovido pelo CC relacionado ao compartilhamento, remix e reuso do conhecimento em uma escala global.

A partir da decisão, imagens das peças selecionadas para a exposição foram produzidas e selecionadas pela própria equipe, assim como os materiais educativos relacionados. Também decidimos que o blog do museu e o seu perfil no Medium  deveriam ser usar a licença CC BY-SA 4.0 a partir daquele momento em diante.

As plataformas utilizadas para divulgar as imagens foram o Flickr (que é bastante usado no Brasil por fotógrafos profissionais ou amadores, bem como por instituições), Pinterest (não muito popular no Brasil, mas com seguidores fiéis), e Wikimedia Commons. Sobre o última, vale destacar a grande colaboração de Rodrigo Padula, coordenador do Grupo Wikimedia Brasileiro de Educação e Pesquisa, que nos ajudou no carregamento de imagens e materiais educativos no Wikimedia Commons.

visão geral da exposição, por Juliana Monteiro. CC BY-SA 4.0. Fonte: Wikimedia Commons.

O Caminho das Coisas inaugurou dia 21 de maio, com uma expografia muito bonita e feita para promover uma reflexão junto ao público sobre os caminhos que os objetos percorrem ao longo da vida de seus antigos proprietários até chegarem ao museu. Além disso, em vários pontos da exposição foram colocados QR codes convidando o público a checar as imagens existentes nas plataformas citadas anteriormente. Nós também tínhamos a expectativa que os visitantes poderiam compartilhar as imagens e taggear o museu nas redes sociais.

Nosso projeto piloto foi lançado há quase dois meses, e nós já podemos dizer que ganhamos alguns insights interessantes. O primeiro é que a experiência tem sido, sim, muito instigante e exitosa. Na perspectiva da nossa equipe, as cerca de 40+ imagens postadas no Flickr, Pinterest e Wikimedia Commons abriram inúmeras possibilidades de reuso do material. Além disso, o projeto representa um passo rumo à disponibilização cada vez maior das coleções do museu para diferentes públicos. Nós também estamos planejando novas iniciativas e analisando os dados que conseguimos adquirir a partir deste piloto.

Outros aspectos da exposição têm mostrado para nossa equipe que ainda temos um longo e produtivo caminho pela frente. Identificamos que um desafio significativo para as instituições GLAM no Brasil é a capacidade e conhecimento para considerar a “abertura” de todas as coleções como uma atividade normal, rotineira. Apenas algumas de nossas instituições promovem iniciativas abertas e o público nem sempre compreende o que pode ser criado a partir ou com os materiais. Do mesmo modo, a falta de ferramentas que encorajem as pessoas a fazer isso pode ser um fator que contribui com tal cenário. Claramente, nós queremos que as pessoas deem likes no Facebook e compartilhem os conteúdos nas redes sociais, mas ainda não sabemos se ou como as imagens estão sendo reutilizadas em outros contextos. Por último, vale dizer que ainda há uma falta de conhecimento geral a respeito das licenças Creative Commons – tanto por parte do público quanto por parte das instituições.

Com isso em mente, sabemos que não é suficiente simplesmente subir imagens na web – nós precisamos falar às pessoas sobre elas, contextualizá-las e conseguir retornos de diferentes públicos. Nosso uso das redes sociais nesta experiência nos mostrou que precisamos adaptar nossa forma de falar sobre conteúdo aberto de forma a atingir novos e diferentes grupos. Nós já aprendemos, por exemplo, que não é válido mostrar fotos de detalhes de objetos no Wikimedia Commons, já que este tipo de imagem não colaboraria na alimentação de artigos da Wikipédia. Porém, elas podem ser exploradas no Pinterest, pois o público ali está mais acostumado a pesquisar por esses tipos específicos de imagens em detalhe.

Sabemos também que o Flickr é uma ferramenta muito útil para fotógrafos – inclusive aqueles interessados em licenciar suas imagens para uso comercial. Ao mesmo tempo, podemos direcionar nosso trabalho para usar outras plataformas alternativas que falem sobre o projeto e convidem o público a visualizar, curtir e comentar nossas imagens. E do mesmo modo, aplicativos e sites como Instagram e Facebooks são muito populares no Brasil e podem ser explorados nas próximas experiências.

