Skip to content

Help us protect the commons. Make a tax deductible gift to fund our work. Donate today!

Category: Open Knowledge

Why Universal Access to Information Matters

Open Access, Open Data, Open Science

The coronavirus outbreak not only sparked a health pandemic; it triggered an “infodemic” of misleading and fabricated news. As the virus spread, trolls and conspiracy theorists began pushing misinformation, and their deplorable tactics continue to this day. Nonsense has been shared about links to 5G phone masts or that a secret cure already exists, and…

Creative Commons Celebrates International Literacy Day

Open Education

Did you know that nearly 800 million adults and young people lack basic literacy skills? Supporting the worldwide teaching of these vital skills will help build a more equal society, but the COVID-19 crisis has disrupted education in nearly every country. We, therefore, face even greater inequalities and a more urgent need to deliver quality…

CC Open Education Platform Activities Fund: Six Winners!

Open Education
Openness and Collaboration collage
"Openness and Collaboration" by Paul Downey (CC BY 2.0).

Creative Commons is proud to announce six winning project proposals from the inaugural round of the CC Open Education Platform Activities Fund! The CC Open Education Platform is a vibrant, international network of over 1120 open education advocates, educators, librarians, lawmakers, graduate students, and more, spanning 79 countries. This year, CC launched an activities fund…

Nearly 500 CC-licensed Education Images are Now Available!

Open Education
A screenshot of the digital collection from the Alliance for Excellent Education.

The Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) just released the second edition of their openly licensed digital image collection, “American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action.” This edition features nearly 500 high-quality images of teachers and students licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0). Captured by Allison Shelley (photojournalist; co-founder and co-director of…

Leveraging OER for COVID-19 Response Efforts and International Partnerships

Open Education
Two high school girls and a high school boy at a computer
Deeper learning prepares students to apply content knowledge, think critically, and work collaboratively.
Photo by Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action

This post was written in collaboration with Jan Gondol, Ebba Ossiannilsson, Karolina Szczepaniak, and Spencer Ellis. A portion was also published on the Open Government Partnership’s website. Currently, we face both a swell of support for open educational resources (OER) and devastating upheaval of our traditional education systems. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, over 1.5 billion…

From Historic Images to Galactic Datasets: A Look at NASA’s Mission to Be Open

Open Access, Open Science
Astronaut Edwin Aldrin walks on lunar surface near leg of Lunar Module
Astronaut Edwin Aldrin walks on lunar surface near leg of Lunar Module. Credit: Neil Armstrong/NASA, (1969) in the public domain.

It’s July 20, 1969.  Along with 600 million people, nine-year-old Chris Hadfield is glued to his television—watching intently as American astronaut Neil Armstrong glides down the ladder of the Lunar Module, and in one swift pounce, touches the dust of a familiar yet alien world. His words forever immortalized, “That’s one small step for man,…

Just One Giant Lab Co-Founder Leo Blondel on the Power of Community and Open Source During COVID-19

Open Science, Technology
The JOGL team by Thomas Landrain (CC BY).

Thousands of strangers working together, almost entirely online, to effectively solve an urgent, global challenge is remarkable—and it’s happening, right now. Recently, we published a post titled, “Open-Source Medical Hardware: What You Should Know and What You Can Do” examining the collaborative efforts by volunteer groups, universities, and research centers to solve the medical supply…

Open Access in Practice: A Conversation with President Larry Kramer of The Hewlett Foundation

Open Access
Participants in the Young Women Leadership Program explain software to each other
Image by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images/Images of Empowerment, November 2017 (CC BY-NC)

Since the founding of Creative Commons (CC) in 2001, we’ve been supported by like-minded organizations and individuals who value open access, the open community, and the global commons as much as we do. As we near our 20th anniversary, we are reflecting on the past and planning for the future. What better way to do…