The challenges and values associated with third party media
mackiwg
The question of embedding third party media in WikiEducator is a
topical and difficult challenge. As an educator, I'm disposed to doing
my best to respond to the needs of teachers and educators using wiki
technology to widen access to learning opportunities. At the same
time, as an advocate of the freedom culture I feel that I have a
fiduciary responsibility to promote the free and unencumbered access
to modify and adapt free content resources. This leads to a difficult
tension.
Leigh wrote
<<The biggest thing disrupting the energy at the moment, is the
inability to embed 3rd party multi media. I fear that this will lead
to the wiki users here going for a more dynamic and functional wiki -
but that's a seperate
thread.>>
It saddens me to think that the biggest thing disrupting energy to
participate in the free content movement for education is the ability
to embed 3rd party multimedia. I suspect that I would move into a
state of mild depression if those educators who are dedicating so much
time and energy to furthering the aims of "education as a common good"
would migrate to more "functional and dynamic wiki" environments that
do not value the right to modify and edit free content materials. I
suppose that's life - we've got to make difficult choices <smile>.
At a personal level:
1. I do not want to deny the ability, for example, of a teacher
residing in a rural village in Uganda, the ability to modify and adapt
the audio track of a multimedia insert in WikiEducator content. Uganda
Educators may want the freedom to record an audio track using an
African accent that is more appropriate for the local audience.
2. I do not want to expose, for example, an educational entrepreneur
in Pakistan to the risks of copyright infringements and the risks of
litigation for packaging resources which include third party media
thinking that WikiEducator was a free content website.
Both points above are material risks were WikiEducator to go down the
path of embedding 3rd party multimedia. A WikiEducator user would, for
instance, not be able to edit or modify a video uploaded on Youtube.
In addition, there is no defensible audit trail for embedded links to
third party media. For example, a WikiEducator user may link to a 3rd
party video that does not meet the license requirements for free
content. Because the multimedia resource resides on an external server
- how do we manage an audit trail re copyright? What if the 3rd party
multimedia link is removed? How do we maintain the content resources
when external links to specific media objects are not guaranteed for
the future?
Sure - it is technically possible for organisations to install and set
up wiki's that would permit the embedding of third party multimedia
content. Are these institutions willing to accept the legal
responsibility for the risks associated with copyright infringements?
It's easier to litigate against an organisational hub hosting such
content than it is to pursue individual users who infringe copyright.
In my view, I don't think that it's wise or prudent to go down the
route of embedding third party media in WikiEducator. While winning
the "battle" of users who may migrate to other wiki installations, I
fear we may loose the "war" of building a free education curriculum by
2015.
I'd be keen to hear what folk think.
Cheers
Wayne
Leigh Blackall
What is embedding 3rd party media anyway? At the moment Wikieducator already permits it! If I add the URL to any image on the Internet straight into a page, the image will display. That is embedded 3rd party media. Copyright is NOT an issue because the images are loading from the original server and have not been copied to the Wikied server. If someone was to download a copy and then upload that copy into Wikieducator, THAT would be making a copy and would be affected by copyright. But all that aside, I would hope that no one embed any image or other media that is not already licensed appropriately, so that the senario you describe remains a non issue Wayne. As for being able to re-edit media - video, images, and audio can be edited quite easily without the need for the original edit files, and many slide presentations hosted on Slideshare.net make the original edit files available for download. AGAIN - as with images in wikieducator, it is up to the users to embed content that has teh appropriate copyright licenses. It goes for the tex, the images, the graphics, and the multi media.
What about bandwidth Wayne? Would you rather the CoL pay for the 10 000 downloads in 2 weeks of a successful video clip - or would it be better that Blip.tv/Youtube/Google Video and/or Archive cover that?
I don't see you logic with this either Wayne. If you have been watching our developments in Wikieducator down here, you will see the enormous amount of linking out to Youtube and other videos. The content in those videos does not exist anywhere else. Youtube and all the other multimedia sites offer embed code and actively encourage it. We could make these wikieducator pages quite something with video embedded AND text transcriptions done in the very pages they sit in.
And this is all a half way measure. Once the media is embedded, I will be actively negotiating with the creators of the media I use for rights to copy. So if you still believed it better for Wikieducator to host ALL media, we can - with normal negotiations...
I am trying to find a Firefox extension programmer for a paid job. We want to develop a media uploader that gives a publisher the ability to upload a file to any number of publishing platforms at the one time. So the next time I create a video, I can send it up to YouTube, Blip.tv, Archive, Wikimedia commons and Wikieducator in the one click.
As for bandwidth, we also have such an issue and cater for that the same way you would for anyone else. We make CDs, we even make transcripts, and frame grabs.
Wayne, I get the feeling I am one of very few on wikieducator's email list that regularly uses "mashups". Please pay a visit to Brian Lamb over at UBC and ask his opinions on this. Perhaps through extended discussion with him, you will find a way to make this happen.
mackiwg
Sorry I couldn't respond sooner - have been pretty busy with the CCNC
review meeting here in Vancouver.
A few thoughts ...
> What is embedding 3rd party media anyway? At the moment Wikieducator already
> permits it! If I add the URL to any image on the Internet straight into a
> page, the image will display.
Nor sure what you mean here - if you add the URL to an image it will
appear as an external link and does not embedded the image on the
local page. Am I missing something?
Leigh wrote:
> That is embedded 3rd party media. Copyright is
> NOT an issue because the images are loading from the original server and
> have not been copied to the Wikied server. If someone was to download a copy
> and then upload that copy into Wikieducator, THAT would be making a copy and
> would be affected by copyright.
Leigh - I'm not a copyright lawyer, however based on my experience
this IS an issue. The location of a resource does not absolve the user
from the legal obligations associated with copyright. That said, given
that COL hosts WikiEducator, we have an obligation to manage copyright
to the best of our ability. In the case of third party media - we will
not have reasonable means to ensure proper copyright practice. The
requirement to upload the media - provides us with a defensible audit
trail - which is not necessarily the case with third party media.
Also, in ODL settings things are a little different from how
educational resources are used in face-to-face settings. Digital media
has resulted in blurring many of the issues. For example, in a face to
face context, the fair usage doctrine would permit copying of extracts
from copyrighted material under certain conditions in the classroom -
which would not be permitted in distance education situations where
the same content is reproduced in a study guide. Similarly many
governments negotiate favourable copyright arrangements for use of
copyrighted material at Educational institutions in that country (as
in the case of NZ). However, these arrangements would not hold for
eLearning versions of the same courses - particularly when dealing
with open access sites.
It is my understanding that when you link to external resources on the
web in eLearning contexts, there is an obligation to clearly
communicate to the user that they are leaving the current site and
that alternative licensing conditions may apply. Furthermore, deep
linking is technically also problematic, because the required practice
is to navigate the user through the main page of where the copyrighted
resource is stored. Yip - its crazy to think that in our digitally
connected world we have these requirements - but hey, I didn't invent
copyright.
Could you go to your legal department at Otago Poly and ask them
whether they would be prepared to host a Wiki which would permit
embedding of third party media? It would be great if they could
provide this list with the legal grounds on which they would be
willing to permit such a practice. Then we can establish the
feasibility for exploring this further.
> But all that aside, I would hope that no one
> embed any image or other media that is not already licensed appropriately,
> so that the senario you describe remains a non issue Wayne.
Leigh this is an issue. With the growth on WikiEducator, I've noticed
that some users are not meeting the attribution requirements of
licensed images that can legally be used in WikiEducator. This is more
of an education challenge - than a problem of copyright
contraventions. We must now install bots which will keep track of new
images being loaded so that we can check that our community is
attributing in accordance with the legal requirements of the
licenses.
> What about bandwidth Wayne? Would you rather the CoL pay for the 10 000
> downloads in 2 weeks of a successful video clip - or would it be better that
> Blip.tv/Youtube/Google Video and/or Archive cover that?
Sure - nobody wants to incur unnecessary expenditure - particularly in
cash strapped environments. On the positive side - should a
educational free content site generate that level of activity - it
would be great problem to face demonstrating our successes with the
free content movement!
