Welcome to episode ten of Open Culture VOICES! VOICES is a vlog series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. The Open Culture Program at Creative Commons aims to promote better sharing of cultural heritage in GLAMs collections. With Open Culture VOICES, we’re thrilled to bring you various perspectives from dozens of experts speaking in many different languages on what it’s like to open up heritage content online. In this episode, we’re joined by Jill Cousins, CEO & Director of The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland. The Hunt Museum exhibits one of Ireland’s greatest private collections of Art and Antiquities, dating from the Neolithic Period to the 20th century. Jill has been pivotal in their work on digitization and opening up the collection to new audiences. Prior to joining The Hunt Museum, she was the Executive Director of Europeana Foundation.

Jill responds to the following questions: 

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Episodes will be released twice a week until June 2022. Missed episode nine of our Open Culture VOICES series? Catch up here >>

 

Welcome to episode nine of Open Culture VOICES! VOICES is a vlog series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. The Open Culture Program at Creative Commons aims to promote better sharing of cultural heritage in GLAMs collections. With Open Culture VOICES, we’re thrilled to bring you various perspectives from dozens of experts speaking in many different languages on what it’s like to open up heritage content online. On this episode, Stéphane Chantalat, Head of the Computerization and Digitization of Collections Department at Paris Musées, shares his insights and experience with Open GLAM.

Stéphane responds to the following questions: 

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Episodes will be released twice a week until June 2022. Missed episode seven of our Open Culture VOICES series? Catch up here >>

 

In 2020, we entered the last Decade of Action to implement the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As the target date for achieving the SDGs draws closer, UNESCO is engaging its Member States and the international community in a renewed reflection on cultural policies to address global challenges and set immediate and future priorities to shape a more robust and resilient cultural sector fully anchored in sustainable development prospects.

In preparation for the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development — Mondiacult 2022, Creative Commons participated in the ResiliArt x Mondiacult initiative and hosted a webinar on Wednesday, 23 February 2022 to explore how open access to cultural heritage materials encourages artists to discover, share, and remix such materials.

Our ResiliArt x Mondiacult webinar brought together artists and heritage professionals to share their vision for better sharing of cultural heritage to support contemporary creativity in the digital space. The panelists discussed, among other things, the power of open licensing and the importance of Creative Commons infrastructure as a catalyst for the dissemination and revitalization of culture.

Panelists include: 

• Brigitte Vézina | Director of Policy, Open Culture, and GLAM at Creative Commons (Moderator)
• Hessel van Oorschot | Founder & “Chief of Noise” at Tribe of Noise
• Eddie Grey | Los Angeles-based composer, arranger, songwriter, and sound designer 
• Iván Martínez | Free knowledge activist and human rights defender at R3D 
• Jesica Pullo | Founding Director at BIOTICO & Co-creator of Wiki meets Sustainable Fashion 

We plan to continue these conversations throughout the year — visit CC’s Open Culture Program page to learn more and for the latest updates >>

We are all affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the interests of global peace, whether or not you have family or friends in Ukraine, the brutal aggression by a neighboring state creating a war affecting millions of innocent people has to be condemned in the strongest way possible.

As a global not-for-profit, with a community across the world that believes in democratic values, we stand with those Ukrainians upholding democracy, defending freedom and the rule of law.

In the context of mobile connectivity, this is like no other war that has gone before.  As Thomas Friedman aptly describes in today’s New York Times,  we are “wired together more intimately than ever before by telecommunications; satellites; trade; the internet; road, rail and air networks; financial markets and supply chains…. Welcome to World War Wired-the first war in a totally interconnected world.”

This highlights the importance of openness, so that scrutiny can properly be brought to bear, so that accountability is not hidden from the public. This also casts light on regimes restricting, or otherwise skewing, access to information, news, and knowledge.  Something we strive to overcome. Our community stands in solidarity with Ukraine.

Join the CC Open Education Platform on Tuesday, 8 March, 2022 at 9 p.m. UTC / 4 p.m. EST for an Open Education Week round of Open Education Lightning Talks.

