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. 

The post CC Certificate Translations in Slovak, Bengali, and localized French appeared first on Creative Commons.

Climate change, and the resulting harm to our global biodiversity, is one of the world’s most pressing challenges. Creative Commons (CC) and its partners SPARC and EIFL have launched a global Open Climate Campaign to make the open sharing of research the norm in climate science.

CC is looking for an experienced and well-organized Open Climate Campaign Communications Manager to create and execute a communications plan in support of the existing Open Climate Campaign strategy, goals, and outcomes.

This position is a full-time (40hrs/week) contract. This contract may start as early as February, 2024 and end as late as June, 2026.

Primary responsibilities

• Stay up-to-date with emerging issues within the field of open access as it pertains to research, including news, policy announcements, and strategies.
• Establish a 3-year multi-channel communications strategy, and oversee its implementation, to help the Open Climate Campaign successfully accomplish its existing strategy, outcomes and goals to open climate change and biodiversity research.
• Design, develop and revise customized communication messages and schedules for each of the Campaign’s primary (national governments, environmental organizations, funders) and secondary (researchers, librarians, publishers, open access field, general public) target audiences.
• Write, edit,  proofread and post all campaign communications material, including announcements, social media, online content, media releases, stories and stakeholder documents.
• Lead media relations and develop contacts with national and international media (e.g., The Guardian, New York Times, etc), publications and influencers to promote Campaign messages, and place stories and editorials that describe the problems the Campaign is working to solve.
• Synthesize and draft communications in response to campaign-relevant actions by outside actors for the Open Climate Campaign team to review and publish.
• Track and report on engagement across various communications channels.
• Keep the campaign website content updated.
• Maintaining brand integrity across numerous platforms and communications channels.
• Assess communication plan progress and propose changes to the communication plan as needed.
• Coordinate with project partners, endorsing organizations and other stakeholders to get input and feedback on communication messaging and implementation.
• Prepare necessary presentation materials, attend and present at campaign meetings when requested.
• Ensure communication plan deadlines are met.
• Other duties as assigned.

Education and Experience

• 5+ years of experience in open access to research
• 5+ year track record planning and overseeing successful public communication campaigns, including experience:
  • in leading and managing communications strategy;
  • communicating with diverse stakeholders, including individuals, organizations and/or governments;
  • with following a communications plan and reporting; and
  • communication experience including developing messaging, identifying key audiences, creating a strategy and successful implementation.
• No specific degree is required, but a bachelor’s and/or master’s degree or equivalent level of coursework, training, or on-the-job experience is preferred.

Qualities and Abilities 

• Ability to create communication messages and materials that persuade a non-marketing audience, such as senior level managers within an organization, scientists and researchers, of the wisdom of proposed campaigns.
• Strong knowledge of open access initiatives, terminology and history.
• Excellent project management including time management and work organization skills.
• Ability to navigate politically sensitive issues.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills and presentation effectiveness.
• Social media knowledge and skills.
• Excellent analytical and problem solving abilities.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a dynamic environment with a high degree of flexibility.
• Ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team.
• Proficient technology skills (Google suite, Asana, Slack, knowledge of WordPress a plus).
• Skilled at documentation management, project management and campaign design tools.
• Demonstrated excellence in independent management of complex projects.
• Time management skills with the ability to meet deadlines.
• Fluent in English; second language competency a plus.
• Experience in working in international teams is a plus.

Diversity

We believe that diverse teams build better organizations and better services. Applications from qualified candidates from all backgrounds, including those from under-represented communities, are encouraged to apply. Creative Commons works openly as part of a global community, guided by collaboratively developed codes of conduct and anti-harassment policies.

Work Environment and Location

At CC, we are committed to fostering a global and inclusive environment, and strive to have a diverse team that represents many backgrounds. Creative Commons has been a fully-distributed organization since 2015 — we have no central office, all positions are in a remote working environment.  This position reports to and will regularly meet with their manager in US Eastern time. Applicants in time zones that are +/- 4 hours from US Eastern time are preferred. This position will require occasional travel. You must have high-speed broadband access.

