[LINK] eeLearn for Open Access educational material

[Tom Worthington]

I am trying to turn some of my university lectures into proper 
e-leaning modules. Apart from the andragogical issues, there is the 
problem of licensing. I don't mind the material being used for free 
by a university as part of legitimate education, but I don't want it 
commercially exploited.

The AEShareNet Free for Education licence sounded promising 
<http://www.aesharenet.com.au/FfE/#1>. But it doesn't define what 
"educational purposes" are. Also it seems to specifically exclude 
open access: "... but not supplied to the public". None of the other 
licences seem relevant: 
<http://www.aesharenet.com.au/coreBusiness/licences/178versions.asp>.

The best seems to be the Noncommercial Creative Commons licence I was 
already using: 
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/au/>. CC are 
working on licence terms specifically for education, but haven't got 
them yet. <http://learn.creativecommons.org/projects/portal>.

CC are also working on several education related projects in their 
"ccLearn" project <http://learn.creativecommons.org/>. One 
interesting project is Open Database of Educational Projects and 
Organizations (ODEPO) 
<http://learn.creativecommons.org/projects/network>. This is 
attempting to build a directory of who is doing what in eLearning.

There is also a "Universal Education Search" for education content: 
<http://learn.creativecommons.org/projects/oesearch>.

But ccLearn have more to learn about "universal" projects. As an 
example one of their projects is to be released in "the Spring of 
2008", but when it that? I am in the southern hemisphere, so is this 
my spring, or that of San Francisco, where CC is based?



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University