Are you joining us at the 2021 CC Global Summit (September 20-24)? There are only three weeks to go. Up next in our ‘Meet the CC Summit Presenter’ series, we’re excited to introduce you to Suzanne Wakim. Suzanne is Coordinator for Distance Education and Student Learning Outcomes at Butte Community College. She is also a biology instructor who has designed and developed over a dozen biology courses in multiple modalities for multiple institutions. She is a Course Facilitator for @ONE (Online Network of Educators); a Project Facilitator for the ASCCC OER Initiative; and a Certificate Facilitator for Creative Commons. She has created online educational resources for the Open Learning Initiative, OpenStax, Nature, Discovery Education, and co-authored the most adopted Biology textbook in LibreTexts.  She conducts nationwide trainings on topics including Universal Design for Learning, Adaptable Course and Assessment Design, Open Pedagogy, Accessibility, and Online Course Design.

 

Based in: Paradise, CA, USA

Summit Session: Strategies for Assessing and Adapting OER for Inclusion

How did you get involved with Creative Commons?

I don’t remember.  My journey into the world of Open has been circuitous.  But, I vividly remember my first time participating in the CC EDU meeting.  I had never been in such a global space (with folks from almost all continents).  That was when I knew I wanted to be “all in” with advocacy for OER. 

How many times have you been to CC Global Summit?

Last year was my first, and I was lucky enough to get to volunteer too!

In the future, what is something you would like to see at the CC Summit?

Guided discussions and opportunities to brainstorm as a group. Loosely moderated because I do better with structure.

Why are you an advocate for Open?

Everyone deserves access to information – financial gatekeeping is wrong.  Everyone is worthy of participating in the global commons – we are better together.

“We are all in this together, and we each have something valuable to bring to the table. When we collaborate, we will find ways to make the future better for everyone.”

What is your proudest achievement?

I recently began facilitating for the CC Certificate, and I am still giddy from being selected.  

What is the best part of what you do? What is the most difficult part of what you do?

I help faculty build engaging and accessible online classes and open educational resources.  That’s both the best part and the most difficult part!

What is your favorite GIF?

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What tool/platform/app are you loving right now?

Mentimeter. It helps keep my presentations engaging and can help lighten heavy topics. 

What’s one new trend that you think the CC community should look out for?

How can we (the creators of content) work together to improve our collective resources?  There are many slightly different editions of some resources, and it would be great to have a place where the authors of different versions can collaborate on a master collection of versions.  This isn’t so much a trend to look for, but one I want us to begin .

If you could only leave people with one message from your summit presentation, what would it be?

If we want students to feel that they belong in our class, they need to see themselves in our content and materials. 

What was the best career advice you ever received? What was the worst career advice you ever received?

I was in a research PhD program and found that I prefer teaching to research. The best advice was a mentor who told me that I can teach at the Community College level with a Masters, and that the extra years of experience would outweigh the difference in degrees.  That one discussion set me on a different path to where I am now – and I am forever grateful.  The worst advice was that “real scientists do research”.  That made my decision to go into teaching all that much easier. 

What would you like to say to Creative Commons on our 20th anniversary?

Thank you for all the amazing work you do to advance the equitable sharing of information  

What does ‘Better Sharing, Brighter Future’ mean to you?

We are all in this together, and we each have something valuable to bring to the table.  When we collaborate, we will find ways to make the future better for everyone.

Haven’t had a chance to register for the 2021 Global Summit yet? Register here >>

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The 2021 CC Global Summit (September 20-24) is approaching, just 3 more weeks to go. Up next in our ‘Meet the CC Summit Presenter’ series, we have a fantastic duo — Flor de Fuego and Naoto Hieda. Florencia Alonso’s art practice as Flor de Fuego investigates digital image and media related to live coding, animation, video and the Internet. She produced full-dome live coding projects at the planetariums in Buenos Aires and Bogota, and at Domo Lleno 2019 with Iris Saladino. She was part of Mutek Montreal with Amplify DAI. With Francisco Raposeiras, they form a duo “c0de p03try” exhibited at JSAmsterdam Nation Conference, Experimental Video Festival Pumpumyachkan (Peru), and the International Conference on Live Coding (Ireland). As part of CliC (Collective of Live Coders), she participated in + CODE in Buenos Aires, and other live coding events, and as a VJ. Alonso actively collaborates in the development of Hydra, software created by Olivia Jack, giving talks and workshops in Argentina. A professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the UNLP, she is currently doing her thesis in Plastic Arts, and is associate of the Chair of Photography and Digital Image at the Faculty of Fine Arts.