Compensation

Creative Commons is a leading non-profit employer, offering competitive salaries and a positive, supportive work environment. We offer a competitive compensation for this full-time contractor position at $6,500 – $8,000 USD per month, commensurate with experience and relevant skills. This is a grant funded position for up to 28 months, ending no later than June, 2026. CC will write 12-month contracts, renewable based on performance, for up to 28 months.

How to Apply

Please email your resume and cover letter as a single PDF to “jobs@creativecommons.org” with the subject heading of “Open Climate Campaign Communications Manager / [Last Name].” Your cover letter should: address why you are interested in this job, why you’re a good fit based on the requirements and responsibilities, and answer the question “Why do you think open access to climate knowledge is important?”. No phone calls. No recruiters. We are looking to hire for this role ASAP, so please share this opportunity and don’t hesitate to apply.

Application deadline: January 12, 2024. We will not be reaching out to schedule any interviews until after that date.

The post Contract Opportunity: Open Climate Campaign Communications Manager (Closed) appeared first on Creative Commons.

Jennryn has a Masters in ‘Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs’ from American University’s School for International Service. She currently lives in Maryland with her husband Nick, and kids. Jennryn enjoys yoga, podcasts and feeding her more daring friends cooking experiments.

The post Jennryn Wetzler appeared first on Creative Commons.

Whether you work for a smaller newsroom seeking high quality, newsworthy photos that are free to use, or are part of a larger operation, like Propublica, that CC licenses all news to increase access and spread, CC licenses are free, powerful tools at your disposal.  

Yet, some journalists may not be aware of the potential and ease of these tools. Open Newswire and Creative Commons partnered to offer a practical primer on Creative Commons for journalism, and how to make the most of CC licenses. Enjoy!

For more information about Open Newswire, the global aggregator of CC-licensed articles, contact info@opennewswire.org.

For more information about CC licensing your works, or reusing others’ CC licensed content, visit the CC FAQ page, the CC Certificate training resources, or contact learning@creativecommons.org for a consultation. 

CC also offers free “office hours” with our copyright lawyers and periodic trainings. We will run open journalism trainings at the 2023 Collaborative Journalism Summit June 6, online at RightsCon June 7 in partnership with Open Newswire, and The Conversation, and at Media Party June 8. CC will host additional open journalism training at the CC Summit, October 3-6. We hope to connect with you. 

You can view the guide below (click at the bottom to navigate through pages), or download it in a PDF format.

“A Journalist’s Guide to Creative Commons 2023” by Zac Crellin and Jennryn Wetzler for Creative Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0.

The post A Journalist’s Guide to Creative Commons 2023 appeared first on Creative Commons.

This January, Creative Commons led a CC Certificate Bootcamp, or condensed training for 12 faculty and staff from 11 California Community Colleges implementing Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) degree programs. Building on a successful pilot ZTC Pathways program, the California Legislator invested $115 million to expand Zero Textbook Cost degrees and OER within the California community college system. The California ZTC programs reduce the overall cost of education and reduce the time to degree completion for California community college students. With the average costs of course textbooks estimated at $100/student/course, ZTC programs have the potential to save students nearly a billion dollars in the coming years, offering a more than 800% return on investment, according to SPARC. 

The CC Certificate Bootcamp provided needed training and tools for ZTC program staff to legally and effectively implement the open licensing requirements of the $115 investment. 

But, beyond open licensing lessons, the CC training strengthened a network of open advocates. The week offered engagement with copyright lawyers, and open advocates, space for collaborative brainstorming, play, and iterative problem solving. From participant-focused brainstorms emerged three clear interventions to address needs in the ZTC program development and expansion. Participant work kickstarted (1) a guide to support faculty in using and integrating LibreTexts OER in Canvas; (2) a ZTC Conversion Faculty Resource guide, sharing resources for both OER liaisons and interested faculty supporting the process of ZTC course development; and (3) the outline of wholistic considerations and needs for roadmapping ZTC programs efficiently and effectively, as the Michelson 20MM Foundation highlighted.  In less than two months since the bootcamp, faculty and staff have continued to collaborate and champion for OER in their institutions, by:

• Presenting simple guides and presentations for faculty and administrators to absorb to mitigate overwhelm with the program;
• Presenting Creative Commons License tutorials, as well as additional needs for adjacent networks, at professional development days, to the Academic Senate and Deans of various departments;
• Planning OER conferences;
• Launching a survey for the ZTC program;
• Setting up mapping to the degrees in smartsheets, which can pull survey data to courses and identify what courses have been converted to ZTCs;
• Sharing a guide about what the ZTC funding (with legislation definitions, how is the funding working and more) 

CC Bootcamp collaborations moved beyond the initial goals of supporting cost savings for students–faculty and staff worked toward interventions addressing barriers to teaching and learning in their systems. As Cailyn Nagle notes, OER are worth more than their cost savings. “They have the power to free, to be liberatory. When educators are able to craft the ideal materials their students can use without barriers, and librarians are able to curate that knowledge for everyone’s benefit, we come closer to the promise of Open.” We applaud California Community Colleges increased collaborative work–strengthening a foundation for that freedom. 

As we revel in the offerings of Open Education Week and our collaborations, I hope we can draw from the energy of California Community Colleges’ faculty and staff, striving toward increasingly liberatory structures in the future. 

CC thanks the Michelson 20MM Foundation for generously funding the bootcamp. 

Special thanks also go to the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges for their liaison work, expertise and support, to Skyline College for hosting the event, and to Fresno Pacific University for providing professional development credits to faculty.

At Creative Commons, we offer an array of learning and training opportunities to support our global community in developing open licensing expertise and a deeper understanding of recommended practices for better sharing. Visit the CC Trainings page to learn about our workshops, consulting options, lectures, and our CC Certificate courses.

The post Creative Commons Bootcamp for California Community Colleges appeared first on Creative Commons.

“Better Sharing With AI” by Creative Commons was generated by the DALL-E 2 AI platform with the text prompt “A surrealist painting in the style of Salvador Dali of a robot giving a gift to a person playing a cello.” CC dedicates any rights it holds to the image to the public domain via CC0.

Over the last year, innovation and use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has exploded, providing new ways for people to create content of all sorts. For example, it’s been used to help create award winning art, develop educational materials, expedite software development, and craft business materials. Recently, three artists filed a class action lawsuit in the USA against StabilityAI and Midjourney, two companies that use the Stable Diffusion tool to enable people to generate images using simple text prompts. It follows on the heels of litigation brought by the same attorneys and other plaintiffs against GitHub and OpenAI for their Copilot and Codex tools for generating software code.

AI is an area that Creative Commons has long focused on, including most recently in a webinar series we held last fall. We are going to expand on our views in future posts, including exploring why we think the legal arguments in the US court case against StabilityAI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt are ill-founded. (Getty Images also subsequently filed a similar suit against StabilityAI in the US, as well as apparently commencing litigation in the UK, but we have yet to see that complaint.)

But before digging into all of the legal issues, we wanted to take a step back and restate our general approach to generative AI.

CC on Generative AI

Creative Commons has always sought out ways to harness new technology to serve the public interest and to support better sharing of creative content — sharing that is inclusive, just, equitable, reciprocal and sustainable. We support creators to share their works as broadly and openly as they want, so that people can enjoy them globally without unnecessary barriers. We also advocate for policies that ensure new and existing creators are able to build on a shared commons, while respecting creators’ legitimate interests in control and compensation for their creative expressions.

A founding insight of Creative Commons is that all creativity builds on the past. When people learn to play the cello or paint a picture, for instance, they necessarily learn from and train their own skills by engaging pre-existing works and artists — for instance, noticing the style in which cellists like Yo-Yo Ma arrange notes, or building on surrealist styles initiated by artists like Dali. Similarly, while Star Wars invented the character of Luke Skywalker, it built on the idea of the hero’s journey, among many other elements from past works. People observe the ideas, styles, genres, and other tropes of past creativity, and use what they learn to create anew. No creativity happens in a vacuum, purely original and separate from what’s come before.

Generative AI can function in a similar way. Just as people learn from past works, generative AI is trained on previous works, analyzing past materials in order to extract underlying ideas and other information in order to build new works. Image generation tools like Stable Diffusion develop representations of what images are supposed to look like by examining pre-existing works, associating terms like “dog” or “table” with shapes and colors such that a text prompt of those terms can then output images.

