Creative Commons » amsterdam

Open Translation Tools 2009

Jane Park — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:40:04 +0000

One of the social barriers to wide adoption of educational resources is the availability of them in various countries’ native languages. When educational resources are licensed openly, sans the ND term, this barrier is easily overcome via translation practices. However, a lot of issues still remain even with OER at hand to be freely translated, such as stream-lining translation processes, exploring tools that aid in translation, and seeking the best ways to distribute such translations.

To address these issues and more, FLOSSManuals.net and Translate.org.za, with generous support by the Open Society Institute, are putting on Open Translation Tools 2009, a conference that,

“…will convene stakeholders in the field of open content translation to assess the state of software tools that support translation of content that is licensed under free or open content licenses such as Creative Commons or Free Document License. The event will serve to map out what’s available, what’s missing, who’s doing what, and to recommend strategic next steps to address those needs, with a particular focus on delivering value to open education, open knowledge, and human rights blogging communities.

… “Open content” will encompass a range of resource types, from educational materials to books to manuals to documents to blog content to video and multimedia.”

One of the agenda items is “Addressing the Translation Challenges Faced by the Open Education, Open Content, and human rights blogging communities, and mapping requirements to available open solutions.” ccLearn’s Ahrash Bissell will be in attendance, having helped to shape the vision for the event.

Open Translation Tools 2009 will take place in lovely Amsterdam from June 22-24. They are currently calling for participants and do not require a registration fee (though donations are requested). Limited scholarships are also available.

COMMUNIA: A growing European network

Michelle Thorne — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:40:11 +0000

Earlier this month, Mike gave us a sneak preview of several not-to-be-missed conferences in Europe this October. COMMUNIA kicks off the list with its 3rd Workshop, this time held in Amsterdam on October 20-21. The Amsterdam workshop will tackle Marking the public domain: relinquishment & certification, and the CC0 beta/discussion draft 3 will be one of the main items on the agenda.

The workshop follows the successful COMMUNIA Conference 2008, held at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium on June 30 and July 1. The conference furthered COMMUNIA’s mission to enrich and inform the debate about various (and often under-represented) issues related to today’s copyright. In particular, the COMMUNIA network continues to improve understanding about the true value of the public domain and open licensing.

All materials produced by the COMMUNIA network can be downloaded from the COMMUNIA website, which is in itself a great resource for the latest news in intellecutal property, copyright and public domain issues around the world.

Image from COMMUNIA Conference 2008 by Politecnico di Torino, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Late October in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Gothenburg

Mike Linksvayer — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:05:23 +0000

Three excellent commons themed events will occur in northern Europe October 20-26 with no days between them! Each has a significantly different focus. All are highly recommended and will feature participants, speakers, and organizers from Creative Commons’ network throughout Europe and the U.S.

First comes the 3rd COMMUNIA Workshop, October 20-21 in Amsterdam. A workshop, this is probably the most specialized of the three events, titled Marking the public domain: relinquishment & certification. For an update on one part of CC’s work related to this, see the announcement of CC0 beta/discussion draft 3.

Next is the Nordic Cultural Commons Conference 2008, held October 22-23 at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Bringing together all Nordic Creative Commons scholars and practitioners, the conference explores open content licensing and its implications for law and policy, business, culture, and the public sector. This may be the event of the year to learn about open content licensing. Early bird registration ends September 21.

Wrapping up the week is the Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit 2008, held October 24-26 in Gothenburg. Co-organized by Creative Commons Sweden, Free Software Foundation Europe and Wikimedia Sverige, FSCONS aims to be a landmark event in bringing the different movements working for digital freedom together, including free culture, free software, and developments that further both. Early bird registration ends September 15.

See you at one, two, or all three!