Estamos aprendendo por tentativa e erro. Queremos testar nossas ideias e verificar quais delas vão amadurecer. Minha bolsa para participar do IoL tornou possível para nós incluir a proposta de abrir nossas coleções como algo que o museu deveria incorporar de forma mais sistemática em nossas políticas internas e missão pública. Acreditamos que por meio destes passos nós conseguiremos promover um patrimônio cultural cada vez mais aberto e acessível para todos.

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IOL2 at work by Cable Green, CC BY 2.0

As a sociologist of science, I am interested in how scientific research, technological innovation, and society are linked together. I was always fascinated by the open source movement, and this fascination grew into a strong advocacy when I started to use free and open source software myself to collaborate with fellow scientists. When I first heard about the open science movement several years ago, I was immediately convinced that it not only makes an interesting object of research (I’m currently working on open research data practices), but also that I would like to help to spread open science practices to my communities. In addition to integrating open science related topics and methods into my teaching, I joined collective efforts to push for open science in national and European science and research policies. I am an active member of the open science workgroup ofOpen Knowledge Austria, and became a member of the Open Access Network Austria as a member of the steering group for implementing a national open access strategy.

Being able to join the Institute for Open Leadership in March 2016 boosted both my professional development and my confidence in working on a transition to open science. The wonderful feedback I got from this group of inspirational individuals from all over the world still resonates, and continually helps me to shape my vision for the project that I’ll start in September: Exploring best practice examples of Open Innovation and the creation of Commons.

IOL2 Fellows by bella_velo, CC BY 2.0

The idea for this project was developed in Cape Town as a reaction to European policy rhetoric at the time appropriating terms such as “open science” and “open innovation”. We heard pronouncements like, “Europe is not productive enough. In Europe we are not succeeding in transforming research into innovation. Our knowledge is commercialized elsewhere.” These andsimilar descriptions of Europe’s problematic standing with regard to innovation form the main narratives in policy strategy documents that suggest the solution lies in the “open”. In other words, open innovation and open science should help to create jobs, spur economic growth, and make Europe competitive in terms of the commercialization of knowledge production. What was so alarming in this rhetorical policy move was its monopolization of the term “open” and its one-eyed description of knowledge circulation and sharing. It is one-eyed because its focus rests on a specific economic theory of open innovation, rather than the diverse and longstanding types of openness already practiced by countless people around the globe.

It’s a worthwhile idea that we should enable broad access to knowledge by fostering a stronger culture of entrepreneurship that can lead to the development of new products and services. But this approach lacks an understanding of the potential interplay of traditional and alternative markets, and new and unusual forms of value creation beyond the typical exploitation of intellectual property rights. Also, this framework for “openness” remains vague in its description of therelationship between science and business, and in how collaboration could result in forms of value capture that benefits all relevant stakeholders, especially those who funded the research.Open licenses and open policies are only rarely mentioned. When they are, it’s only in the context of best practices of others such as the Gates Foundation (see i.e. Moedas 2016)

Cape Town present for IOL2 Fellows by tvol, CC BY 2.0

The objective of my open policy project is to crowdsource the collection of best practices of thecreation of common goods and shared resources—beyond the one-eyed economic vision currently used to describe open innovation. I wish to investigate how such projects and models have created new markets and new opportunities. By end of September 2016 I will launch a website with a form to input basic information and media of open projects that would widen our understanding of what is possible in support of open innovation. Besides a database where such best practices are stored, I hope to create an interactive diagram with the help of other IOL participants. The diagram will depict selected open projects in relation to each other and across core characteristics of open innovation and the open movement. This way, politicians, administrators, and scientists can have a good sense of the existing open innovation ecosystem today. If you are interested in collaborating, please send me a short email at commons.innovation@gmail.com.

“New knowledge is created through global collaborations involving thousands of people from across the world and from all walks of life.” – Commissioner Carlos Moedas, May 2015

Envisioning an interactive diagram as a tool for understanding the potential of the open innovation movement results from my wish to make it more coherently visible in teaching. To counter a uniform narrative of open innovation, it’s important to show the manifold dimensions of the open movement. Furthermore, I am particularly interested in the multiplicity of dimensions of openness, including which forms of openness are realized depending on the kind and scope of resources, projects, or works.

In his 2003 book Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Henry Chesbrough defined “open innovation” as innovation transcending the boundaries of the organization conducting it and hence as motor of productivity and growth. His notion of openness argues against the characterization that innovation is a linear process. Instead, open innovation introduces new forms of cross-sector and cross-organizational collaboration in knowledge production and design processes. (Note: We still see a linear innovation model today because of current measurement methods and statistical indicators. See Godin, 2006 for more).

