The Students for Free Culture conference will take place in New York City April 20-21. The conference–dubbed FCX 2013–will be held at New York Law School.

The Students for Free Culture Conference is an annual gathering of student and non-student activists, thinkers, and innovators who are dedicated to advancing discussions on technology, law, and public policy. Through panels and keynote speakers, FCX 2013 will focus on current issues in intellectual property law, open access to educational resources, maker culture, and technology policy. Through workshops, the conference will revisit the core pillars of the free culture movement, examine the success stories from our movement, and identify new ways in which Students for Free Culture can advocate for a more free, open, and participatory digital environment.

Longtime SFC member Benjamin Mako Hill (who will be giving the opening keynote) says: “If previous years are any indication, the conference can serve as an incredible introduction to free culture, free software, wikis, remixing, copyright, patent and trademark reform, and participatory culture. For folks that are already deeply involved, FCX is among the best places I know to connect with other passionate, creative, people working on free culture issues.”

The event is open to all, with a suggested $15 donation to help defray costs. Registration is open, and some limited travel assistance may be available for students of active SFC chapters.

Creative Commons congratulates all those who participated in the second annual Open Education Week March 11-15, 2013. It’s impressive to see how global open education has become with contributors from over 30 different countries showcasing their work and more than 20,000 people from over 130 countries visiting the Open Education Week website during the week. Open Education Week featured over 60 webinars open to participation from anyone and numerous local events and workshops around the world.

We thought we’d highlight a few Creative Commons global affiliate events from Open Education Week and share a list of urls for Open Education Week webinar recordings the Open Courseware Consortium has published.

The Creative Commons China Mainland team successfully held an Open Education Forum on the afternoon of March 16th at Renmin University of China, Beijing. One highlight of this salon worth special attention is the Toyhouse team from Tsinghua University led by Prof. Benjamin Koo, and their recent project eXtreme Learning Process (XLP). This team is a inspiring example of innovative learning, and a user of CC licenses and OER.

Tobias Schonwetter, Creative Commons regional coordinator for Africa gave an Open Education for Africa presentation explaining why Creative Commons is so important for Open Educational Resources.

The School of Open launched with:

• 17 courses, including 4 facilitated courses and 13 stand-alone courses (for participants to take at their own pace).
• ~15 course organizers, affiliated with several organizations/initiatives, including: the National Copyright Office of Australia; University of Michigan’s Open.Michigan; Kennisland/CC Netherlands; Communicate OER, a Wikipedia initiative; Open Video Forum (xm:lab, Academy of Fine Arts Saar); Jamlab (a high school mentorship program in Kenya); Wikimedia Germany and CC Germany

These are just the tip of the rich global discourse that took place during Open Education Week. All webinars during Open Education Week were recorded, with links listed below. You can also view the videos directly on the Open Education Week YouTube channel and on the Open Education Week website, under events and webinars.

Webinar recordings

Monday, March 11

·       Building Research Profile and Culture with Open Access 
·       Learners orchestrating their own learning
·       Learning Innovations and Learning Quality: The future of open education and
        free digital resources
·       Näin käytät ja teet avoimia sisältöjä /How to use and create open content
·       New global open educational trends: policy, learning design and mobile
·       The multiple facets of Openness in #udsnf12  
·       Licencias Creative Commons para recursos educativos, ¿que son? ¿como usarlas?
·       Designing OER with Diversity In Mind
·       وسائل تعليمية تشاركية : تطوير الوسائل التعليمية تشاركيًا باستخدام أداة الابتكار ومنصة  سكراتش البرمجية
·       Driving Adoptions of OER Through Communities of Practice
·       Khan Academy: Personalized learning experiences
·       Good practices on open content licensing
 
Tuesday, March 12
 
·       OCW in the European Higher Education Context: How to make use of its full
        potential for virtual mobility
·       OLDS MOOC Grand finale (final convergence session)  
·       Äidinkielestä riippumaton suomen kielen opetus
·       Opening Up Education
·       CourseSites by Blackboard: A Free, Hosted, Scalable Platform for Open
        Education Initiatives
·       Xpert Search Engine and the Xpert Image Attribution Service
·       Capacitación para la educación abierta: OportUnidad en Latinoamérica
·       Language learning independent of mother language
·       Interactive Learning with Wolfram Technologies
·       Collaborative Boldly Confronts Licensing Issues
·       Buenas prácticas en el uso de licencias para contenidos abiertos
 
Wednesday, March 13

·       是“誰”在使用你的開放式課程網站呢?
·       The interaction, co-construction and sharing of Netease Open Courses
        网易公开课的互动、共建和分享
·       Who is using your OCW site?
·       Políticas nacionales de Acceso Abierto en Argentina
·       Open Policy Network: seeking community input
·       OER Commons Green: A Unique Lens on Open Environmental Education
·       Creative Commons 4.0 Licenses: What's New for Education?
·       How Community Colleges are Innovating with Open Educational Resources
·       P2PU: A Showcase of Open Peer Learning
 
