Learning Reflection on Session 5

Learning Reflection on Session 5 #OCL4Ed

The fifth and final session of the workshop focused on aspects of freedom in relation to free cultural works approved licenses. The idea is to provide information to assist educators and educational institutions to make informed decisions when choosing open content licenses.

The video by Frances Ferreira was very informative. She talks about choosing the right license to provide for free education for the millions of out of school children with the focus on policy makers. She raised an important issue on reluctance in adoption and mainstreaming of OER attributing it to the lack of enabling policy environment.

Ahrash Bissell in his video recommended that "When sharing, simple is best. Use CC-BY."  This is however debatable depending on the context. A CC BY license is by far the most accommodating license available and it provides for a range of other licenses to be mixed together. On the contrary we have the CC BY-SA license which ensures that the works is shared in the same way as the original work. This ensures that we build up a collection of content to be shared.

The latter section was based on Free Cultural Works and technology issues. Free Cultural Works is defined as works or expressions which can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose. It was interesting to note that out of the Open Education Resource (OER) projects Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) OpenCourseWare initiative, Connexions hosted by Rice University and OER Commons; only Connexions met the minimum requirement of the definition with exceptions.

The session on technology was also very informative. At times, we as educators tend to forget that while we are creating teaching materials we need to be mindful of the format the resource is available in. This could be problematic when we are intending to make our work available under Free Cultural Works License as we might restrict the reuse/editing of the work.

Summary of the mOOC

This mOOC for me personally has been a great learning experience. I had limited knowledge about OERs, Free and Open Content going into this mOOC but I must say that has significantly changed. The content that was delivered over the 5 sessions was well organized and designed. To learn about the different types of Creative Commons license available was fun together with the e-activities. My personal favourite from the E-Activities was that of Remix and Relicense as it taught me a lot on how different licenses are compatible with each other.

Overall, the facilitators have done a marvelous job setting up this mOOC. The materials were very informative especially the videos. In my opinion, it has definitely achieved its purpose in creating awareness on Open Content Licensing for Educators.