>
> I don't see you logic with this either Wayne. If you have been watching our
> developments in Wikieducator down here, you will see the enormous amount of
> linking out to Youtube and other videos. The content in those videos does
> not exist anywhere else. Youtube and all the other multimedia sites offer
> embed code and actively encourage it. We could make these wikieducator pages
> quite something with video embedded AND text transcriptions done in the very
> pages they sit in.
I see the tremendous advantages - however, in my view the risks
outweigh the benefits. Why don't we as a community stand together and
start converting these media into formats that we can readily use in
WikiCommons, WikiEducator etc. In the long run - this seems to be a
better strategic path for the free content movement.
>
> And this is all a half way measure. Once the media is embedded, I will be
> actively negotiating with the creators of the media I use for rights to
> copy. So if you still believed it better for Wikieducator to host ALL media,
> we can - with normal negotiations...
>
> I am trying to find a Firefox extension programmer for a paid job. We want
> to develop a media uploader that gives a publisher the ability to upload a
> file to any number of publishing platforms at the one time. So the next time
> I create a video, I can send it up to YouTube, Blip.tv, Archive, Wikimedia
> commons and Wikieducator in the one click.
That will be COOL - let us know when the extension is completed!
> Wayne, I get the feeling I am one of very few on wikieducator's email list
> that regularly uses "mashups". Please pay a visit to Brian Lamb over at UBC
> and ask his opinions on this. Perhaps through extended discussion with him,
> you will find a way to make this happen.
Nope - there are at least 2 WikiEducator users that use mashups - I'm
one of them <smile> - but sadly I don't have your mastery of the
technical editing skills. I've been a fan of Brian's work for many
years. The best academic presentation I've seen to date on mashups was
given led by Brian. - Yip, I'll get in touch with Brian and check
with him whether he has found a solution to the copyright dilemma.
Although Brian readily admits that he is still learning about all this
copyright stuff and has only recently dropped his NC restriction on
Abject Learning.
The digital mashup movement has in interesting subversive element in
their work ie making a statement against copyright - by ignoring
copyright in the creation of their masterpieces.
In search for solutions for the free content movement in education.
Cheers
Wayne
Leigh Blackall
Nor sure what you mean here - if you add the URL to an image it will
appear as an external link and does not embedded the image on the
local page. Am I missing something?
http://wikieducator.org/RSS_blogs_and_wikis
Is an example of images displaying by their URL only. And you must know about the number of pages displaying RSS feeds.. is that not 3rd party media?
You trust me to load text to the wikieducator that is free of copyright restrictions, why not other 3rd party media? Do the risks outweigh the benefits when you are already running with the risk? The beauty of a wiki is that it can be changed quickly, so if there ever was a case of 3rd party content taking issue with being displayed in wikieducator - edit, delete, save OR google, search, find, replace OR open, create, upload, replace...
Leigh - I'm not a copyright lawyer, however based on my experience
this IS an issue. The location of a resource does not absolve the user
from the legal obligations associated with copyright.
Time to do some digging on this. I was sure that displaying media from another server WITHOUT copying it to your own server is not a concern for copyright as it amounts to the same as hyperlinking. As soon as I send this response off, I'll find a definitive statement that confirms that or not.
That said, given
that COL hosts WikiEducator, we have an obligation to manage copyright
to the best of our ability. In the case of third party media - we will
not have reasonable means to ensure proper copyright practice. The
requirement to upload the media - provides us with a defensible audit
trail - which is not necessarily the case with third party media.
Actually, I think you are at more of a risk by requiring the upload of media as you DO end up having a copy and not just a link. Again, the answer lies in that definitive statement we need to find. Embedded media is easy to manage - issue? edit, delete, save - something any of us can do. Uploaded media - how can I delete a photo that has been loaded by a newbie who doesn't understand copyright? I don't think I can, only people with a certain status can. Do you see the problem? Embedded media is just a link, uploaded media is a copy.
Could you go to your legal department at Otago Poly and ask them
whether they would be prepared to host a Wiki which would permit
embedding of third party media? It would be great if they could
provide this list with the legal grounds on which they would be
willing to permit such a practice. Then we can establish the
feasibility for exploring this further.
Um, OK will do, just as soon as they know what a wiki is, and what hyperlinks are. In NZ, copyright legislation does not yet adequately cover digital and Internet works - the legislation is being reviewed as we speak - within a year, any luck NZ will lead the world again with another progressive law.
We must now install bots which will keep track of new
images being loaded so that we can check that our community is
attributing in accordance with the legal requirements of the
licenses.
Can you do the same for any embedded 3rd party media code used?
> What about bandwidth Wayne? Would you rather the CoL pay for the 10 000
> downloads in 2 weeks of a successful video clip - or would it be better that
> Blip.tv/Youtube/Google Video and/or Archive cover that?
Sure - nobody wants to incur unnecessary expenditure - particularly in
cash strapped environments. On the positive side - should a
educational free content site generate that level of activity - it
would be great problem to face demonstrating our successes with the
free content movement!
Meanwhile I'll be running a course using wikieducator and the server crashes. At the moment, YouTube is a tremendous training resource for us. Our bandwidth costs have gone through the rough since teachers and students have discovered this. I can only imagine how much this must cost Youtube/Google to deliver.. if "free educational content" come even close to what Youtube et al aready offer, what then?
I see the tremendous advantages - however, in my view the risks
outweigh the benefits. Why don't we as a community stand together and
start converting these media into formats that we can readily use in
WikiCommons, WikiEducator etc. In the long run - this seems to be a
better strategic path for the free content movement.
Because not everyone is IN that "community" (Board), nor agree with their practices and limitations. My institution could spend the 10's of thousands of dollars needed to negotiate copyright, train our people in the use of unpopular formats, and transfer content into the wikimedia, and it would be a drop in the ocean - or we could simply run with embedding the incredible range of content out there for free now, and be effective now.
Where is that community Wayne? Its just you and I here so far on this. I certainly spend a lot of time contributing, I represent a growing number of people in my organisation, but I can't seem to get even a trial of these ideas to go - surely hypothetical copyright concerns don't have that greater hold on Wikied? I see that Wikied is starting to accept image content outside the CC BY SA range... can we have that option on pages as well? At least the CC BY option? not even a trial? At the Techtonic shift, Brent Simpson requested a development version of the wikied so that we could test and demonstrate ideas like these, rather than be limited to explaining through text and email.
The digital mashup movement has in interesting subversive element in
their work ie making a statement against copyright - by ignoring
copyright in the creation of their masterpieces.
I don't ignore copyright, nor do any of the educational mashup practitioners I know of. We do rely on the understanding that hyperlinking and embedding 3rd party content is not copying - maybe we're all wrong. If we are - no one has come knocking yet and we are so far very effective in providing free learning
In search for solutions for the free content movement in education.
Wait! I think I found it! No, here it is. No, there it is. .. No... were is the little sucker? Oh! wow.. its all around us!
--
--
Leigh Blackall
+64(0)21736539
skype - leigh_blackall
http://learnonline.wordpress.com
Brent
At a personal level:
1. I do not want to deny the ability, for example, of a teacher
residing in a rural village in Uganda, the ability to modify and adapt
the audio track of a multimedia insert in WikiEducator content. Uganda
Educators may want the freedom to record an audio track using an
African accent that is more appropriate for the local audience.
hmmm... not a particularly strong first volley. I think you're 1) extending the word freedom to an extreme where it actually loses it's power (some deconstructive analysis of the freedom cultures willy-nilly use of thier ideologically framed version of 'freedom' might be in order); and 2) simplifying Ugandans a bit. I've been listening to people speak in all types of 'accents' for my entire life -- but Wayne, you seem to be arguing that you'd rather 'deny' the Ugandan the ability to hear something in one accent because it was embedded in another source that was not 'free' by your definition? He has to transcribe it, record it, upload it ... all sounds like a lot of work for small gain to me.
There's an incredible irony in all this for me, and particularly in this example -- the freedom culture if allowed to legislate would have disallowed jazz, and hip-hop; two decidedly African influenced art forms because they were based on sampling and appropriation. (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mBfkFNpknI).