Thursday, March 14

·       Open Access policy development at the University of Pretoria: the why, what
        and how?
·       What you can learn from the UKOER experience
·       Why Open Access is Right for the World Bank
·       What's behind Open Education? A philosophical insight
·       Utilizing OER to Create a Pathway Towards an Affordable Degree  
·       Toolkit Working Group: Tools to help users discover the content they need (1)
·       Learning toys for free: Collaborative educational tools development using
        MakeyMakey and SCRATCH platforms
·       Teach Syria: The Impact of Teaching Global to Today's Youth
·       Re-Creative Commons
·       Validating the Learning Obtained through Open Educational Resources
·       OER and Alternative Certification Models: An Analysis Framework
·       The Open Educational Resources in Brazil as an Instrument to Get Access to
        Qualification, The Government Role at OERs Creation & FGV and
        São Paulo State Case Studies
 
Friday, March 15

·       Open Education for Africa
·       National policies of Open Access to scientific outputs in Argentina
·       Re-thinking Developmental Education: Creating a STEM Bridge in the National
        STEM Consortium
·       Toolkit Working Group: Tools to aid and encourage use of OERs in teaching
·       Crowd-sourced Open Courseware Authoring with SlideWiki.org
·       Using OER to reduce student cost and increase student learning
·       What's next? An open discussion about open education
·       OpenStax College Textbooks: Remixable by Design
·       An OER Editor for the Rest of Us
 

Kudos to the OCW Consortium for organizing this event. We look forward to next years.

Listening to Larry’s Keynote [at the Global Summit 2011] / Chiaki Hayashi / CC BY NC SA

We are proud to officially launch the call for papers for CC’s Global Summit 2013.

The Global Summit is Creative Commons’ biannual gathering of CC friends and family. In 2013 it will be held from 21-24 August in Buenos Aires, co-hosted by our local Creative Commons affiliates, Fundación Vía Libre and Wikimedia Argentina.

Attendees to the Summit will discuss strategies to strengthen Creative Commons and its worldwide community, learn about the latest developments in the commons movement worldwide, and showcase local and international projects that use Creative Commons licenses. It’s a great place to meet and present your ideas to the broader Creative Commons and open community. Most importantly, this will be our first ever Summit with a dedicated Spanish-language program.

We encourage anyone with something interesting to say about the present and future of the commons to apply. A Programming Committee consisting of members of the CC community will make the final decision on the program.

You have until 24 May to submit a session for the Summit. Submission forms and a more detailed explanation of the process can be found on our Global Summit wiki.

__________________________________________________________________________

Estamos orgullosos de lanzar oficialmente la convocatoria a charlas para la Cumbre Mundial de Creative Commons de 2013.

La Cumbre Mundial es la reunión de bianual de la comunidad de Creative Commons. En 2013 se llevará a cabo del 21 a 24 de agosto en Buenos Aires, co-organizado por nuestros afiliados locales de Creative Commons, Fundación Vía Libre y Wikimedia Argentina.

Los asistentes a la cumbre discutirán las estrategias para fortalecer Creative Commons y su comunidad en todo el mundo, aprender sobre los últimos acontecimientos en el movimiento mundial de bienes comunes, y mostrar los proyectos locales e internacionales que utilizan las licencias Creative Commons. Es un lugar ideal para reunirse y presentar sus ideas a la comunidad más amplia de Creative Commons. Más importante aún, esta será nuestra primera Cumbre con un apartado en español en el programa.

Animamos a aplicar a cualquier persona que tenga algo interesante para decir sobre el presente y el futuro de los bienes comunes. Un comité de programación integrado por miembros de la comunidad de Creative Commons tomará la decisión final sobre el diseño del programa.

La fecha límite para la presentación de sesiones y charlas es el 24 de mayo. En nuestro wiki se puede encontrar información más detallada sobre el proceso y formas de presentación, así como un espacio abierto a propuestas para la Cumbre.

Creative Commons is looking for a senior software engineer. This hire will play a key role in building the next generation of Creative Commons technology. From the job description:

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join us in creating next generation products and services that enable sharing, curating, remixing, and collaborating on open content.

The Senior Software Engineer is a full-time position reporting to the Director of Product Strategy, and works closely with the rest of the Products & Technology team, including other developers and user experience designers, as well as Creative Commons staff and community volunteers.

This is a rare opportunity to join a brand new team at the ground level. Bring a start-up mentality and lots of energy to build delightful product experiences and help shape the commons to the benefit of everyone.

If that sounds exciting to you, we’d love to hear from you. Check out the full job listing for more information.

Arizona Phoenix College math instructor James Sousa has been teaching math for 15 years at both the community college and K-12 levels. Over the years, he has developed more than 2,600 video tutorials on topics from arithmetic to calculus, and made these videos available on YouTube, originally under a CC BY-NC-SA license. His website and videos, entitled, Mathispower4u, feature both math lessons and examples, and many of the videos have been incorporated into online homework questions available at MyOpenMath.com.

Recently, James decided to change the license on his videos from CC BY-NC-SA to CC BY, or Creative Commons Attribution. He writes,

“Originally, the videos were licensed CC BY-NC-SA. However, the reason for creating these videos was to help students be more successful in mathematics. To increase student access and more easily share this resource with others, I decided to make the videos more open and change the license to CC BY. I hope the videos will provide a quality math tutorial resource to many.”

Mathispower4u videos may be accessed in several ways, including through James’ website, blog, YouTube account, and Phoenix College’s video database. Thanks to James for his great contribution to open education and the field of mathematics!