Today, a broader conceptual framework for open innovation is embedded in an integrated approach to openness. It is a vital element of the open movement and should not be taken out of this context.

Graphic by Katja Mayer, CC BY 4.0

Open innovation is transcending the boundaries of traditional knowledge production and fosterscross-fertilization of knowledge. It can serve both as a trigger for change towards openness and a cross-connector of multiple segments of the open movement.

In an ideal interpretation of open innovation, we would follow the Open Definition, which means that anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share the content for any purpose (while preserving provenance and openness). But in practice, openness—in its many shades—cannot be reduced to a singular definition. However, we can emphasize its main characteristics:

The open movement rests on common principles such as sharing and collaboration, transparencyand participation, quality improvement and enhancement of positive societal impact by co-created shared values. Its core focus is on the actors and communities of openness, their skills and their mind-sets, and their abilities to openly innovate. Without an open ecosystem comprising important elements such as open policies and open licenses, open education, open source, open standards, and open science, open innovation would not be possible. Although it can create and shape markets, fostering the diversity of open business models, open innovation is offering more than just economic impact: it has the potential for structural change in open societies (which goes far beyond the idea of rapid adoption of new technologies).

Similarly, the open science movement is based on the idea that scientific knowledge of all kindsshould be openly shared as early as is practical in the research process. The future of scholarly communication – as envisioned by the Vienna Principles – is based on open access to scientific publications and research data. Even more radically, it calls for the participation of all relevant stakeholders in research design and evaluation. Open scientific methodology enables new forms of participation and interaction in order to build and maintain sustainable eco-systems for co-creation. In an innovation context, emphasis should not only be put on the traditional commercialization of research outcomes. Open innovation in science should enable new public spheres, the creation of common goods, and other benefits enabled by an information commons—as explored by Ostrom in her 1990 book Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.

Open science and the knowledge commons are already highly impacting innovation in society through the development of initiatives such as the Human Genome Project. Collective efforts tostudy the Zika virus or the US presidential call for an open cancer research initiative will foster new forms of open knowledge production and dissemination, as will any science policy with a strong mandate for open access and open research data. I think it will be of utmost importance to make the case for multiple knowledge markets—where open knowledge practices and commercialization can work in tandem for the benefit of rights holders and the broader public. Therefore, policy urgently needs to address open licensing models. Open innovation should strive to achieve thesynergy of commercial and alternative markets, and support new, participatory forms of knowledge production and dissemination. By collecting past and present best practices (and also failures) from the open movement, I hope we can come to a better understanding about open innovation in service of a collaborative and productive commons in the future.

Please join us in our effort to make the open innovation and open science multiple more visible by collecting infos on best practices. If you are interested please send a short notice tocommons.innovation@gmail.com and you will receive updates about the project kickoff in September.

Katja Mayer
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/katja.mayer 
Twitter: @katja_mat

Further reading:

Fecher, B., & Friesike, S. (2014). Open science: one term, five schools of thought. In Opening science (pp. 17-47). Springer International Publishing.http://book.openingscience.org/basics_background/open_science_one_term_five_schools_of_thought.html

Chesbrough, H. (2003). Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology. Harvard Business School Press.

Godin, B. (2006). The Linear model of innovation the historical construction of an analytical framework. Science, Technology & Human Values, 31(6), 639-667.

Mayer, K. (2015). Open Science Policy Briefing. ERA Austria  http://era.gv.at/object/document/2279

Mayer, K. (2015). From Science 2.0 to Open Science: Turning rhetoric into action? STCSN-eLetter, 3(1). http://stcsn.ieee.net/e-letter/stcsn-e-letter-vol-3-no-1/from-science-2-0-to-open-science

Nielsen, M. (2011). Doing science in the open. http://michaelnielsen.org

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.

Have a look at the diagram by the P2P foundation:https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Everything_Open_and_Free_Mindmap

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I have been in the field of open education for 10 years, starting in 2006, when I was based in Nairobi, Kenya working on the TESSA Project through the Open University UK.  I joined BCcampus’s Open Education Team in 2014 and have had the opportunity to work on a variety of open education projects provincially, nationally, and internationally. BCcampus supports the work of the British Columbia (Canada) post-secondary system in the areas of teaching, learning, and educational technology. My role is to lead the Open Education team, and in particular to advocate for open education practices across the province of B.C. BCcampus’s Open Education team is best known for the work we have done on the B.C. Open Textbook Project.