I'd like to pit 'creativity' up against 'freedom'. For my book it's 'creativity' that really has the revolutionary power to change things in this world, not ideology. 'Creativity' is about 'collage' and 'bricolage', it's about trying to break out of the boundaries of ideologues, pedagogues, and repressive legal situations.
2. I do not want to expose, for example, an educational entrepreneur
in Pakistan to the risks of copyright infringements and the risks of
litigation for packaging resources which include third party media
thinking that WikiEducator was a free content website.
This seems unlikely given the minimal reach of copyright law internationally; can you really see YouTube/Google suing an educator in a far away place like this? Don't you think you'd get a simple 'cease and desist' letter type approach rather than a raft of international lawyers going after someone who likely has no money?
Both points above are material risks were WikiEducator to go down the
path of embedding 3rd party multimedia.
They're not really material risks, they're ideological risks ... and as far as i can see the idea of irreverence for the very legal system that on the one hand you claim to be trying to undermine by this stance actually threatens the entrenched position of the freedom culture, which essentially .. as leigh has pointed out many times actually stands to preserve the status quo in a way by ensuring that notions of 'property' still exist.
my 0.10 worth.
brent.
ps. it's very hard to 'package' up YouTube content in WikiEducator as the content doesn't sit on WikiEd. While there are tools out there to capture YouTube video they're probably beyond the realm of most educators to be bothered looking into. In fact it's very hard to package up any content in WikiEd at the moment. Even images don't come through right in the PDF versions.
mackiwg
Some good points are emerging from our collective discussions.
Collectively, I'm hopeful that we'll end up with a constructive
solution that will meet our diverse range of opinion in the community.
> simplifying Ugandans a bit. I've been listening to people speak in all types
> of 'accents' for my entire life
Yeah - you have a rather complicated accent yourself <smile>.
-- but Wayne, you seem to be arguing that
> you'd rather 'deny' the Ugandan the ability to hear something in one accent
> because it was embedded in another source that was not 'free' by your
> definition? He has to transcribe it, record it, upload it ... all sounds
> like a lot of work for small gain to me.
This is a complex debate with many facets and at the risk of
trivialising the arguments, a few thoughts.
In my view, Its not about denying, for example, access to a material
with foreign accents. (The original Youtube video with the foreign
accent is available for viewing -- so we're not denying access
<smile>). For me there is a more substantive issue, namely a
community value which says that every user can become a equal
contributor and participant as demonstrated by the actions of
individuals in the community. I'd like to think that were a community
which encourages individuals to recontextualise educational materials
by making it easier to fo this. In an ideal world, it would be nice
to think that the motivation for WikiEducators to engage in free
content development - is not only for their own use - but is also a
decision and action to help someone else. Your absolutely right -
transcribing, recording and uploading is a lot of work. However, I
don't think think that this is a small gain when you think of how this
work will widen access to learning experiences that are culturally
relevant. Not so much at the level of local accents - but on level of
translations for instance for the French, Spanish WikiEducator
installations. Similarly a video from the Hindi WikiEducator could be
translated for the English WikiEducator etc.
> There's an incredible irony in all this for me, and particularly in this
> example -- the freedom culture if allowed to legislate would have disallowed
> jazz, and hip-hop; two decidedly African influenced art forms because they
> were based on sampling and appropriation. (see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mBfkFNpknI).
That's a hypothetical question - and I would argue that its open for
rebuttal. Copyright is a consequence of the industrialisation of
society. Prior to the invention of the Gutenberg press - creative
works were by default in the public domain unless licensed to the
contrary. The situation has changed since then were in most
jurisdictions copyright is the default. The instantiation of the
Creative Commons project was a direct response to counter the
diminishing to the intellectual commons. Copyleft was a smart hack to
counter copyright. I think that there is reasonable justification to
at least consider that the freedom culture would have enriched
creative works rather than constrained them.
>
> I'd like to pit 'creativity' up against 'freedom'. For my book it's
> 'creativity' that really has the revolutionary power to change things in
> this world, not ideology. 'Creativity' is about 'collage' and 'bricolage',
> it's about trying to break out of the boundaries of ideologues, pedagogues,
> and repressive legal situations.
Brent, that's a very good point. I'd like to add innovation to the
list. WikiEducator has a forward looking disposition and has specified
innovation as a community value. It seems to me that we need to think
creatively about how we can transcend the limitations of copyright to
foster innovation without breaking the law. This is a tall ask - but
perhaps we can break new ground here.
> > in Pakistan to the risks of copyright infringements and the risks of
> > litigation for packaging resources which include third party media
> > thinking that WikiEducator was a free content website.
>
> This seems unlikely given the minimal reach of copyright law
> internationally; can you really see YouTube/Google suing an educator in a
> far away place like this? Don't you think you'd get a simple 'cease and
> desist' letter type approach rather than a raft of international lawyers
> going after someone who likely has no money?
I think that we'll be moving down a very slippery slope if we base our
community values on the risks of non-litigation because of poverty. I
think a better approach is to think about ways in which free content
can assist in alleviating poverty through strategies for local income
generation in the community. Consider for example the global study on
unauthorised software. The global average is 32% of all software
installed on desktops are unauthorised copies. The figure is in the
region of 24% for the US and is typically in excess of 80% for the
developing world. The tragedy of this story is that there is no
substantive reason why an individual should be forced to use
unauthorised copies of proprietary software - because we have all we
need as free software equivalents. Wouldn't it be great if we could
say the same for free content for education!
>
> Both points above are material risks were WikiEducator to go down the
>
> > path of embedding 3rd party multimedia.
>
> They're not really material risks, they're ideological risks ... and as far
> as i can see the idea of irreverence for the very legal system that on the
> one hand you claim to be trying to undermine by this stance actually
> threatens the entrenched position of the freedom culture, which essentially
> .. as leigh has pointed out many times actually stands to preserve the
> status quo in a way by ensuring that notions of 'property' still exist.
Transgression of copyright is a material risk - especially for an
international agency. We cannot be seen to support transgressions of
de facto copyright practice and we also have an obligation to respect
the freedoms of educators and educational institutions that choose to
use closed resources. As I've pointed out before - I'm not a legal
professional and we need a strong legal opinion on the copyright
issues associated with embedding 3rd party media. This has little to
do with ideology - but is a legal requirement.
I do take your point that our community represents a wide range of
views from PD through to non-free versions of open licenses. The
choice of license for WikiEducator was pragmatic in finding the "best"
license fit with which the majority of educational institutions would
be comfortable.
Good post Brent - enjoyed the chat - lets take this to the next level
figuring out how we balance all these tensions in a way which leads to
sustainable free content development for all.
mackiwg
think my last post went through ...
Sunday morning here in Vancouver. The weather forecasters have got it
wrong again - which means I get to take Stella (my bike) out for a
ride today. Sun is shining!
mmm -- very interesting, wasn't aware that a simple URL link without
the external link syntax would "embed" the external image on the page.
You learn something new every day!
> Leigh wrote:
> You trust me to load text to the wikieducator that is free of copyright
> restrictions, why not other 3rd party media? Do the risks outweigh the
> benefits when you are already running with the risk? The beauty of a wiki is
> that it can be changed quickly, so if there ever was a case of 3rd party
> content taking issue with being displayed in wikieducator - edit, delete,
> save OR google, search, find, replace OR open, create, upload, replace...
>
To be honest - I wasn't aware that we were running this risk. I'm very
nervous about the legal copyright implications of linking to 3rd party
media in this way.
We need to get a solid legal opinion on this. If you can, follow up
with your legal team at the Poly - that would be great. I will also
see what legal opinion we can consult on this end. To the best of my
knowledge - the fact that we are not making a copy as such does not
absolve us from the usage requirements specified in the original
license. Even with hyperlinking - there are de facto practices that we
should be adhering to.