Given how digital technologies function, training AI in this way necessarily involves making an initial copy of images in order to analyze them. As we’ve explored in the past and will discuss in future posts about these recent lawsuits, we think this sort of copying can and should be permissible under copyright law. There are certainly nuances when it comes to copyright’s interaction with these tools — for instance, what if the tools are later used by someone to generate an output that does copy from a specific creative expression? But treating copying to train AI as per se infringing copyright would in effect shrink the commons and impede others’ creativity in an over-broad way. It would expand copyright to give certain creators a monopoly over ideas, genres, and other concepts not limited to a specific creative expression, as well as over new tools for creativity.

Copyright, and intellectual property law in general, are only one lens to think about AI: It’s still important to grapple with legitimate concerns about this technology and consider what responsible development and use should be. For instance, what impact will these tools have on artists and creators’ jobs and compensation? How can we ensure that AI that is trained on the commons contributes back to the commons as well, supporting all types of creators? What about the use of these tools to develop harmful misinformation, to exploit people’s privacy (eg, their biometric data), or in ways that perpetuate biases? More generally, how can we ensure human oversight and responsibilities to ensure that these tools work well for society?

These are just some of the tricky issues that will need to be worked out to ensure people can harness AI tools in ways that support creativity and the public interest. Along with other policy and legal approaches to governing AI, it’s important to look to community-driven solutions that support responsible development and use. Already, StabilityAI will let artists opt-out of its training data set, as well as opt in to provide greater information about their works. While this precise approach raises a variety of views, indexing of the web has functioned well using a similar sort of opt-out approach — set through global technical standards and norms, rather than law. Creators of some generative AI tools are using licenses that constrain how they are deployed, which also carries various trade-offs.

What’s Next? Community Input

Supporting community-driven solutions has also always been at the heart of Creative Commons’ approach to creativity. If you’re interested in this subject, we are going to be holding meetings with the Creative Commons community, and we also plan to continue meeting with diverse stakeholders to explore what sorts of solutions may be helpful in this area. As we go along we’ll continue to report on what we’ve learned and seek out more community feedback.

Join the CC team at a community discussion about generative AI: How can we make it work better for everyone and support better sharing in the commons?

To enable participation around the world, we’ve scheduled three times for this conversation. Come to the one that works best for your schedule, or join as many as you like. We’ll be focused on the same questions and issues at each meeting, but different participants will bring different perspectives, reshaping each conversation. To enable participants to speak freely, these meetings will not be recorded, but the CC team will be taking notes to share outcomes from the conversations.

Community Meetings: Wednesday 22 February 2023

Register for 2:00–3:00 UTC

(check the schedule in your local timezone)

Register for 14:00–15:00 UTC

(check the schedule in your local timezone)

Register for 18:00–19:00 UTC

(check the schedule in your local timezone)

Stay in touch with CC: subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn & Twitter), or join CC on Slack.

The post Better Sharing for Generative AI appeared first on Creative Commons.

The Artist’s Garden at Saint-Clair by Henri-Edmond Cross, The Metropolitan Museum; Public Domain

Since its creation in 2001, Creative Commons (CC) has helped release nearly 5 million digital open images of cultural heritage held in cultural heritage institutions using CC tools. We have also been promoting open culture to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world, and it is based on this rich experience that our Open Culture program now supports better sharing of cultural heritage globally.

Today, we are proud at CC to announce the publication of Towards better sharing of cultural heritage — A Creative Commons Call to Action to Policymakers, a simple, concise, and accessible resource that aims to support policymakers with key arguments to reform policy — in particular copyright — to achieve better sharing of cultural heritage in the public interest. 

Drafted by a small group of open culture advocates of the Creative Commons Copyright Platform and Open Culture Platform — Shanna Hollich (CC US), Emine Ozge Yildirim (KU Leuven), Maarten Zeinstra (CC Netherlands) and Brigitte Vézina (Director of Policy and Open Culture) — this resource: 

• summarizes key takeaways from the 2022 CC policy paper Towards Better Sharing of Cultural Heritage — An Agenda for Copyright Reform; 
• applies the lessons learned during a CC virtual workshop for policy experts and open culture enthusiasts held in May 2022, and;
• distills numerous conversations with and by the CC open culture community held between June and October 2022, as well as direct document input gathering ideas, feedback and real-life examples.
  

