by John Acosta

I am interested in Creative Commons (CC) as it connects with the Open Education  (OE) and Open Education Resources (OER) open spaces at Kingsborough Community College (KBCC). KBCC’s Center for Teaching and Learning (KCTL) and KBCC’s Center for e-Learning (KCeL) both have open spaces for faculty to explore the pedagogy of OE and in the creation, adoption, and remixing of OERs. It is at KCTL and KCeL where what I have learned, in the CC for Educators Certificate course, will have direct relevance.

The values and practices of KCTL and KCeL in OE and OER open spaces align with CC’s belief that access to information and creativity is essential for learning, innovation, and progress with public facing work that serves, not only, the college’s but CC’s global network. CC licensed works not only help make educational materials more accessible by removing legal barriers and financial constraints for students, but also allow works to be customized to meet the specific needs of academic departments and programs. CC licenses also encourage collaboration by allowing faculty to build on the work of others and lead to the creation of high-quality educational resources where faculty retain some rights over their work and determine how they want to share with the global community.

We are adopting an OER for a college film course that will also be offered at partnering high schools in Brooklyn and Staten Island. An OER is public facing so it will be easily accessible by the college and high school students without having to login to a Learning Management System (LMS) or City University of New York (CUNY) Portal and at no cost to them. There are video links which need to be updated as well as some photos and illustrations, but it also doesn’t include resources. I would like the college faculty and high school teachers to feel like stakeholders in this resource by asking them to be part of the process of creating instructor resources that they can license, share, and have it be used in the way that is comfortable to them with the selection of the right CC license for their works.

The biggest challenge, I imagine, is in having faculty and teachers fully understand the benefits of OE and OER and the freedom that CC licensing can bring to them. To address this challenge, I will invite faculty and teachers to attend an open space, through KCTL, where we can talk about OE and OER and then I will be able to use the assignments for the CC Educators Certificate (What is Creative Commons?, The Purpose of Copyright, Anatomy of a CC License, and using CC Licenses and CC-Licensed Works) to address questions or concerns. Once faculty and teachers understand that CC licenses can be applied to lectures, videos, textbooks, images, and more, I know that it will start fostering interest. I will also make sure faculty and teachers understand the differences between collections and remixes and licensing options which is something that was challenging for me during the CC Educators Certificate module on it.

The OER for the film course doesn’t include a chapter on film acting and it doesn’t include instructor resources. I will be collaborating with 2 college faculty and 4 high school teachers. I will ask everyone to read the OER, choosing a chapter, and assess its accuracy, reliability, and relevance to the subject. Then, I will create working groups for updating linked videos and photos, creating lectures, assignments, test banks, and writing the missing chapter on acting that we can publish to the CUNY Academic Commons, the home of this CC licensed essay, where each work may be licensed to the creator’s or creators’ preference(s). Afterwards, we can create working groups to keep the OER up to date by adding a section on the latest film and its use of cinematic language and formal film elements.

I believe that the strategy of taking advantage of the OE and OER open spaces available at KBCC and using the assignments for the CC Educators Certificate, that I described earlier, across a few meetings will answer most questions and concerns in a way that is manageable especially when it comes to understanding the limitations and exceptions to copyright in education. I will make this clear to the faculty and teachers as well and this will reinforce copyright law and exceptions and limitations as they will apply to CC licensed works as well. I will also make sure that faculty and teachers understand dedications to the Public Domain and that it is an option for them.

Compensation for the time required to work on the OER may be substantial. I will therefore request payment to faculty and teachers from the college’s OER initiative grant and reassigned time from the department where possible even if that means fewer working groups and a longer timeline to compete the work. The most important thing is that we make our creative works accessible, that we collaborate, and that we support each other as we strengthen OE practices and OER creation through CC licensing.

In conclusion, as faculty are assured by CUNY that works created for courses remain the IP of the faculty member any OE and OER work will give creators the permissions and restrictions that they are comfortable with allowing or prohibiting in their shared creative work(s). Finally, faculty will understand that use of CC licenses doesn’t mean that they can ignore fair use, privacy and confidentiality laws, so I will ensure that faculty and teachers alike know that their work is shared with as little restriction or with as much restriction as CC licensing allows that is public facing and free of LMS or portal constraints. I am so excited to do my best to be a part of the future of OE and OER and to bring understanding of CC licening to the faculty at my college and to the teachers at our partnering high schools.

Citation for CC Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians and GLAM

Citation for CUNY Intellectual Property Policy

Citation for OER Initiative at Kingsborough Community College

Citation for KCTL Open Education Faculty Interest Group

Citation for College Now Program