My concerns are rooted in years of indoctrination gained during my
time at the University of South Africa (one of the mega ODL
universities) and managing eLearning @ the University of Auckland. At
Unisa we had a dedicated department which managed all our copyright
clearances. Individual academics were also required to sign off that
there were no copyright contraventions in the study guides they
authored. Notwithstanding, the institution would still be held
responsible for copyright contraventions, particularly in cases where
organisational negligence could be proved - for example where the
institution did not have reasonable copyright control procedures. The
problem is that fair usage for educational purposes doesn't cover us
with printed materials.
Similarly - Wikieducator must demonstrate reasonable procedures in
managing copyright - which is why an audit trail is important.
Notwithstanding the individual trust of the author who confirms that
all edits and materials meet the licensing requirements of the site.
A mini case study - by way of example. (I don't want to single out any
user in WikiEducator - but in this case, I know from our interactions
that there was no intent whatsoever to contravene copyright and we
have found a win-win solution for all involved.)
I noticed an image uploaded on one of the WikiEducator pages did not
meet the license requirements and that we could improve on the
attribution metadata for the image. See the original version when the
image was uploaded:
http://www.wikieducator.org/index.php?title=Develop_skills_for_tertiary_study&diff=next&oldid=50690
This is an interesting case study because:
1. The User has a template which specifies that all edits are released
under CC-BY and not under the Share-alike restriction.
2. The image selected was licensed under CC-BY-NC. (in other words not
under WikiEducator's licenses i.e. CC-BY or CC-BY-SA). In-itself, not
a problem as long as the license of the image is clearly stated.
3. We now have a derivative work with dual-licensing (CC-BY and CC-BY-
NC) - so if a corporate training provider wanted to print and sell a
training manual based partially on this resource, the would not be
able to use the image. We have an obligation to communicate this
restriction for future derivative works.
What was wikieducator's response?
1. I tried to find an alternative image with a compatible license that
would convey a similar message. I could not find a suitable
replacement.
2. I communicated the problem with the User and showed a link to the
best substitute I could find.
3. I did not want to unilaterally delete the image and I tried to find
a workaround which would meet the legal requirements for usage of the
image.
3. I developed a Flicker attribution template (http://
www.wikieducator.org/Template:FA) which would clearly communicate the
license to future users. (This must still be improved because we need
to figure out how to use the clickpic feature within the template to
direct the user to the legal code of the license on the CC site.)
4. I developed a metadata template which we should use in the future
when uploading images on the database (http://www.wikieducator.org/
Template:Metadata
This WikiEducator story has a happy ending - thanks to the commitment
of all involved.
The advantage with the approach of uploading the image is that we have
a detailed audit trail. We know the date the image was uploaded and by
who. We have records of the discussions between the User and myself in
trying to resolve the copyright challeges. We have a record of the
creation of the templates to manage copyright properly etc. In other
words we can demonstrate our intent not to contravene copyright. Very
often in cases like this - the legal decision will be guided by the
intent of those involved. Fortunately we can prove this.
With the embedding of 3rd party media - it becomes difficult to have
an audit trail which proves intent of the WikiEducator community.
You raise a very good point about RSS feeds. This is 3rd party content
- and I suppose we should be checking the copyright of the source
feed. I guess we could argue that the intent of an RSS feed is to
disseminate widely - but then again this doesn't change the legalities
of the original copyright. Again we need to get legal opinion here.
So what I'm trying to say is that having a defensible audit trail is
better from a risk management point of view - because we are able to
take demonstrable action when this is required. The advantage of
having a local copy of the media will hopefully encourage users to
think twice about copyright. Also, in the event that the original copy
is removed from its source - we still have access to a digital copy.
Fortunately you cannot revoke a CC license.
> Uploaded media - how can I delete a photo that has been loaded by a newbie who doesn't understand copyright? I don't think I can, only people with a
> certain status can. Do you see the problem? Embedded media is just a link,
> uploaded media is a copy.
That's a good point. I've fixed that now - you are clearly a trusted
member of the community and you now have Bureaucrat status which will
enable you to delete pages. This raises the issue that WikiEducator
needs to work on a policy for deciding on the basis to recognise
trusted individuals of the community.
> Meanwhile I'll be running a course using wikieducator and the
server
> crashes. At the moment, YouTube is a tremendous training resource for us.
> Our bandwidth costs have gone through the rough since teachers and students
> have discovered this. I can only imagine how much this must cost
> Youtube/Google to deliver.. if "free educational content" come even close to
> what Youtube et al aready offer, what then?
That's a legitimate concern. Currently our server has a reasonable way
to go before it reaches its capacity. Sure, you can be pretty sure of
24/7 service from Google. However, you can't guarantee indefinite
support for free content - Google is about generating billions of
clicks and they do an excellent job. Google is not primarly committed
to developing a free education curriculum -we are. From our
perspective - its also a catch-22 problem. It's a difficult sell to
get significant donor funding and support for an initiative which has
yet to demonstrate a global demand for a free education curriculum.
However, should WikiEducator or any other free education wiki project
reach these levels of demand - I'm reasonably confident that we will
find the funding to support education for the global good of society.
As an international agency we are committed to ensure the
sustainability of the project, and as we speak we are exploring
opportunities for expanding the reach of our work to non-commonwealth
countries by partnering with other international agencies to find
reliable solutions for the future.
> Because not everyone is IN that "community" (Board), nor agree with their
> practices and limitations. My institution could spend the 10's of thousands
> of dollars needed to negotiate copyright, train our people in the use of
> unpopular formats, and transfer content into the wikimedia, and it would be
> a drop in the ocean - or we could simply run with embedding the incredible
> range of content out there for free now, and be effective now.
You're right - that's why the community board is an INTERIM board.
Once the community has grown to 2500 registered users we need to
decide on proper process to facilitate community governance. One step
at a time.
Otago's contribution may be a drop in the ocean - but every drop helps
to fill the bucket. That's how mass collaboration works. I disagree
with your sentiments - Otago's role has been instrumental in
establishing a leadership position. Its an example which institutions
can emulate. Every month WikiEducator breaks new records in terms of
its growth. This month we hit another milestone - over a million hits
in one month. For the month of June we were averaging over 3500
visitors per day. COL's dedicated projects would not account for more
than 100 visitors per day. The community is growing because of
contributions like Otago. In the month of June we were visited by 185
of the worlds 193 countries. That's not bad going for a free content
wiki.
>
> Where is that community Wayne? Its just you and I here so far on this. I
> certainly spend a lot of time contributing, I represent a growing number of
> people in my organisation, but I can't seem to get even a trial of these
> ideas to go - surely hypothetical copyright concerns don't have that greater
> hold on Wikied?.
On the contrary - it's your candid debates and reflections that
promote open and transparent debate about this difficult issues. They
are informing our next steps in an open and democratic way. We need to
move with caution given the significance of a vision for a free
curriculum by 2015 - we got to get this right.
I too spend a fair amount of time in WikiEducator - way above my
official job commitments - because like you, I believe in the vision.
Collectively - all our experience is going to end up in creating a
better future for education.
Again - thanks for an excellent contribution which is making us all
think very carefully about what we are trying to do - but more
importantly, why we are doing it.
Cheers
Wayne
Leigh Blackall
I'm back at work now on this rainy Monday morning. :)
A definitive statement on embedding 3rd party media is needed. I have already begun the so far fruitless search. More eyes looking would be very good. But I suspect there isn't going to be one and that it all rests on moral rights and the agreement of the original creator. The definative statement therefore will come from the creator - not some legislation or policy, and there lies the potentially beautiful end to this saga. Wikieducator's community and connections with creators grows because 1. Wikieducator enabled media embedding. and 2. because copyright concern necessitate us to make contact with those we seek to sample!
For example:
- Let's say I embed a youtube film.
- Wayne notices that there is not a clear copyright statement on the original and queries me on the wiki's discussion page.
- Leigh contacts the original creator of the embedded movie and asks if its ok.
- The original creator writes a definitive statement to Leigh permitting the use.
- What's more, that original creator is now aware of Creative Commons and it is noted that they use such a license.
So, regarding audit trails as copyright defense. I don't know why we can't also have that for embedded 3rd party media.