“IOL2 Working” (CC BY 2.0) by amanda.coolidge

The Institute for Open Leadership was the most profound and inspirational professional development activity I have taken part in. I had the chance to meet a group of passionate open advocates from around the world who are changing open policy in museums, non-profit organizations, research, and higher education. From the week in Cape Town, I came away with two small open policy projects, and one large project.

BCcampus Open Education contracts with grantees

One of the smaller open policy projects I have taken on is to change and clarify the wording of our contracts with our B.C. grantees. When we work on projects—either creating or adapting open educational resources—each grantee must adhere to the contract that is outlined between BCcampus and the grantee. The language in these contracts needed to be stronger to ensure that openness was not an afterthought, but that it was deeply embedded into the work we were asking the grantee to accomplish. Changes to the wording of our contracts include:

• Technical formats for revision and remixing: Completed OER materials must include the original, editable files for re-distribution.

• Accessibility standards: OER in the form of multimedia, such as videos or audio, must be compliant with accessibility standards and include a transcript and preferably closed captioning.

• Clarification of the CC license requirements for newly created works and the use of existing resources in the development of materials:
  • New Creation – copyright with author(s)
    • The materials covered by this contract will be a newly created work, for which the copyright will be held by the author or in the case of a new book that is collaboratively produced by more than one author the copyright will be jointly owned by all contributing authors. In both cases, the resulting content will be licensed for reuse with the most current version of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
  • Use of Existing Content
    • Any existing content used in the development of the materials must have a Creative Commons License. The use of the materials must comply with the original Creative Commons License attributed to the existing content.

Open policy for the Ministry of Advanced Education

The second smaller—yet potentially more impactful—policy project is developing an open policy statement for our B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education. The open policy is directed to granting funds, in that the Ministry would state that all grantees who receive public funds from the Ministry of Advanced Education must use CC licensed material in the development of their said project. While this is still in draft form and has not been formally presented to the Ministry, a part of the statement reads:

Grantees are encouraged to search existing resources and OER repositories for openly licensed learning objects and, where appropriate, reuse these learning objects instead of duplicating existing objects as components of their proposed programs. If existing OER are reused as part of the grant funded project, the grantee shall comply with the terms of the applicable open license, including proper attribution.

Open educational resources policy guide

The third, and largest, open policy project is the creation of an Open Educational Resources Policy Guide for Colleges and Universities in both the United States and Canada. I have the distinct pleasure of working on this project with another IOL Fellow, Daniel Demarte. Daniel is Vice President for Academic Affairs & Chief Academic Officer at Tidewater Community College. Daniel and I are very passionate about ensuring that the development and implementation of OER is successful in higher education. We believe that in order to mainstream OER development and adoption, an open policy should be implemented. The purpose of the guide is to promote the utilization of OER and scale efforts to full OER programs. It is written primarily for governance officials at public two-year colleges in the United States and Colleges and Universities in Canada. The contents of the policy guide are not intended to be prescriptive; contents are intended to be adapted for use according to a college’s culture. The OER policy guide is organized in three sections including:

• OER Policy Principles
• Components of an OER Policy
• OER Policy Resources

The components of OER Policy section includes the following topics that we think decision-makers should consider when developing an institutional OER Policy, or when integrating these components into an existing institutional policy:

• OER Purpose
• OER Policy Statement
• Intellectual Property and Licensing OER Content
• OER Procedures and Responsibilities
• OER Training and Professional Development
• OER Course Design
• OER Content Development
• Sharing OER Content
• OER Technical Format
• OER Sustainability (college-wide capacity, funding model, tenure)
• OER Quality Assurance

For each component, we provide an explanation of why the component is needed, sample policy statements, sample resources, and a recommended action checklist. Stay tuned for continued updates on the status of the Open Educational Resources policy guide.

I would like to give my sincere thanks to Creative Commons, mentors, fellows, and the Open Policy Network for including me in the Institute for Open Leadership.

“View from Table Mountain” (CC BY 2.0) by  amanda.coolidge 

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Last week Creative Commons hosted the second Institute for Open Leadership. The Institute is a training and peer-to-peer learning opportunity that brings together up-and-coming leaders to develop and implement an open licensing policy in their institution, province or nation. We were thrilled to welcome a diverse group of fellows from 14 countries to Cape Town, South Africa.

