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“It upholds the dignity of mankind”: the power of OER in West Africa

Open Education
National Open University of Nigeria Logo CC BY-2.0

Open educator and Institute for Open Leadership Fellow Jane-Frances Agbu works as a senior lecturer in health science and coordinates the award-winning Open Educational Resources program at NOUN, the National Open University of Nigeria.  NOUN provides open and distance education to over 180,000 students in the region. Agbu has seen the benefits of open education…

European Commission Copyright Proposal Leaves Users In The Dark

Copyright

Copyright policy should benefit everyone, not just legacy rightsholders Today the European Commission released its legislative proposal for changes to EU copyright law. The proposal has been introduced as a Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market. The Directive fails to deliver on the promise for a modern copyright law in Europe. In an ideal…

Why we’re fighting to protect noncommercial uses

Licenses & Tools
i-love-to-share

You may have seen our recent blog post explaining Creative Commons’ involvement in a court case between Great Minds, a publisher of educational materials, and FedEx Office, the retail chain that provides on-demand copying and printing services. To recap, Great Minds created educational materials under a U.S. federal government grant that required them to be…

Collaboratively generating more knowledge: Public Lab’s approach to citizen science

Open Science
Balloon Mapping the Camp Photo by Claudia Martinez Mansell CC BY-SA 3.0

Citizen science is the powerful idea that communities should be empowered to participate in the process of scientific inquiry, investigating the world around them and creating societal change in the process. One of the most prominent projects within the citizen and civic science movement is Public Lab, a community of individuals using inexpensive DIY techniques…