Also - The story about the use of the image that Wayne helped clear copyright issue with. Not only is it an audit trail, it is something tangible to show educational managers who might doubt the worth of working collaboratively on Wikieducator. Right there is a documented service that we at Otago Poly don't normally enjoy. Thanks to the collaborative aspect of Wikied we now have that service to some degree. But, the need for copyright purity is perhaps brought about by our willingness to work openly.. not to say that copyright isn't an issue in closed developments, but it is practically speaking - less so. Counter to that counter however - is the valuable staff development we are also getting through work with Wikieducator.
www.wikieducator.org/Template:FA ) which would clearly communicate the
mackiwg
Working through my list of emails here --- in no specific order of
preference :-)
Sunday here - sun is still shining and have not had a chance to take
Stella out for a ride yet ...;-(.
> A definitive statement on embedding 3rd party media is needed. I have
> already begun the so far fruitless search. More eyes looking would be very
> good. But I suspect there isn't going to be one and that it all rests on moral
> rights <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights> and the agreement of the
> original creator. The definative statement therefore will come from the
> creator - not some legislation or policy, and there lies the potentially
> beautiful end to this saga. Wikieducator's community and connections with
> creators grows because 1. Wikieducator enabled media embedding. and 2.
> because copyright concern necessitate us to make contact with those we seek
> to sample!
I'm not sure that we're going to find a definitive statement per se.
For example, the treatment of Moral rights in Europe is different, for
example from NZ and the US. Also intellectual property, moral rights
and licenses are different components of the copyright landscape. For
example, from my limited understanding, when licensing a work under CC
- the creator does not give up their intellect property rights
associated with the creation of the resource. They are licensing the
use of the resource.
Part of the value proposition of free content licensing is to limit
the transaction costs required for modification and reuse. Therefore,
by virtue of the license statement - if you adhere to the license
requirements and the derivative works are licensed under a compatible
license - there is no need to clear the license with the original
creator. However, in instances where the license of a resource you
want to use is not compatible with the license you intend to use for
the derivative work - you can always ask for permission to release
under a different license.
>
> For example:
>
> 1. Let's say I embed a youtube film.
> 2. Wayne notices that there is not a clear copyright statement on the
> original and queries me on the wiki's discussion page.
> 3. Leigh contacts the original creator of the embedded movie and asks
> if its ok.
> 4. The original creator writes a definitive statement to Leigh
> permitting the use.
> 5. What's more, that original creator is now aware of Creative Commons
> and it is noted that they use such a license.
That's a good example - my only recommendation is that in cases where
the original license is not compatible that the license clearance
should be obtained before the resource is uploaded or embedded in
WikiEducator. As a community project we should avoid shifting the
transaction costs (i.e. time) onto the host - we don't have resources
to manage this at this point in time of the WikiEducator project. My
view is to find creative ways to share the load across the community.
>
> In this reasonable example I think we can see the positive contribution made
> to the development of free AND creative culture. If the original creator
> went the other way and said no, then we simply delete the code that embedded
> the media and don't have to worry about local copies to delete or where the
> bureaucrat is who can delete it.. it was just a line of text and the
> offending media is gone. But if the original creator was positive to the use
> and wrote the definitive statement - we are away! we can now make a copy and
> load it to Wikieducator's server. To my mind, the embedding is a safe and
> productive midway step in this copyright debacle.
We still need a legal opinion here. Namely whether embedding 3rd party
media without making a copy on the local site, constitutes a copyright
contravention where the license is not compatible with the
WikiEducator site. The problem with this approach is two fold:
1) Assuming that there are de-facto conventions for copyright
acknowledgement when linking to third party media - these must be in
place before the link is inserted. I cannot expose COL or its users to
legal copyright risks. At this point in time as long as the media is
CC-BY or CC-BY-SA and uploaded onto the server, we can manage this
process. With embedded 3rd party media - I don't know the answer yet.
My suspicion is that there are a bunch of issues that we have not
addressed - but lets get the right answers.
2) I must also think about the scalability of the project in terms of
its ongoing maintenance. The strength of open wiki's is that mass
collaboration can work when the administration and maintenance loads
are spread across the community. WikiEducator has demonstrated
excellent growth in participants and projects to date. We have a
couple of folk volunteering work as WikiAmbassadors and WikiNeighbours
- but to date we don't have folk queuing up to help with maintenance
tasks. We have a dire shortage of Wikigarderners, folk who help with
overseeing the adherence to copyright etc. I would love to see
educational institutions who are participating in WikiEducator to take
proactive moves in allocating staff time to helping us achieve
success. For example, building in a half-day or one day per week in
someones job description to help WikiEducator with the maintenance
tasks for the benefit of all.
>
> So, regarding audit trails as copyright defense. I don't know why we can't
> also have that for embedded 3rd party media.
If you have ideas on how to manage the audit trail with 3rd party
media including concrete suggestions about how to spread the
maintenance load across the project - please post these to the list.
Granted - I've not researched this - but I suspect that we would be
creating additional maintenance loads for the project.
>
> Also - The story about the use of the image that Wayne helped clear
> copyright issue with. Not only is it an audit trail, it is something
> tangible to show educational managers who might doubt the worth of working
> collaboratively on Wikieducator. Right there is a documented service that we
> at Otago Poly don't normally enjoy. Thanks to the collaborative aspect of
> Wikied we now have that service to some degree. But, the need for copyright
> purity is perhaps brought about by our willingness to work openly.. not to
> say that copyright isn't an issue in closed developments, but it is
> practically speaking - less so. Counter to that counter however - is the
> valuable staff development we are also getting through work with
> Wikieducator.
Leigh - that's a very good point. I think we underestimate the
professional development benefits of collaborative content
development.
My experience of WikiEducator thus far working in many countries
across the Commonwealth is the fact that education and professional
development is our biggest challenge.
I hope to make a difference to this challenge in the coming year ;-).
Cheers
Wayne
Leigh Blackall
Its to aid people in quickly bookmarking a resource to their prefered bookmarking service.
I'm wondering Wayne.. do you need copyright clearance in the use of those icons?
I know those services promote their use, but we CAN be too careful in mashup widget land hey... they all want us to mash, sample, remix and link.. but what about teh copyright?
BTW. Thanks for the link to the SB template. Very handy.
transaction costs ( i.e. time) onto the host - we don't have resources
mackiwg
They logo's are copyright images and to date - to the best of my
knowledge we've not cleared permission to use the logos on the site.
The original version of this idea was created by the MOSEP project -
great concept. I simply added "value" by putting this in a template.
You're right - we need to clear copyright on the use of these logos on
the site - I suspect the respective sites have details on the use of
their logos.
One advantage of the template approach is that if we don't get
clearance - we can easily effect the deletion across WikiEducator.
More work .... will get to this in due course. Always looking for
Wikigardners and administrators to help with the load <smile>.
Cheers
Wayne
Brent
The thing is too that we're already embedding much third party media in WikiEducator; i'd warrant that a majority of the media currently uploaded into the system have little details about their origins or copyright. We're also using a load of proprietary formats like Flash and MP3s, and PDF. Perhaps I need to read that Moral Rights entry....
brent.
------------------------------
http://greymatter.co.nz
http://cite.org.nz
mackiwg
to WikiEducator have not adhered to the strict letter of all the
licenses,
So what do we do? Unilaterally delete all media that have not adhered
to these requirements or start an initiative to get this fixed?
Similarly - what is the license on metadata? In the early days of
cyber law there were skeptics questioning whether this was a
discipline of study.
The fact the it's difficult to enforce doesn't absolve our
responsibilities to get this right. I'm confident that working
together we can achieve this goal.
Cheers
Wayne
Brent
What is the real issue? Is it YouTube / Google Videos? Both Leigh and I have known for ages that you can embed images from third parties without having to copy them into WikiEducator and, speaking for myself, i've checked on all images i've uploaded for the appropriate licensing. If we can embed streaming video that has the appropriate licensing on it, then i'm not sure why WikiEducator should not facilitate this any more than the software currently facilitates mp3 or third-party images.
brent.
Brent
might be worth taking a look at.
brent.
mackiwg
My concern is our responsibility to the community that is using
WikiEducator.
