The mEducator project as a Digital Library of Open Educational Resources

The mEducator project as a Digital Library of Open Educational Resources

Dionysia KallinikouAssociate Professor of Law at Athens Law School, University of Athens

&Marinos Papadopoulos

Attorney-at-Law

J.D., M.Sc., Legal Lead

Creative

Commons

Greece

Mallorca, September 27-29, 2009Dionysia Kallinikou, Marinos Papadopoulos |

URL: www.marinos.com.gr

The mEducator project as a Digital Library

The mEducator project develops into a digital library of health educational material.

It is an integrator of information management systems, that consists of important elements such as data and metadata, human contribution (creators, users, managers), IT infrastructures (computers, networks, software) which are all orchestrated with the aim to organize, manage, and make available, i.e. open access to, knowledge in the health educational resources and information to mEducator-users.

Instead of “owning” a publication, the mEducator could “lease” it under a license agreement.

Dionysia Kallinikou, Marinos Papadopoulos |

URL: www.marinos.com.gr Mallorca, September 27-29, 2009

The mEducator focus as a Digital Library

The mEducator’s focus is not the quest how it will digitize materials, store them and make them available but rather the quest how it will manage the rights upon the materials along with the materials.



Copyrights in the mEducator

It includes in its contents copyrighted works as well as works under no copyright such as works in the public domain. Included works can be delivered in any medium and format.

It could contain many different copyrights, e.g. a textual article or e-book are protected as literary works, photographs as artistic works, etc.

Its website could also be subjected to different copyrights.



Jurisdiction & Copyright Law of the mEducator managing partner

Liability for Copyright issues considers the Greek law to which AUTH, mEducator’s managing partner, is subject.

Greek Copyright Law 2121/1993.



Copyright Law and Digital Rights

Directive 2001/29/EC.

Right for reproduction of copyrighted material.Right to distribute and the rental & lending right.Right to communicate the work to the public.



Reproduction of copyrighted material

A user and/or mEducator are not allowed to reproduce or communicate copyrighted material unless permission is granted by the intellectual property right-holder.

Unauthorized reproduction of such material leads to civil liability in the form of damages and criminal responsibility remedied through fines or potential imprisonment.

Permission for exercising the right for reproduction of copyrighted material must be granted in writing otherwise it is null and void.



Right to distribute & the rental and lending right

It is a sine-qua-non requirement for the operation of any digital library, including mEducator.

It was not until Directives 2001/29/EC and 100/1992/EEC, the latter as it was codified with Directive 2006/115/EC, that the need for harmonization of legislation in the EC market was stressed.

The Greek legislation does not make full use of Directive 100/1992/EEC for the public lending right.



Right to communicate the work to the public

The copyright holder has the exclusive right to communicate the protected work to the public.

To ensure unobtrusive access to collected cultural and educational materials, provisions should be enacted in the Greek Copyright Law, which will allow depository institutions to enable unobtrusive access to works by giving them the rights of public lending online, digital disposition, and creation of multiple copies, in a way that caters for both the author’s copyright as well as a user’s right to access information and cultural and educational works.



Open Access & Openness in the mEducator

Open Access means the free availability of literature and works of authorship, audiovisual works etc on the public Internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the Internet itself.

Only constraint to Open Access: give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.



The Creative Commons licenses in the mEducator

CC licenses are the most notable tools in the arsenal of legal means seen as implementation resources for pushing ahead the agenda of Openness and Open Educational Resources.

License out and allow for the distribution of the author’s material on the basis of protocols designed to enhance reusability and build out the information commons.

The conditional use of educational resources available in an information commons is a distinctive characteristic of Open Educational Resources.



Functionality of Creative Commons licenses in mEducator

A recommended functionality would be to adopt a list of very few standard copyright policies based on the differentiation of the six Creative Commons licenses.

The differentiation of the six Creative Commons licenses is based on the combination of four elements, the so called Creative Commons License Conditions.



The Creative Commons License Conditions



Attribution

Share-Alike

Non-Commercial

No Derivatives

Mallorca, September 27-29, 2009

Questions for CC-based moduling

of content in mEducator

Would you allow commercial use of your work? YESNO

Would you allow the creation of derivative works fromyour work?

YESYES, provided that derivative works are licensedunder a Share-Alike licenseNO



Option 1

for CC-licensing based on CC-moduling

Would you allow commercial use of your work? YES


YES

Creative Commons Attribution v.3.0. license



Option 2




YES, provided that derivative works are licensed under a Share-Alike license

Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alikev.3.0. license



Option 3




NO

Creative Commons Attribution, No-Derivativesv.3.0. license



Option 4


Would you allow commercial use of your work? NO


YES

Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial v.3.0. license



Option 5




YES, provided that derivative works are licensed under a Share-Alike license

Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike v.3.0. license



Option 6




NO

Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, No-Derivatives v.3.0. license



Integrate CC applications to mEducator

Moduling through the mEducator’s site could associate with the selection process of the proper Creative Commons license through Creative Commons’ site, thus enabling smooth content-licensing as well as understanding the meaning and use of said licenses.

Most local jurisdictions have developed similar sites that provide clear and detailed information upon the licenses in the official languages of said jurisdictions. All local jurisdiction sites have integrated their application with the Creative Commons site in the U.S. through which licensing is achieved.



The problem of incompatibility of Copyright Laws

The problem: incompatibility in legal framework stemming from differences in Copyright Laws in various jurisdictions.

The solution: Creative Commons licenses may provide the legal sameness for Open Educational Resources.



Methods to overcome Copyright problems

Identifying the copyright holder and seeking permission to re-license the materials using a compatible Creative Commons license.

Finding replacement materials already carrying a compatible Creative Commons license or that are in the public domain.

Creating replacement materials, and then licensing them with a compatible Creative Commons license.

Deleting or obscuring the incompatible materials, thereby eliminating the issue.



Basic actions to promote the CC-licensing solution

License adoption as high-level policy.

License as default.

License in the footsteps of an Opinion Leader.

Get licensing in the classrooms.



The mEducator project as a Digital Library of Open Educational Resources

Thank you!

The presentation is available through the Bulletin Βoard

of

the URL: www.marinos.com.gr

as well as through the mEducator project’s site.

Mallorca, September 27-29, 2009Dionysia Kallinikou, Marinos Papadopoulos |