Naoto Hieda is a Japanese artist based in Cologne, Germany. They challenge the current paradigm of productive coding to speculate its new form, namely post-coding, through their neurodiverse perspective and live coding experiences. The duo co-founded Hydra community meetups at venues including NODE20 (Germany), and presented hybrid media installation GlitchMe at CODAME (US).

Based in: La Plata, Argentina ; Cologne, Germany 

Summit Session: Glitch Vacations

How did you get involved with Creative Commons?

We use CC licenses, and also Naoto presented at the CC global summit 2020.

How many times have you been to CC Global Summit?

Second time

What was your favorite CC Global Summit?

It’s gonna be this one

In the future, what is something you would like to see at the CC Summit?

Workshop sessions — to create something together!

What is the best part of what you do? What is the most difficult part of what you do?

The best part: we enjoy the process of working together (often funny).

The difficult part: we have to finish working and go to sleep.

What is your favorite GIF?

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What tool/platform/app are you loving right now?

Hydra (live coding environment) – we use it a lot for creating visuals and for the upcoming performance.

If you could only leave people with one message from your summit presentation, what would it be?

“Glitch me”

What was the best career advice you ever received? What was the worst career advice you ever received?

Flor: Stop dividing discipline as if it’s a slice of pizza (best advice).

Flor: don’t wear a skirt with trousers (worst advice).

There are only 3 more weeks until the 2021 CC Global Summit, taking place virtually from September 20-24. Haven’t had a chance to register for the 2021 Global Summit yet? Register here >>

 

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Hi folks! We are back with a new episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons!

On this episode, CC’s Director of Product, Anna Tumadóttir, sits down with Matt Mullenweg. Originally from Houston, Texas, Matt is the co-founder of the open-source blogging platform WordPress, the most popular publishing platform on the web, and the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce and Jetpack.

As an advocate of distributed work, Matt set out to change the way folks work at Automattic. With more than 1,100 employees working from more than 62 countries, it is an entirely distributed company with no physical headquarters.

“I have found throughout my career, the more I’ve given away, the more I’ve gotten back.”

Matt is a long-time supporter of Creative Commons, and earlier this year, we announced that CC Search, the search engine we built for openly licensed content, had found a new home at WordPress.org. 

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

 

The post Open Minds Podcast: Matt Mullenweg of Automattic appeared first on Creative Commons.

We’re back with another ‘Meet the CC Summit Presenter’ Q&A — next up is Houcemeddine Turki. A long-term Wikimedian, Houcemeddine has contributed to Wikipedia and sister projects since 2009. He is also an open science advocate promoting the use of free licenses, like Creative Commons Licenses, in research and code publishing among Tunisian research scientists for years. He is concerned about the spread of information about the usefulness of free computer resources to develop real-life computer applications at a low cost, from the perspective of science policy and scholarly research. As a Wikimedian, Houcemeddine was among the first members of Wikimedia Tunisia User Group in 2014, serving as GLAM and Education Coordinator for the affiliate between 2018 and 2019 as Vice-Chair of the group since 2019. Moreover, he was involved as a member of the Programme Committee of the WikiIndaba Conference, the Premier African Conference of Wikimedia Community, in 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, he currently serves as a member of WikiIndaba Streering Committee, of Wikimedia and Libraries User Group Steering Committee, and of Wikimedia Foundation Affiliation Committee. “In real life”, Houcemeddine is a medical student and research assistant at the University of Sfax, Tunisia. He is affiliated to the Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit, a local research structure that focuses on the development of knowledge-based systems based on freely available computer resources.

Based in: Sfax, Tunisia

Summit Session: Creative Commons and Computer Programming

How did you get involved with Creative Commons?

As a contributor to Wikimedia Projects, I have always been in contact with Creative Commons Licenses, and I have been familiar with them for a long time. Effectively, the Creative Commons Licenses opened ways to spread Wikipedia and sister projects across all continents. Such an outcome encourages me to get involved in sharing knowledge about free licenses in my own country. I believe this can improve the quality and visibility of our local research and development. That is why I have worked with other individuals to create a research unit that interests in free licenses. Thankfully, we succeeded in co-founding this research unit as part of the University of Sfax, a major university in Africa. We look forward to defining research policies that are motivated by common free licenses.

How many times have you been to CC Global Summit?

This is the first time I made it to the CC Global Summit.

In the future, what is something you would like to see at the CC Summit?

I would like to see more experiences about the adaptation of Creative Commons Licenses to support specific open applications. This can be inspiring for us as a developing world to develop our usage of CC Licenses.

Why are you an advocate for Open?

There are a lack of resources that can be used for the development of computer applications in Africa, particularly in Tunisia. Without freely available databases and codes, the enhancement of computer science research in my underdeveloped continent will be impossible.

“We cannot stand as a worldwide community without open sharing.”

What is your proudest achievement?