Scenario:
1. COL receives a cease & desist letter from a lawyer from a
disgruntled copyright holder whos Youtube video has been
inappropriately embedded in a WikiEducator page.
2. The letter instructs us to pull the plug on WIkiEducator until the
matter is resolved through legal process.
3. We have no alternative but to adhere to the requirements.
4. We let down the community who in good faith are contributing to a
free education curriculum.
I agree entirely with your sentiments and concerns whether copyright/
copyleft are appropriate mechanisms in the digital age, and that
"getting it right" may be "getting it wrong". That said, what approach
should WikiEducator adopt?
1. A maverick stance pushing the legal envelope with a chance that we
may get it right or
2. A more judicious approach exploring various strategic avenues in
the realisation of our longer term goals.
I'm as frustrated as the next person with all this copyright stuff -
but I cannot take a decision on my own. We have to engage the
community in deciding the way forward. If we don't get wide
participation - we must find ways to get the community to help us
with this decision. I don't want to be in a situation where the
community uses me as a scape goat for getting it wrong. The when the
going gets tough - I hope that we will have wide community support for
what we are trying to do.
My personal view:
The issue is not Youtube or Google videos or any other site that
provides free hosting services for rich media.
What underpins my thinking is to find the best strategic path to
widening access to education for all - as a common good for society. I
want to figure out the best way using these digital techologies in
helping the kids, for instance, who will never see the walls of a
classroom. Granted these are personal views and are also the reason
I'm employed at COL. They may not be the views of the community and
should the community decide that this is not the way to go - I'll
gladly accede to the democratic majority. The majority is not voicing
their opinion in this forum and I have a fiduciary responsibility to
do my best to get the views of the majority.
I nonetheless think that working together with the 53 states of the
Commonwealth - we've got a better chance of success. I hope that I'm
not wrong.
Cheers
Wayne
mackiwg
Thanks for the pointer to this paper! I agree this is worth a look by
readers of the this message list. The tensions between innovation and
efficiency are close to my heart and where a major theme in my PhD
work.
There is a plethora of research literature which provides support for
the the assertions in the Business Week paper you linked, and I think
that it's a good idea for us to learn from this experience.
Its dangerous to summarise this kind of research, but we do know a few
things:
1) The pace of technological innovation always outstrips the ability
of "consumers" to absorb the benefits of these new technologies. Case
in point - the extent to which traditional education providers have
transformed their mainstream business practice as a result of "Web
2.0" technologies.
2) We do not have a definitive case history to decide whether new
innovation is best fostered in existing organisational structures or
new organisational arrangements which did not exist before. For
example, IBM is the classic example of the ability to innovate from
within and projects like Wikipedia are examples of where new
organisational arrangements were necessary for successful adoption of
disruptive technologies.
3) We know that there are two distinctive forms of disruptive business
models. Type 1 disruption which establishes a completely new marker
proposition that did not exist before, and Type 2 disruption which is
a business model which serves less demanding customers - that is,
those customers which the market leaders don't mind losing.
I'm not sure where WikiEducator fits in this typology yet:
1) Is WikiEducator a new organisational arrangement - a new value
proposition, or are we an extension of the existing organisational
structures in education?
2) Is or should WikiEducator be focusing on Type 1 or Type 2
disruption?
3) Will success be fostered within existing organisational
arrangements or a "new" organisational arrangement?
One thing we know for sure - if the technology is not socialised in
the sense that we do not commonly view a book as a technology - we
won't succeed.
I'd be keen to know from members of this list where Wikieducator
fits.
Chat to you soon.
Wayne
Brent
Brent,
My concern is our responsibility to the community that is using
WikiEducator.
Scenario:
1. COL receives a cease & desist letter from a lawyer from a
disgruntled copyright holder whos Youtube video has been
inappropriately embedded in a WikiEducator page.
I'm not sure that there's such a thing.
From the YouTube terms of service page:
"C. For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service." (from: http://www.youtube.com/t/terms)
As part of the YouTube service is the ability to embed YouTube media in third party sites like blogs (and wikis) when a user signs up for the service they are also allowing YouTube to use their material this way; this service - embedding - by the way, is an option that a user who uploads a video to YouTube can opt for; so you can turn on or off the ability to have your media embedded in a third party site like WikiEducator. So, there's not really such a thing as 'innapropriate' in this case I don't think.
2. The letter instructs us to pull the plug on WIkiEducator until the
matter is resolved through legal process.
I would hope that WikiEd would tell them to go get stuffed, offer to remove the supposed offending content then get on with whatever it is we're doing.
3. We have no alternative but to adhere to the requirements.
4. We let down the community who in good faith are contributing to a
free education curriculum.
I agree entirely with your sentiments and concerns whether copyright/
copyleft are appropriate mechanisms in the digital age, and that
"getting it right" may be "getting it wrong". That said, what approach
should WikiEducator adopt?
1. A maverick stance pushing the legal envelope with a chance that we
may get it right or
2. A more judicious approach exploring various strategic avenues in
the realisation of our longer term goals.
I don't see how this really effects our long term strategic goals that much, except to enhance the platform by the ability to embed rich media resources from external web sites -- much of which is covered by compatible licences (ie. Archive.org). We would still be reviewing materials on the site for copyright violations. Because YouTube content cannot be part of a derivative work (you can't download it to the WikiEd server), because it is not part of WikiEd per se and is located as a copy on another server, then i'm not sure how we'd be in violation of our own or YouTubes policies. We could also include something to this effect:
WikiEducator may contain links to third party websites that are not owned or controlled byWikiEducator. WikiEducator has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party websites. In addition, WikiEducator will not and cannot censor or edit the content of any third-party site. By using the Website you expressly relieve WikiEducator from any and all liability arising from your use of any third-party website.
brent.
mackiwg
The conditions of the Youtube service page look promising from our
perspective. I looked at these some months ago. I was hoping that we
would save some costs in terms of legal council - but it seems I must
go to the big boss to see if I can get the OK for legal council. There
are still questions relating to derivative works on the WikiEducator
site under our license - specifically with regards to the license
requirements of the derivative work. In most cases - free content
licenses require the users to release the works under the same license
regime of the original work. For example you can't mix GNU FDL with CC
unless the derivative work is dual licensed. It gets complicated
because the edits on GNU FDL must be released under the same license
and the CC bits under the CC license.
I'm not sure of the legal status of the "terms of service" page. Is
this an enforceable license? Under what license can the derivative
works be released etc.
> I would hope that WikiEd would tell them to go get stuffed, offer to remove
> the supposed offending content then get on with whatever it is we're doing.
My heart says yes - this is the way to go. The logical side of my
brain says, make pretty sure that you have justifiable grounds to tell
them to go get stuffed. The trouble is that this would be a post hoc
offence and I'd like to have the assurances of reasonable process in
place before the offence is committed. We have a large contingent of
users who may not be well versed in the intricacies of copyright
infringements etc.
>> We would still be reviewing materials on the site for copyright violations.
This is my hesitation - I don't see many folk reviewing content for
copyright violations yet.
I also like your suggestion of a clear statement re Websites that are
not controlled by WikiEd. Again - I'd like proper legal council on the
formulation of such a statement.
I would also like to get wider community opinion on how this impacts
(or doesn't) on the development of free content. So far we've got very
compelling arguments from NZ. I'm not sure how the other folk
participating in this community feel or think about these questions.
I would suggest that we also need an effective way of distinguishing
between free content that incorporates third party media and those
pages which don't. Easily achieved through categories - but we need to
talk this through carefully as part of our copyright and licensing
policy.
Leigh Blackall
the copyright issue is exhausting. It certainly keeps lawyers in employment though, and limits creativity in so many ways. CoL is trying to find a way through this, but in my opinion the risks are so minor - cease and desist for everything? not at all likely.. cease and desist for any instances of the offending media? yes, and easily fixed.
Wayne said
What underpins my thinking is to find the best strategic path to
widening access to education for all - as a common good for society. I
want to figure out the best way using these digital techologies in
helping the kids, for instance, who will never see the walls of a
classroom.