• Jane-Frances Agbu – National Open University of Nigeria – Nigeria
• Rim Azib – British Council, Tunis – Tunisia
• Steve Cairns – Greenpeace International – Netherlands
• Amanda Coolidge – BCcampus – Canada
• Daniel DeMarte – Tidewater Community College – United States
• Paula Eskett – CORE Education – New Zealand
• Mostafa Azad Kamal – Bangladesh Open University – Bangladesh
  Roshan Kumar Karn – Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital – Nepal
• Vincent Kizza – Open Learning Exchange Uganda – Uganda
• Fiona MacAllister – University of the Witwatersrand – South Africa
• Katja Mayer – University of Vienna – Austria
• Caroline Mbogo – The World Agroforestry Centre – Kenya
• Niall McNulty – Cambridge University Press – South Africa
• Juliana Monteiro – Museu da Imigração do Estado de São Paulo – Brazil
• Alessandro Sarretta – Institute of Marine Sciences – Italy

In addition to the fellows, we invited seven mentors with open policy expertise from various open sectors. We even brought back two IOL #1 fellows (Klaudia Grabowska and David Ernst) to be mentors at this year’s Institute.

Prior to arriving in Cape Town, all of the fellows proposed an open policy project, which they then developed with their mentors and other fellows during the week. A natural focus for the week was understanding open licensing and the potential for open policies to expand public access to knowledge, data, culture, and research around the world. But licensing is not the only component to a successful open policy adoption. Much of the week involved hearing how openness is perceived within different sectors and institutions, and coming up with strategies and tactics for addressing the important social, cultural, and technological challenges to open policy adoption.

 IOL2 session by Kelsey, CC BY

In addition to learning and working with the mentors and other fellows, there were several interesting speakers that came to talk with the group, including Adam Haupt and Caroline Ncube from the University of Cape Town, Mark Horner from Siyavula, Ralph Borland with Africa Robots, and Barbara Chow, TJ Bliss, and Dana Schmidt from the Hewlett Foundation.  

Over the coming months, the Institute fellows will share regular updates here about their projects, including the progress they are making in implementing open licensing policies within their institutions and governments.

Thank you to Paul Stacey and Kelsey Wiens—who helped facilitate the week-long workshop—and to Kelsey in particular, who helped arrange all the logistics for the meeting in Cape Town. We also appreciate the assistance from the Open Policy Network and the ongoing support from the William and Flora Hewlett and the Open Society Foundations in making the Institute for Open Leadership possible.

IOL2 fellows and mentors by Kelsey, CC BY

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In September we announced that Creative Commons and the Open Policy Network are hosting a second Institute for Open Leadership. We’ve seen a significant increase in the number and diversity of policies that require that publicly funded resources should be widely shared under liberal open licenses so that the public can access and reuse the materials. These resources range from scientific research to digital textbooks to workforce training curricula, and more. Philanthropic foundations have been stepping up too–requiring their grant-funded works to be made freely available under Creative Commons licenses. We want to see more of these open licensing policies flourish, which will feed the commons, promote cross-discipline collaboration, and even increase the transparency of government and philanthropic investments.

The Institute brings together mentors who work with the fellows to develop a open licensing policy for their government, university, or project. We received many applications, and our review committee has invited the following group to join us in Cape Town in March 2016.

• Jane-Frances Agbu – National Open University of Nigeria – Lagos, Nigeria
• Rim Azib – British Council, Tunis – Bizerta, Tunisia
• Steve Cairns – Greenpeace International – Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Amanda Coolidge – BCcampus – Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Daniel DeMarte – Tidewater Community College – Norfolk, VA, United States
• Paula Eskett – CORE Education – Christchurch, New Zealand
• Mostafa Azad Kamal – Bangladesh Open University – Gazipur, Bangladesh
• Roshan Kumar Karn – Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital – Kathmandu, Nepal
• Vincent Kizza – Open Learning Exchange Uganda – Kampala, Uganda
• Fiona MacAllister – University of the Witwatersrand – Johannesburg, South Africa
• Katja Mayer – University of Vienna – Vienna, Austria
• Caroline Mbogo – The World Agroforestry Centre – Nairobi, Kenya
• Niall McNulty – Cambridge University Press – Cape Town, South Africa
• Juliana Monteiro – Museu da Imigração do Estado de São Paulo – São Paulo, Brazil
• Jacques Murinda – Great Lakes School of Open – Kigali, Rwanda
• Alessandro Sarretta – Institute of Marine Sciences – Venezia, Italy

None of this would be possible without the assistance of the Open Policy Network and ongoing support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Open Society Foundations. Thank you.

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