Why Open Education Matters Video Competition! by Creative Commons, U.S. Department of Education, and Open Society Foundations

Creative Commons, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Open Society Foundations announce the launch of the Why Open Education Matters Video Competition. The competition will award cash prizes for the best short videos that explain the use and promise of free, high-quality open educational resources and describe the benefits and opportunities these materials create for teachers, students and schools.  Video submissions are accepted until June 5, 2012 and winners will be announced July 18, 2012. Cash prizes include $25,000 (first), $5,000 (second), and $1,000 (Public Choice Award). Judges include prominent artists and education experts, including Davis Guggenheim, Nina Paley, James Franco, and many others. Learn more.

 

$500 million available in Wave 2 of U.S. Department of Labor grant program for community colleges

The U.S. Department of Labor has released a Solicitation for Grant Applications (SGA) for Wave 2 of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant Program (TAACCCT). Wave 2 makes available an additional $500 million to “eligible institutions of higher education… with funds to expand and improve their ability to deliver education and career training programs that can be completed in two years or less…” As with the first wave of funding, all educational materials created from grant funds must be released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. For Wave 2, the CC BY license must also be applied to modifications made to pre-existing, grantee-owned content using grant funds. Read more.

Creative Commons and Open Education Week

Creative Commons and its affiliates are participating in Open Education Week! a week-long series of global events on and offline to to raise awareness of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement and its impact on universal access to education. 90 organizations are contributing by hosting workshops, conferences, evening events, and online webinars. The first events started March 1, but the official week is March 5 through March 10. It’s not too late for you to join. Learn more.

• The next CC Salon London — Open Educational Resources: Policies for Promotion — is Thursday, March 29! The event is free and open to the public but registration is required. Learn more.

• The U.S. Washington State Senate passed an OER Bill for K-12 education! HB 2337 will help eliminate high textbook costs for one million students. Learn more.

• The Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum dedicated its data collection to the public domain using our CC0 public domain dedication tool.

• The German Aerospace Center (DLR) also adopted CC by incorporating CC licenses, including CC Attribution, for its photos and media.

• CC community member, Makerblock, has developed a new WordPress plugin that makes it easier for you to add CC licenses to your website and blog.

• We launched the new Creative Commons 3.0 Ireland suite of licenses.

• Lastly, we urge you to act now to support public access to federally funded research by supporting the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) which would, "require federal agencies to provide the public with online access to articles reporting on the results of the United States’ $60 billion in publicly funded research no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal." Learn more.