[Okfn-ca] Open Education in Canada

Tue Dec 10 13:40:55 UTC 2013

I meant NC.

However, I am not sure that there would be general agreement that a non-commercial restriction makes a textbook not Open, even though it is less Open.

Our concern is that with our limited legal resources and status as a charity we wish to keep as clear a separation as possible between ourselves and any commercial activity whatsoever. We also cannot afford to be involved in any disputes with commercial publishers over what material was or wasn’t covered, a situation which might be more likely if material is mixed.

California’s CK12.ORG releases its textbooks under the BY-NC licence, perhaps for similar reasons.

Wikipedia uses BY-SA, but is large. It is worth noting that in 2009 Wikipedia UK was denied charitable status in the UK and it took a few years to overcome that.

It may very well be that as we expand the various government ministries may require removal of the NC restriction as a condition of grant approval to mollify commercial publishers. Time will tell.

I have had this discussion with David Porter at BCCampus and he falls on the BY-SA side, but his group is funded by the BC government and has more resources at its disposal.

We are possibly operating under an overabundance of caution as the lawyers say, and when we can afford some to get a clear ruling from the CRA perhaps we could lighten up.

G.E. Ross
CEO
Open Source Text Canada
647-478-9233

On Dec 10, 2013, at 7:00 AM, okfn-ca-request at lists.okfn.org wrote:

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>   1. Re: Plea for a blog post on open education in Canada (Marieke Guy)
>   2. Re: Open Education in Canada (Rob Myers)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 11:28:18 +0000
> From: Marieke Guy <marieke.guy at okfn.org>
> To: diane.mercier at gmail.com
> Cc: OKFN-ca <okfn-ca at lists.okfn.org>, Mathieu Gauthier-Pilote
> 	<mathieu.g.p at republiquelibre.org>
> Subject: Re: [Okfn-ca] Plea for a blog post on open education in
> 	Canada
> Message-ID: <52A5A952.5020908 at okfn.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
> 
> Great to hear from you Diane,
> 
> I think Robert Gregoire is also interested in translation - so it might 
> be worth co-ordinating with him on planned activity.
> 
> If you do get time to write a blog post on open education in Canada - 
> maybe in the new year - then please do send it over.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Marieke
> 
> On 06/12/2013 19:54, Diane Mercier wrote:
>> Dear Marieke,
>> 
>> I response to your invitation through the list of the Open Knowledge 
>> Foundation local group in Canada because the Open Education is one of 
>> our two main interests. The other is about linking communities 
>> involved in Open Knowledge.
>> 
>> Particularly, we translate important texts  in French in the fields of 
>> free knowledge. Your Open education Handbook is this type of document 
>> of importance. If it is already translated, we adapt to the Quebec 
>> context and the North America.
>> 
>> We are planning the activities of translation for the coming months 
>> and we will contact you quickly
>> 
>> I'll subscribed to your mailing list and invite local group members to 
>> joint it also.
>> 
>> Best Regards,
>> 
>> Diane
>> 
>> Ambassadrice de l'Open Knowledge Foundation - Groupe local au Canada
>> @okfnca | http://ca.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-ca
>> Meetup : http://www.meetup.com/OpenKnowledgeFoundation/Montreal-CA
>> Jitsi : dianemercier
>> ? Pas de donn?es ouvertes, sans logiciel libre ni formats ouverts?
>> 
>> 
>> Le 2013-12-05 04:38, Marieke Guy a ?crit :
>>> Dear Diane,
>>> 
>>> I'd like to introduce myself to you. I'm Marieke Guy and I work for 
>>> theOpen Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org>on the EULinkedUp 
>>> Project <http://linkedup-project.eu>, "pushing forward the 
>>> exploitation of the vast amounts of public, open data available on 
>>> the Web, in particular by educational institutions and organizations".
>>> 
>>> As the ambassador for Canada you'll know that the Open Knowledge 
>>> Foundation are a global movement to open up knowledge around the 
>>> world and see it used and useful. There has been huge amounts of 
>>> activity around government and economic data, and quite a bit around 
>>> opening up GLAM objects. Open education is a relatively new area for 
>>> us, but it aligns well with action around open development and 
>>> sustainability.
>>> 
>>> As part of our work we have set up the Open Knowledge FoundationOpen 
>>> Education Working Group <http://education.okfn.org>. The plan is 
>>> bring together people working in different areas of open education: 
>>> OERs, open data, policy, learning and teaching etc. to find overlaps. 
>>> So for example, those working with OERs are pretty interested in 
>>> MOOCs, and this potentially could be a key area of interest for open 
>>> data enthusiasts - this could lead to joint activities. The plan 
>>> isn't to replace any existing groups but to work with them.
>>> 
>>> The Working Group is only just getting off the ground and a key 
>>> activity for me is building a community and getting know people 
>>> working in this area, not just in the UK but in Europe and beyond. 
>>> One of our first activities is theOpen Education Handbook 
>>> <http://education.okfn.org/handbook/>. We have also just started a 
>>> series looking at open education around the world and sharing stories 
>>> from different countries. We've now had 5 posts and it would be great 
>>> to run something on Canada. Robert Gregoire suggested that you might 
>>> be a good person to give an overview. Would you be interested in 
>>> writing something for us?
>>> 
>>> It would also be fantastic to see you join our mailing list 
>>> <http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-education>and be 
>>> involved in some of the conversations we are starting to have.
>>> 
>>> Look forward to working together in the future.
>>> 
>>> Marieke
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> 
>>> Marieke Guy
>>> LinkedUp <%3Fhttp://linkedup-project.eu/%3F> Project Community 
>>> Coordinator | skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | 
>>> @mariekeguy <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
>>> The Open Knowledge Foundation <%3Fhttp://okfn.org/%3F>
>>> /Empowering through Open Knowledge/
>>> http://okfn.org/ <%3Fhttp://okfn.org/%3F> | @okfn 
>>> <http://twitter.com/okfn>| OKF on Facebook 
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>>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Marieke Guy
> LinkedUp <%3Fhttp://linkedup-project.eu/%3F> Project Community 
> Coordinator | skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | @mariekeguy 
> <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
> The Open Knowledge Foundation <%3Fhttp://okfn.org/%3F>
> /Empowering through Open Knowledge/
> http://okfn.org/ <%3Fhttp://okfn.org/%3F> | @okfn 
> <http://twitter.com/okfn>| OKF on Facebook 
> <%3Fhttps://www.facebook.com/OKFNetwork%3F> | Blog 
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 18:46:21 -0800
> From: Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org>
> To: okfn-ca at lists.okfn.org
> Subject: Re: [Okfn-ca] Open Education in Canada
> Message-ID: <52A6807D.4040903 at robmyers.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> On 07/12/13 09:25 AM, G.E. Ross wrote:
>> 
>> I can add that Open Source Text Canada is currently working to move
>> forward the creation of Open textbooks to be released under the CC
>> BY-NC-SA licence which match provincial curricula across Canada.
> 
> Do you mean BY-SA? BY-NC-SA is not an Open Source license.
> 
> e.g.:
> 
> http://opensource.org/faq#commercial
> 
> - Rob.
> 
> 
> 
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