Can we share and reuse digital versions of the NZ Curriculum? The answer is NO :-(

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi everyone,

In support of our work in building a national commons of teaching materials for reuse and sharing by Kiwi teachers -- I requested release of the NZ Curriculum under a Creative Commons Attribution license in accordance with the spirit of paragraph 26 of NZGOAL framework approved by Cabinet on 5 July 2010.

A copy of my letter is attached -- (Note that I license this letter under a CC-BY license so you are free to share, reuse, adapt, modify and sell the letter if you can find a buyer ;-).) 

Paragraph 26 of NZGOAL states:

"State Services agencies should make their copyright works which are or may be of interest or use to people available for re-use on the most open of licensing terms available within NZGOAL (the Open Licensing Principle)"

I regret to inform New Zealand educators that permission to license the NZ Curriclum under a Creative Commons License has not been granted.  Therefore, teachers are not allowed to reproduce and incorporate components of the NZ Curriculum in their teaching materials on WIkiEducator and other public websites outside the constraints of fair dealing.

Sharing is the foundation and purpose of education. In my opinion, restrictive copyright regimes will stifle innovation and creativity in New Zealand.

I encourage all educators in New Zealand to formerly request in writing from Learning Media the release of the NZ Curriculum funded by taxpayer dollars under a Creative Commons Attribution License. Perhaps a large number of requests will help Learning Media to reconsider their decision.

Cheers
Wayne







--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director OER Foundation
Director, International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
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[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Everyone,

I've received a few personal emails from folk asking for clarification on the reasons for refusal of licensing the NZ Curriculum under a free content license.

For the benefit of all members of our list, FYI a copy of one of my usual response:

Feedback on refusal to license the NZ curriculum under a CC-BY license

The cited reason for declining the request is that there is no Ministry policy for dealing with CC license requests.

From the OER Foundation's perspective, we choose to use CC licenses which meet the requirements of the free cultural works definition. (That is CC-BY or CC-BY-SA). You will see that CC International and CCANZ use the free cultural works approved logos on the respective license deeds (see for example: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/nz/). Of course we can also use resources dedicated to the public domain as well.

Based on my work in the free culture over the last decade -- in my view, there is no substantive reason or risk for refusal to release Crown Copyright of educational resources under a free cultural works approved license. Issues which may be of concern in the case of the curriculum, may include for example (note these are speculative as Learning Media have not communicated their concerns to me):

• Integrity of the NZ Curriculum in the case of derivative works. Non-issue in my view, because a derivative work does have a legal requirement to attribute the original source and there is a requirement in the legal code to identify that changes were made to the original work-- so the integrity of the NZ curriculum is protected. Derivative works will be required to point to the original source.
  
• Moreover, if the copyright holders of the NZ Curriculum are concerned that derivative works may impinge on the integrity of the original work, in terms of the legal code of a CC license, the copyright holder can remove the attribution requirement when granting the license.
  

It is disappointing that resources funded by taxpayer dollars may not be reused, adapted and modified to support learning in New Zealand and that educational charities are refused the right to build a national knowledge commons. Anyway - -we are free to continue our work without the NZ Curriculum.

In this regard, I will keep trying to get relevant educational resources openly licensed. I've submitted a request to NZQA for getting old NCEA exams released under an open content license. 

It would appear that there is still lots of lobbying and advocacy work needed in spite of Cabinet's committment to open content licensing of Crown Copyright. From experience -- spending time talking through the issues and perceived fears in returning to the core values of education produce productive results. Lots of time and energy needed to clear license requests - -but once we get this right, everyone in the sector will benefit.

For the time being - -educators are not allowed to use the NZ Curriculum outside the exceptions relating to fair usage under the NZ copyright act.

Let's make OER futures happen!

Cheers

[nathan parker]

Hi Wayne - I presume that it is ok to reformat the NZ Curriculum onto the wiki???
Cheers
N

--
Warpington
Otago
NZ
034822605
0272148294
Rekrapenator
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[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Nathan,

Nathan I'm afraid its complicated depends on what version of the curriculum you are using. If you are using the print version of the curriculum or want to use verbatim extracts on WikiEudcator -- the answer is No.  

Format shifting is considered a "copy" and therefore potentially an infringement of copyright (depending on the conditions specified by the copyright holder.)

The print version of NZ Curriculum is all rights reserved and copyright clearance must be directed to Learning Media Ltd as the publisher (see copyright page here: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/content/download/1108/11989/file/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum.pdf). This is the written request for release of this version of the NZ Curriculum under a CC-BY license was refused.  

The online version of the curriculum is a little different. This version is hosted by TKI:

http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/

If you go to the Copyright statement of the TKI site:

http://www.tki.org.nz/About-this-site/Copyright-and-privacy

You will see that for material copyright to the Ministry of Education that TKI uses on their site uses a non-free content license -- i.e CC-BY-NC. (The non-commercial restriction means that all material on the TKI site does not meet the requirements of free cultural licensing. Restricting the right of an individual to earn a living from free content is not well aligned with the UN Declaration of Human rights imho. Using a copyleft provision, in my view, would be more effective and justifiable if the aim is to protect resources from commercial exploitation.)

The difference with a CC-License (when compared to default copyright) is that format shifting is specifically excluded in the legal code of a Creative Commons license. It is possible to format shift the online version of the curriculum to another format as long as it contains the same or more restrictive license. However, the NC license used by the TKI site is not compatible with free cultural works licensing and therefore cannot be used on WikiEducator -- it is a non free content license.

Cheers
Wayne