This December, Creative Commons led a CC Certificate Bootcamp, or condensed Certificate training, for faculty and staff from 16 different California Community Colleges implementing Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) degree programs. This marked the second CC Bootcamp for California Community Colleges after the California legislature invested $115 million to expand ZTC degrees and the use of open educational resources (OER) within the statewide California community college system. ZTC degrees and increased use of OER reduce the overall cost of education and shorten the time to degree completion for students. With the average cost of course textbooks estimated at $100/student/course, ZTC degrees are crucial for students’ higher education. Further, students’ grades achieved in ZTC programs are higher than in traditional courses.

The CC Certificate program provides training and tools for ZTC program faculty and staff to legally and effectively implement the open licensing requirements of California’s historic investment in education. After learning about copyright basics, fair use, the public domain, and CC licensing, participants brainstormed and initiated some great ways to support ZTC program faculty and student needs. Examples of participant work include using generative AI to create “Creative Commons Bots,” tools to help others learn about licensing, and test their own knowledge with quiz questions; creating a grants guide for OER funding; drafting a potential strategic plan for OER/ ZTC work (work in progress), and remixing previous courses or resources to address ZTC communications and learning needs for localized audiences (works in progress). See what participants are saying below.

“This is one of the best professional development experiences I’ve had in years”

“Thank you so much for sharing wonderful resources and CC practices. I will share this knowledge with my colleagues”

“You’ve nailed the condensed week workshop. So much fun, and creating work groups was really beneficial”

We are proud to support California Community Colleges’ collaboration as they strengthen their foundations for open education. CC is grateful to the Michelson 20MM Foundation for generously funding this bootcamp at San Bernardino Valley College. Special thanks also go to the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges for their liaison work, expertise and support, to San Bernardino Valley College for hosting the event, and to Fresno Pacific University for providing professional development credits to faculty.

If you’re interested in advancing open education efforts in your own institution, Creative Commons offers an array of learning, training, and consulting opportunities to support our global community in developing open licensing expertise and a deeper understanding of recommended practices for better sharing. Visit the CC Training & Consulting page to learn more about our training services, workshops, lectures, and CC Certificate courses. Register for our next CC Certificate online courses, starting 29 January.

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As we end 2023, we want to showcase the incredible work of CC community members to translate the CC Certificate content. Thanks to 21 volunteers this year and numerous volunteers in the past, the reading content of our CC Certificate training is now available in 10 languages. This makes our fundamental open licensing and open advocacy training more accessible to over one billion people in their native languages. 

The CC Certificate program offers in-depth courses about copyright, CC licenses, open practices and the ethos of our global, shared commons. CC Certificate courses target (1) Academic Librarians, (2) Educators and (3) Open Culture advocates, but are open to everyone. Learn more about the CC Certificate and other professional learning opportunities, then register for a Certificate course today. If you are a CC Certificate graduate and would like to translate course content in 2024, please contact certificate administrators on the alumni listserv. 

Slovak

The Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information contacted CC in 2022, noting the need for CC Certificate content in Slovak. Thanks to Gabriela Fišová, Judita Takačová, Jakub Klech, and Barbora Bieliková, who translated content earlier this year, the Centre now has a complete translation. 

Download the Slovak translation files, view them on the CC Certificate translations webpage, or on Zenodo. 

Bengali

Bangladesh Open University (BOU) faculty, Sadia Afroze Sultana and Mostafa Azad Kamal, translated the CC Certificate content to make open licensing training more accessible to the 184+ million Bengali-speakers worldwide. Sadia is a CC Certificate alumna and facilitator; Mostafa is the CC Bangladesh Chapter Representative and also a CC Certificate alumnus. CC thanks Mostafa and Sadia; CC also thanks BOU faculty Asma Akter Shelly and Ananya Laboni, and graduate students Aminul Islam Rana and Mir Khadija Tahera for reading the translated copies and providing feedback. 

Download the Bengali translation files, or view them on the CC Certificate translations webpage.

French 2.0

Building on last year’s French Translation, a community of volunteers from seven countries embarked on a two-week French translation 2.0 sprint, to increase the accessibility of the French translation for different francophone audiences. Nicolas Simon, a CC community member who provided the original French translation supported the sprint, and reviewed the final draft. Adou Jean-Constant Atta, Aman Ado, Emmanuelle Guebo Kakou, Fawaz Tairou, Karen Ferreira-Meyers, Kamel Belhamel, Nyirahabihirwe Clementine, Touré Kahou, Namon Moussa Traore, and Yao Hippolyte Bondouho added local contextual considerations such as recommended links. 

Download the French translation files, or view them on the CC Certificate translations webpage.

With these translations, the CC Certificate reading content is accessible in 10 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Slovak, Turkish, and Yoruba. The latest translations make our open licensing training more accessible than ever before and we thank open community members for making that possible. 

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