[Open-education] HELP: US Dept. of Education: Call for open licensing policy comments

Tue Dec 8 20:20:07 UTC 2015

Greetings Open Education Colleagues:

We need your help.

In October, we shared the news
<https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/46345> that the U.S. Department
of Education (ED) is considering requiring an open license on the products
of their competitive grants. ED is now accepting comments on this proposed
open licensing policy.

Based on the comments sent to ED thus far, it is both critically important
to show OER community (all of us) support for this proposed open licensing
policy, and also to draw upon the incredible wealth of on-the-ground
knowledge that exists among the global OER community.

There’s a FAQ for you posted here
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FR4J1s7oyeLd_6CTZtzJyFN0yUMbMKW9BKThmsHvvIY/edit>
.

Here are sample comments from: Creative Commons
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QQJDR7Kfv5qSsCGbAOKhy8OlXc-fMIwzHIMok-myEEI/edit>
(+ blog post <http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/46645>), SPARC
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nLt5PUuGGoLplsduy8A932twBPnAgHvdEQlDH0ZVv8Y/edit?pli=1>
and EFF
<https://www.eff.org/document/eff-comment-department-education-open-licensing-policy>…
feel free to reuse these comments to create and submit your comments.

*We encourage all OER organizations and individual open education leaders
to consider responding to the Department’s call for public comments. *

*The deadline is December 18th.*

*Additional details:*

Suggested talking points on general issues:

   - Explain why the open licensing policy will benefit your country,
   education institutions, teachers and students.
   - Support language in § 3474.20(a) defining the terms of the open
   license to be used for works covered by the policy.
   - Encourage the Department select the Creative Commons Attribution
   License (CC BY) as the license grantees should use to implement the policy.
   - Encourage the Department to broaden the policy from direct competitive
   grant funds to be the default for ALL Department grant funds.
   - Encourage the Department to reconsider the proposed exemption for
   peer-reviewed research articles arising from grants funded by the Institute
   for Education Sciences.

Questions posed by the Department for practical information:

   - Should the Department require that copyrightable works be openly
   licensed prior to the end of the grant period as opposed to after the grant
   period is over? If yes, what impact would this have on the quality of the
   final product?
   - Should the Department include a requirement that grantees distribute
   copyrightable works created under a direct competitive grant program? If
   yes, what suggestions do you have on how the Department should implement
   such a requirement?
   - What further activities would increase public knowledge about the
   materials and resources that are created using the Department's grant funds
   and broaden their dissemination?
   - What technical assistance should the Department provide to grantees to
   promote broad dissemination of their grant-funded intellectual property?
   - What experiences do you have implementing requirements of open
   licensing policy with other Federal agencies? Please share your experiences
   with these different approaches, including lessons learned and
   recommendations that might be related to this document.

Again the deadline for comments is *December 18th*, and more information on
submitting comments is here
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FR4J1s7oyeLd_6CTZtzJyFN0yUMbMKW9BKThmsHvvIY/edit>
.

If you have any questions please ask.

Most gratefully!

Cable

-- 

Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
@cgreen <http://twitter.com/cgreen>
*retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute*

*Get Creative Commons Updates http://bit.ly/commonsnews
<http://bit.ly/commonsnews>2015 State of the Commons Report
<https://stateof.creativecommons.org/2015/>*
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