I share that goal, I'd say most people here do in some measure. They may not be thinking internationally, most country's have their own serious inequalities to surmount, and in terms of digital and networked information - there is a lot of commonality between the issues of a "developed nation" and a "developing nation".
Generally speaking however (not so much digital and network) there are many people in NZ who do not see the inside of classroom walls (in NZ, that might be a good thing..) we still need to encourage our people towards educational pursuits however, and improve access to learning and educational advancement... and it is this growing pressure on our educational system that is forcing us to become more creative, more outside the classroom walls so to speak... it is THIS pressure, AND the inability of the NZ system to accommodate the innovative proposals like wikis, free and open content and socially networked media, that sees me here in wikieducator - and not on a platform provided to me by the educational system (a blessing in disguise hey?.. almost)
Embedding 3rd party media, or mashups is one of those educational innovations that could help encourage our disadvantage/disengaged people into educational pursuit to some degree. It could help improve engagement, relevance, and diversity, indeed! it already has to some degree, just not in Wikiedcator resources yet.
So one could take the view that embedding 3rd party media can help with digital and social divides - not worsen them. By being able to embed media in context of educational resources, AND encourage transcription and actual uploading, we save the teacher and learner (who are on dial up or not online at all) from having to search and search for supplementary material that is more diverse and interesting... even more the case where a teacher may be relying on state provided multi media with (ah hem) questionable value...
Access for all is a best practice issue here, multi media can be made accessible. If you embed multi media, and you endeavour to transcribe it for maximum accessibility.. and you also endeavour to make it available in accessible formats.. embedding can be seen as a first step in these productive directions, rather than a move away from Wayne's (and our largely common) goal. By only allowing links out to the media we discourage this potential best practice. We are not able to contextualise the media inside the educational resource and so not able to easily encourage transcription, uploading and other useful extras.
Also, by not enabling contextualisation and relying only on links to the 3rd party page we add to the navigational stress and other inappropriate distractions like advertising or other content.. embedding actually strips away the ads, comments and links to other media, helping us to maintain a sound educational environment around a topic.
mackiwg
Ditto on the exhaustiveness of copyright!
That's a solid and well argued post. Not much I can add to what has
already been said. Thanks for that.
Let me try and find a legal opinion on the Youtube scenario, and will
get back to this list.
As a matter of interest - how would you go about transcribing and
uploading a Youtube video on WikiEd - assuming all clearances have
been obtained.
Cheers
Wayne
Leigh Blackall
As a matter of interest - how would you go about transcribing and
uploading a Youtube video on WikiEd - assuming all clearances have
been obtained.
- Embed the video in the various places it needs to be and create a link to a page for the video (same as for images)
- At this stage the video is only embedded in its own page, as with other pages. I would start by transcribing the first minute (includes time code) and leave a request for others to contribute to the transcription process.
- When the video is transcribed (even better if in multiple languages) we have something to show the original creator - at this point I would contact them to ask permission to copy the video and upload it to wikieducator counting on the positive impression made by the transcriptions and translations..
- You might prefer to contact them earlier, and I suppose we could point to other examples of what's possible with the work being in Wikieducator.
- Once the video is actually loaded, replace the embed code on the range of pages
Brent
I share that goal, I'd say most people here do in some measure. They may not be thinking internationally, most country's have their own serious inequalities to surmount, and in terms of digital and networked information - there is a lot of commonality between the issues of a "developed nation" and a "developing nation".
Generally speaking however (not so much digital and network) there are many people in NZ who do not see the inside of classroom walls (in NZ, that might be a good thing..) we still need to encourage our people towards educational pursuits however, and improve access to learning and educational advancement... and it is this growing pressure on our educational system that is forcing us to become more creative, more outside the classroom walls so to speak... it is THIS pressure, AND the inability of the NZ system to accommodate the innovative proposals like wikis, free and open content and socially networked media, that sees me here in wikieducator - and not on a platform provided to me by the educational system (a blessing in disguise hey?.. almost)
Embedding 3rd party media, or mashups is one of those educational innovations that could help encourage our disadvantage/disengaged people into educational pursuit to some degree. It could help improve engagement, relevance, and diversity, indeed! it already has to some degree, just not in Wikiedcator resources yet.
So one could take the view that embedding 3rd party media can help with digital and social divides - not worsen them. By being able to embed media in context of educational resources, AND encourage transcription and actual uploading, we save the teacher and learner (who are on dial up or not online at all) from having to search and search for supplementary material that is more diverse and interesting... even more the case where a teacher may be relying on state provided multi media with (ah hem) questionable value...
I think so too. The potential for rich cultural, social and geographical contextualisation of educational video content(s) within the wiki environment may do much more for creating examples for a variety of potential uses/approaches/pedagogies of networked learning such that the benefits outweigh what I still perceive of as minimal threats by legal entities. By just linking out to media we reproduce the idea of content commodities, which we should be somewhat reticent about -- the embedding that has been made possible by many of these sites actually allows us the power to recontextualize these contents outside of the logics that they are wrapped inside of when contained within their respective portal clothes. We can still do this intelligently, by giving credit (By) and requesting alternative more open sources wherever possible, but I think as innovators in an area that desperately needs, as Leigh has pointed out, to experiment, research, and create new examples not just for ourselves or our own organisations, but for everyone with a network connection (a number that is by no means declining anywhere in the world). The divide is not between the Ghanain and the New Zealander here ... the divide is more between the individual who wants access to sources of education and the outdated institutions that are trying to monopolise the discourses of what it means to be certifiedly educated in our societies.
mackiwg
Again a solid argument. I can't find fault with the pedagogical
motivations and as a community we have a commitment to innovate. I
appreciate the tenacity of the NZ's for arguing their point of view.
I've started work on investigating this request responsibly and
carefully.
My thinking is to create a template for embedding Youtube video, which
will comply with the requirements specified on the Youtube site.
The template must provide a clear link to the Youtube site and also
include the requirement to specify the url where the content resides.
The template must also link to a Youtube video category page so that
we have an accurate listing of all the pages which contain Youtube
video - and therefore not necessarily free content.
The template would also provide a link to the WikiEducator policy and
conditions for use of the Youtube template. The link to the
WIkiEducator policy would contain points like:
1. The video is used in accordance with the expressed terms of use
conditions specified by Youtube - or later versions
2. That Youtube can at their discretion change the terms of use at any
time
3. That the embedded media does change the copyright entitlement of
the creator and a clear warning that the media content may not
necessarily meet the free content requirements of WIkiEducator.
4. The WikiEducator does not assume responsibility for use of this
embedded media
5. Where possible users should attempt to negotiate a free content
license and transform this into formats that can be modified and
adapted by the WikiEd community
6. Links to embedded video that do not use the template will be
deleted without notification.
7. A link to report transgressions etc.
I've started a draft page to start refining a conditions of use
proposal for the community to consider. I want to make sure that we
get reasonable comment and feedack from those communities who deal
with connectivity challenges.
This is the page where I'm starting to draft some of the conditions:
http://www.wikieducator.org/Youtube_Template_Conditions_draft
Do you want to have a bash at putting together a draft template -
along the lines of the {{FA}} template which will link to our internal
WikiEducator conditions of use.
Final decision to go forward with this idea in WikiEducator must be
based on consensus and is subject to legal opinion regarding whether
we are acting in accordance with existing copyright law etc.
This may seem like overkill - but it's not a trivial decision in the
bigger picture of the free content world. I feel that we have an
obligation to get this right without compromising our expressed vision
to innovate.
mackiwg
Responses in text below
Cheers
Wayne
On Jul 3, 2:48 pm, "Leigh Blackall" <leighblack...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > As a matter of interest - how would you go about transcribing and
> > uploading a Youtube video on WikiEd - assuming all clearances have
> > been obtained.
>
> 1. Embed the video in the various places it needs to be and create a
> link to a page for the video (same as for images)
> 2. At this stage the video is only embedded in its own page, as with
> other pages. I would start by transcribing the first minute (includes time
> code) and leave a request for others to contribute to the transcription
> process.