This publication offers a basis for a shared vision on better sharing and makes a call for five actions: 

• ACTION 1: Protect the public domain from erosion
• ACTION 2: Reduce the term of copyright protection
• ACTION 3: Legally allow necessary activities of cultural heritage institutions
• ACTION 4: Shield cultural heritage institutions from liability
• ACTION 5: Ensure respect, equity, and inclusivity

Read the full document >

We’ll be presenting the publication at Open Nederland’s Public Domain Day 2023 on January 13, 2023, at the National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague. More information and registration for this hybrid event: https://publiekdomeindag.nl/.

?Do you want to know more about open culture at Creative Commons? Write to us at info@creativecommons.org. 

The post CC Publishes Global Open Culture Call to Action to Policymakers appeared first on Creative Commons.

Photos courtesy of Dr. Beth Harris (left) and Dr. Steven Zucker (right)

Hi Creative Commoners! On this episode, we’re joined by art historians, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, the co-founders and executive directors of Smarthistory. Smarthistory is a center for public art history, with thousands of free and CC licensed videos and essays written by experts who want to share their knowledge with learners around the world. Previously, Beth was dean of art and history at Khan Academy and director of digital learning at The Museum of Modern Art. Before joining MoMA, Beth was Associate Professor of art history and director of distance learning at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she taught both online and in the classroom. Previously, Steven was dean of art and history at Khan Academy. He was chair of history of art and design at Pratt Institute, where he strengthened enrollment and led renewal of curriculum across the Institute. Previously, he was dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY and chair of art history. He has taught at The School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, and at The Museum of Modern Art.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.
• Episode transcript: Text // PDF // Doc

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

The post Open Minds Podcast: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker of Smarthistory appeared first on Creative Commons.

Photo Courtesy of Trudi Radtke

Hi Creative Commoners! We are back with a new episode of CC’s Open Minds … from Creative Commons podcast. In this month’s episode of the show, Jennryn Wetzler, CC’s Director of Learning and Training, talks all things Open Education and Inclusive Access Textbooks with Trudi Radtke, former Open Education Project Manager at SPARC.

InclusiveAccess.org is a community-driven initiative that launched in 2021 to raise awareness of the facts about automatic textbook billing. The initiative was developed by SPARC with generous support from the Michelson 20MM Foundation, and Creative Commons is one of the partners. 

This episode was recorded in June 2022, when Trudi Radtke was the Open Education Project Manager at SPARC. In this role, they spearheaded advocacy and implementation for initiatives to make education more open and equitable, including InclusiveAccess.org. Prior to working at SPARC, Trudi was an Education Technology Specialist, OER Specialist and open consultant in the California community college system. As an Open and OER consultant, they have assisted in the creation of over 120 open textbooks and several Z-Degree pathways. Trudi is passionate about Open and has advocated for OER at the state, regional, and international levels.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.
• Episode transcript: Text // PDF // Doc

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

The post Open Minds Podcast: Trudi Radtke on InclusiveAccess.org appeared first on Creative Commons.

Courtesy of Sam Williams

Hi Creative Commoners! We are back with a new episode of CC’s Open Minds … from Creative Commons podcast. On this episode, CC’s Chief Operating Officer, Anna Tumadóttir, sits down for an interesting conversation with Sam Williams, the co-founder and CEO of Arweave, the company that created the Arweave protocol, a permanent archive of human knowledge and experiences on a blockchain. Creative Commons licenses are the first set of licensing standards to be deployed on Arweave. Sam has been immersed in open source since he was a kid, and started learning to code when he was nine. So it’s no surprise that now he’s passionate about building innovative software and solving complex problems in computer networking, and has built extensive experience in real-world mechanism design and implementation. When he’s not working on Arweave, Sam actively participates in the decentralized web space as technical advisor and mentor of blockchain projects.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.
• Episode transcript: Text // PDF // Doc

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

The post Open Minds Podcast: Sam Williams of Arweave appeared first on Creative Commons.