By popular demand, the CC Open Education Platform is bringing back our Open Education Lightning Talks Series. We are kicking off the first round of this series on Tuesday, 8 March, 2022 at 9 p.m. UTC / 4 p.m. EST in celebration of Open Education Week. 

What are lightning talks?

Lightning talks are concise presentations that provide a specific update or story. During our open education lightning talks, open education practitioners will discuss their work in 7 minutes and take questions (2 minutes) in a supportive space. Everyone is welcome. Join us!

Speakers and presentations:  

• Kathryn Kure, CEO at STEAM Foundation NPC | Enabling OERs at No Additional Cost
• Dr. Carolyn Stevenson, Faculty Member and Faculty Advisor at Purdue University Global | Promoting Educational Equity through OERs and Open Degree Plans
• Sybil Priebe, Associate Professor at North Dakota State College of Science | The Venn Diagram of OEP and Ungrading is a Circle
• Alan Levine, Director of Member Strategy and Community Engagement for Open Education Global | Still Amazing: True Stories of Openness
• Liza Long, Department Chair of Integrated Studies at the College of Western Idaho | Student Scholars: Publishing Student OER Work 
• Suzanne Wakim, Faculty Member and Distance Education Coordinator at Butte College | Evolution of a State-Wide OER Initiative
• Judith Sebesta, Executive Director of the Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas and the President of the Executive Council of CCCOER | Deep in the Open Heart of Texas

Date: Tuesday 8 March 2022
Time: 9:00 – 10:15 PM UTC / 4:00 – 5:15 PM EST / 8:00 – 9:30 PST | Check your local time zone
Location: Join us from wherever you are based! We’ll be using Zoom to host the event. If you haven’t installed Zoom, download it here.

Watch our last round of Open Education Lightning Talks here >>

 

Hi friends, we are back with episode eight of Open Culture VOICES! VOICES is a vlog series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. The Open Culture Program at Creative Commons aims to promote better sharing of cultural heritage in GLAMs collections. With Open Culture VOICES, we’re thrilled to bring you various perspectives from dozens of experts speaking in many different languages on what it’s like to open up heritage content online. In this episode, we’re joined by Giovanna Fontenelle — she’s a journalist, historian, and Wikimedian. She’s also a master’s student in social history at the University of São Paulo. Giovanna works as a Program Officer, GLAM and Culture, at the Wikimedia Foundation. She’s also a member of Creative Commons Brasil (CCBR), Creative Commons Global Network, Wiki Movimento Brasil User Group, and ICOM Brazil. At CCBR, she coordinates the areas of Open GLAM and Wikimedia. Her current work activities are related to GLAM-Wiki, Open GLAM, linked open data, in addition to carrying out projects on diversity and knowledge equity.

Giovanna responds to the following questions: 

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Episodes will be released twice a week until June 2022. Missed episode seven of our Open Culture VOICES series? Catch up here >>

On 23 February, the European Commission published its proposal for a Data Act –  new rules on who can use and access data generated in the EU across all economic sectors. The Data Act is the second legislation in the EU’s data strategy and is in line with the Open Data Directive.

As promised by the Commission, the Data Act is part of the broader EU digital strategy and 2030 digital objectives. The Commission is keen for the EU to retain its global leadership role, driving robust standards for a digital age. The Data Act is designed to rebalance control and power over data and hands more control back to consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to more broadly unlock industrial data.

At first glance, the proposal appears to be a step in the right direction of ensuring citizens have power over their own data. Interoperability remains key to empowering citizens and enabling better sharing online. The predominant model of sharing – where content created on large platforms is owned and monetized and where algorithms can foster the spread of misinformation and fake news – is failing citizens and democracies alike.