I wouldn't start transcribing a video before clearance is obtained.
TIme is valuable - we wouldn't want to waste community time on
transcribing with the risk of refusal later down the track. Wasted
energy. Perhaps a category page listing videos awaiting permission or
copyright clearance for transcription would be a better way to go.
I'd also find a good example, get the clearance and provide a
practical demonstration of how all this is going to work. Using
Andragogical principles (can I use this word in this lis <smile>) a
practical example can go a long way.
> 3. When the video is transcribed (even better if in multiple
> languages) we have something to show the original creator - at this point I
> would contact them to ask permission to copy the video and upload it to
> wikieducator counting on the positive impression made by the transcriptions
> and translations..
If we can get this done with our example above - that would be
fantastic. If we go down this road of developing a practical example -
I'll get in touch with our French and Spanish buddies to see if they
can help.
> 4. You might prefer to contact them earlier, and I suppose we could
> point to other examples of what's possible with the work being in
> Wikieducator.
>From experience - I'd recommend sooner rather than later.
> 5. Once the video is actually loaded, replace the embed code on the
> range of pages
OK - do you have a list of recommended technologies - (preferably free
software) that folk could be using.
>
> Hopefully MediaWiki developers can see a few ways to make this process
> easier - such as a category for embedded youtube movies to make it easy to
> track instances. A page for embedded movies could also be created every time
> I use the embed code, and a link to that page included on the pages where
> the embed occurs... etc
MW's template engine is very powerful and we may not need to go down
the route of additional media development. Brent has already
demonstrated a cool concept with the Learning Design Boilerplate which
could easily be refined for this process.
What we need now is a practical example of how this might work. This
learn-by-doing exercise will allert us to any technical glitches. We
should document the process so we can develop a corresponding tutorial
on how to do this.
Thoughts?
Leigh Blackall
Regarding the upload of a copy.
I use a firefox extension to download Youtube and other videos. They come down in the FLA file format. It would be good if Wikieducator was able to support that file format, otherwise we'd have to transcode it - and MP4 is the only reasonable one I can do. Don't know about an OggTheora transcoder - nor am I sure if a web based player is ready for Ogg. I think the player that Archive.org uses works quite well... and I think uploading to their servers can include server side transcoding. Has CoL considered negotiating with Archive.org for the server side transcoding, hosting and serving of media files? Even if its just a backup strategy. Would save CoL a lot of money.
mackiwg
We could not natively support FLA - but to the best of my knowledge
MP4 should be OK from the free software perspective. I'll check on
this.
When I last looked there was a Java web-based player for ogg Theora.
Lets investigate the file format options re the preferred route.
Nope - have not followed up on the Archive.org idea for server side
transcoding - I need to get onto this.
Too much on my plate at the moment - but will get there.
Cheers
Wayne
Brent
brent.
Philip Serracino Inglott
The other option that one should seriously look at is MP4, but remember that MP4 is a container format, so while the video in it will most probably be MPEG4 the audio might be MP3 anyway, so we're back at square 1. All this encoding/transcoding/container/uploading mess is still very undecided when it comes to digital video standards. .FLV and hence Youtube has caught on only tanks to the ubiquity of Flash.
Philip
Leigh Blackall
Steve Foerster
assign students to come to wikieducator.org in order to use the
content here, or do we expect that teachers (or those who support
them) will come here to take content to put together that will be
printed, or hosted elsewhere, etc.?
I ask because if it's the latter, then perhaps we're focusing on
embedding when linking would do just as well while obviating all these
IP issues. I wrote a piece on this, about using links as a way of
using closed content in open curricula:
http://hiresteve.com/2007/06/playlist-model-of-course-development.html
Now, I realize that we're already deep into a how-to-embed
discussion. Have I already lost this argument? :-)
-=Steve=-
Leigh Blackall
We have teachers who prefer to keep everything flowing through their course blogs, or email lists, so they will want to copy paste into those contexts. We also have teachers who (sadly) want to keep using their Learning Management System. However, much of our education and training has to be done off line (in the forest next to a chainsaw for example :) so we will need quick ways to print and bring media off line (same need as people in 'developing world' without connectivity). And then there are those that use video conferencing, correspondence, and a range of other offline or semi offline contexts.
So yes, your playlist idea is a very practical use of the wiki as a first step, and this step is already helping us in improving our resources and learning outcomes. Linking across the web is what most savvy online teachers do in some way already. The next step is to get them using CC BY or better, or negotiate permissions, or develop media that can be copied and taken into different contexts legally. At the moment, the over all CC BY SA restriction on Wikied prevents some of that recontextualisation, which is why I'm pushing for enabling other free content license options...
So embedding as a second step to playlists and hypertext.. Embedded multi media makes the playlist look nice first of all, secondly it does render the wikied platform as potential interface and context in its own right. When I show a teacher wikied (and I usually only get a few minutes of attention for that) they could have three reactions:
1. Not realising it as a playlist they think, oh.. this is just a flog of text with a few images.. how boring, the stuff that publishing company gives me has interactive flash and gee wiz, it'll be better for here and now.
2. Wow! look at all that media and stuff, this looks pretty interesting..
3. Very few think about the bigger picture of open educational resources and practices (OERP) and stuff sadly.. we're working on that.
For the students who have been asked to refer to the wikied (or who have followed the attribution to that source) we want them to have the same reaction. A positive reaction that gets bigger buy in for us down here, and potentially bigger buy in to OERP generally..
So I think enabling embedding is just a more fancy form of playlist. Its a second step that takes hypertext and makes it hypermedia. Both are just links.
Now for the third step, if wikied could think of a way to take embedded media off line in one click, like the printable option - that would be truly amazing. At the moment, seems like the only way to come close to that is to negotiate with the owner of the embedded media and get permission to make a copy and put it on the wikied servers. Then (I imagine) it is conceivable to make a CD or other offline device from the wikied pages... which is, I guess, the ultimate in an educational resource - one that spans the full range of formats and contexts.
1. text linked repository/playlists = 2006-2017
2. embedded multi media playlists = 2008 - 2017
3. permissions to copy media and ability to make offline resources = 2009 - 2017
how does that sound?
mackiwg
I think that we should try our best to capitalise on the advantages of
digital content. I envisage multiple delivery alternatives:
1. Informal learning - where folk learn directly from WikiEducator.
Perhaps set up a Google group for interaction and support among the
cohort (that's until we get Liquid threads embedded with cohort-based
user groups!) This is already been done successfully with the Newbie
Tutorials. I have run two online training sessions for VUSSC
participants directly from the Wiki. Its pretty cool because folk are
learning about using a wiki by working in a live wiki environment.
2. Formal learning in more traditional open distance learning and open
schooling formats. This is where ODL institutions print-off study
guides directly from WikiEducator - hence the importance of getting
wik ==> pdf functionality sorted. In this scenario, external links and
external media embedded in the pages can cause problems. Therefore we
need a clear categorisation of content pages that include third party
media.
3. eLearning contexts where WikiEducator content is either exported as
an IMS content cartridge or content package. or exported into eXe
format so that folk can edit locally and export self contained
websites.
I envisage WikiEducator catering for a variety of delivery
alternatives.
Cheers
Wayne
mackiwg
I think that its technically possible (funding permitting) to get to
the point where we can generate an ISO-CDROM image of embedded audio
and audio-visual media in conjunction with a printed study guide.
That's the strategic plan. Hence its important to encourage, as far as
possible to get local versions of the media.
Leigh suggests:
> 1. text linked repository/playlists = 2006-2017
> 2. embedded multi media playlists = 2008 - 2017
> 3. permissions to copy media and ability to make offline resources = 2009 -
> 2017
My main problem is that you're going beyond 2015 - we want to have a
free education curriculum for all sectors completed by 2015!
I think that WikiEd should try to accommodate multiple phases. The
approach Otago Poly is adopting regarding repositories and playlists
is innovative. However, this may not work for all institutions - so I
sense that WikiEd should be creative and figure our ways to
accommodate a diversity of phased strategies - thus living out our
community respect for freedom of choice.
How's that for value addition!
Cheers
Wayne