Reflections on Topic 2
OK, so Open
Learning – Sharing and Openness then.
Let’s start
with what openness means for my own teaching. Up until a year ago, I pretty
much ripped off and used just about any material I wanted and could get my
hands on in my courses. It could be a YouTube video, a song on Spotify or a
figure or model from an internet page. It didn’t really matter because my
courses and its content were not public so no laws of copyright were broken,
the way I saw it. Then I began my YouTube channel and started to put my
lectures on YT as well as in my courses. It was an unintentional and a bit immature way of open
publishing you might say. I knew that my YT videos could not contain material that
was copyrighted so my approach when it came to producing video lectures
started to change. This was because I did not want to make two lectures
on more or less the same subject. So therefore, in the process my closed university
courses lectures have become cleaner when it comes to the subject of copyright.
I want to use pretty much the same stuff in my open YT videos, and thus avoid duplication
of effort (even though a bit of duplication of effort has its benefits, the
second time I do a lecture it will turn out nicer and more professional). I
would, by the way, like to see some research on this subject: how much duplication
of effort is actually beneficial and when does it become a waste of time?
The second
point I would like to reflect on is open educational resources and the use of openly
licensed resources. This course has opened my eyes on licensed resources such
as Creative Commons, which is something that I in the past have not bothered to
learn about the nature of. Further, the particulars of the open publishing
concept, ie. the five principles re-use, re-distribute, revise, re-mix and retain
was even more news to me. If I start to put a CC BY-NC license (which means
that all five principles are met) on my YT-lectures, then another teacher (or a
student or anybody else) would be able to use my material, which would be pretty
awesome.
For Topic 2, by the way, we used Creative Commons licensed music from Jamendo,
a site that revealed the fledgling status of openly licensed resources as
compared with eg. Spotify. So our ONL201 take on sharing and openness had a crappy
soundtrack, thanks to Jamendo. Well you must begin somewhere I guess.
References
Bates, T. (2019).
Teaching in a Digital Age – Second Edition. Chapter 11.2.
https://www.jamendo.com/
I think your experience is pretty common. Why not publish your videos on LnuPlay where there is a default menu of CC licenses in the pre-publication data?
SvaraRaderaThis is also an important issue to share with students. If we want them to cite correctly and avoid plagiarism and copyright infringement then we must lead by example. Show them how to find CC material and how to cite them. CC music isn't exactly hit music but the cost of ripping off hit music can be high - record companies do take cases to court and cease and desist orders are frequently served on YouTubers.
Yes! Great point to lead by example when it comes to plagiarism :-/ I have also played a bit fast and loose with copyright in the past but, as Jesper said, thinking about publishing one's content (in order to be helpful to others) is good motivation to do it all by the book. And, in this course, I'm learning about a lot of new ways to do it by the book.
RaderaThanks Al, for your knowledgeable input! I do publish my videos on LnuPlay but of course, YT is the world’s most important platform when it comes to online video-sharing. I mentioned earlier that this course has opened my eyes to [the correct use of] open resources and my wild west-days when it comes to publishing copyrighted material has come to an end. I do intend to pass on my newly gained knowledge on CC to my students.
SvaraRadera