Core elements of the Act include:

• Facilitating access to and the use of data by consumers and businesses, while preserving incentives to invest in ways of generating value through data:
  • This includes clarifying the application of relevant rights under Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases (the Database Directive) to its provisions.
• Providing for the public sector use of data held by enterprises in certain situations where there is an exceptional data need:
  • Primarily public emergencies, but also other exceptional situations where compulsory business-to-government data sharing is justified, to support evidence-based, effective, efficient, and performance-driven public policies and services.
• Facilitating the switch between cloud and edge services:
  • Access to competitive and interoperable data processing services is a precondition for a flourishing data economy, in which data can be shared easily within and across sectoral ecosystems.
  • The level of trust in data processing services determines the uptake of such services by users across sectors of the economy.
• Safeguarding against unlawful data transfer without notification by cloud service providers:
  • Following concerns raised about non-EU/European Economic Area (EEA) governments’ unlawful access to data.
  • Such safeguards should further enhance trust in the data processing services that increasingly underpin the European data economy.
• Developing interoperability standards for data reuse between sectors:
  • Remove barriers to data sharing across domain-specific common European data spaces, inconsistency with sectoral interoperability requirements, and between other data that are not within the scope of a specific common European data space.
  • Supports the setting of standards for ‘smart contracts’ – computer programs on electronic ledgers that execute and settle transactions based on pre-determined conditions, which have the potential to provide data holders and data recipients with guarantees that conditions for sharing data are respected.

As the legislative debate heats up it would be good to see more focus on interoperability as it applies to better sharing online. There must be an opportunity to place citizens at the heart of this legislative proposal to ensure we have better sharing online in the public interest. Creative Commons looks forward to being part of this conversation.

An open public consultation on the Data Act ran between 3 June and 3 September 2021 and gathered views on measures to create fairness in data sharing, value for consumers and businesses.

The results were published on 6 December 2021.

 

 

New week, new episode of Open Culture VOICES! VOICES is a vlog series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. The Open Culture Program at Creative Commons aims to promote better sharing of cultural heritage in GLAMs collections. With Open Culture VOICES, we’re thrilled to bring you various perspectives from dozens of experts speaking in many different languages on what it’s like to open up heritage content online. In this episode, we are joined by Larissa Borck, Digital Curator at the Sörmlands Museum. As a trained cultural anthropologist with a strong network in the European digital cultural heritage sector, Larissa is passionate about opening up GLAM institutions by digital means. With a background in research about digitization of cultural heritage and management of museums, Larrissa connects both academic and practice fields.

Larissa responds to the following questions: 

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Episodes will be released twice a week until June 2022. Missed episode six of our Open Culture VOICES series? Catch up here >>

In this 20th anniversary year of the CC license suite, we are pleased to be renewing our commitment to license stewardship. Creative Commons has always taken its stewardship responsibilities seriously, engaging in multi-year consultation processes for versioning the tools, publishing official translations of the licenses into dozens of languages, and working to educate people about how the licenses work within the law and with new technologies.

Before entering the next chapter of CC’s work as steward of the CC licenses and public tools, we took a look back at the various ways in which we have supported our tools, and our communities over the past 20 years. And then, with your help, we set out to craft a concrete set of principles and responsibilities to guide this work in future years.

To do this, we engaged in a public consultation through calls, webinars, and written input to find out what our stakeholders think good stewardship looks like. The result of those efforts is memorialized on this License Stewardship page on the CC site. We will be using this as a signpost for our work going forward, and we will be counting on all of you to help us stay accountable to the values and activities described there. 

In short, as we look to new endeavors for the organization, we want to ensure we do not neglect the foundational tools that serve as infrastructure for wide swaths of the digital commons. 

Last but not least, we are excited to be restarting a dedicated mailing list for license enthusiasts and experts. In years past, CC has had various mailing lists designed to serve as spaces for conversation and debate about license interpretation and other related issues. This new mailing list is designed to replicate that function, and serve as a place where people can ask questions and discuss thorny issues about CC licenses and public domain tools. The recent and ongoing issue around aggressive license enforcement is one example of the types of topics likely to be discussed in this forum. If you are interested in joining, you can sign up here.