My most important achievement is to share open resources with international research communities. I was honoured to introduce many research scientists to Wikimedia Projects and help them get involved with Wikimedia Research.

What is the best part of what you do? What is the most difficult part of what you do?

The best and most difficult part of what I always do is that I succeed to publish research papers in highly referred journals with the support of Wikimedia Community. This requires high-level research skills, as well as advanced knowledge of Wikimedia Projects. As well, this requires a long-term commitment, as revising research outputs is time-consuming and exhausting. However, this is worth it.

What is your favorite GIF?

Thomas Shafee, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What tool/platform/app are you loving right now?

Wikidata is currently the most promising knowledge base. I really love it because it hosts many communities as part of its open ecosystem. Nowadays, many people contribute to it on a daily basis and reuse its core knowledge in useful applications thanks to its CC0 License and flexible data model.

What’s one new trend that you think the CC community should look out for?

The current trend I have observed is there are efforts to create a distributed architecture to host license information for products and outputs. Such a technology (e.g. Blockchain) can be useful to show copyright information for items when preserving creators’ privacy. I think the CC Community can benefit from such architectures to keep track of the services using Creative Commons Licenses and to efficiently spread them around the world.

What is the biggest setback you have experienced? How did you overcome it?

The biggest setback I always experience is the issue of license compatibility. I overcame it by reading lots of technical documentation about this issue. However, this was not easy for me, and I do not see that many people would be very comfortable in doing this.

If you could only leave people with one message from your summit presentation, what would it be?

Creative Commons Community should involve more people from different disciplines. Specialized people are the most skilled people that can point the main legal concerns in their field of interest.

What was the best career advice you ever received? What was the worst career advice you ever received?

The best career advice I have ever received is to get involved in the talk groups of CC-related communities in social networks. I have learned a lot from active people there. You can have information not just by directly asking useful questions, but also by reading the discussions of other active participants. I did not receive bad advice. Even the worst advice can be useful to learn what does not effectively work, and to adjust thinking skills.

What would you like to say to Creative Commons on our 20th anniversary?

Thank you Creative Commons for supporting the open sharing of valuable resources that help many communities develop their projects and get interesting outcomes.

What does ‘Better Sharing, Brighter Future’ mean to you?

It means a lot to me. We cannot stand as a worldwide community without open sharing. The Global North needs socioeconomic and cultural information about developing countries to develop and sell their products, and have significantly higher incomes. The Global South requires specialized datasets about detailed ground knowledge to build their knowledge-based systems.

Join us from wherever you are for the 2021 CC Global Summit, which takes place 20-24 September! Register here >>

 

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Dr. Suma Parahakaran is one of our presenters at the 2021 CC Global Summit, taking place 20-24 September. In advance of her session at Summit, we caught up with her for a quick Q&A. Suma is currently pursuing her second PhD in Bioethics and Environmental Education at the American University of Sovereign Nations. Suma has a Doctorate in Education in Human Values-based water education from the University of Sydney, Australia. She also holds a Masters in Education from Assumption International University, Thailand. As a curriculum developer, she has conducted training workshops on integration of values and ethics into the curriculum with teachers from Southeast Asia. She is also a module writer (both for blended, online and offline learning). The school under her leadership was nominated for the Japan Education for Sustainable Development (2014 SEAMEO-Japan ESD Award) under the theme of “Fostering Global Citizenship for Sustainable Future”. She was also the resource lead and evaluated the Human values based water, sanitation and hygiene program, UNHABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements) (Regional Training of Trainers (TOT) course on Integration of Human Values-based Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Education (HVWSHE).

Based in:

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 

Summit Session:

Sustainable Environmental Education and Best Practices Integrating Human Values and Ethics

How did you get involved with Creative Commons? 

I heard about it when I was lecturing at the open university.

How many times have you been to CC Global Summit?

Once

In the future, what is something you would like to see at the CC Summit?

Global participation—as it is for the common good.

Why are you an advocate for Open?

Education and medical research must be free for any country to be successful without politicking. 

“I want CC to be the new crest jewel for making a better world!”

What is your proudest achievement?

I specialized in Curriculum Integration of Values and Ethics. 

What is the best part of what you do? What is the most difficult part of what you do?

Research on improving education is the best part. Most difficult is to get schools to take up Values and Ethics as an agenda by policymakers. 

What tool/platform/app are you loving right now?

Taxila Education where I am opening up for Educators (working on it).

What’s one new trend that you think the CC community should look out for?

Profiles of CC members, like me, being advertised, so that we can collaborate on our important work, on many platforms. 

What is the biggest setback you have experienced? How did you overcome it?

So far the going has been good! 

If you could only leave people with one message from your summit presentation, what would it be?

LET’S HAVE A BETTER WORLD…. One where love, peace, and sustainable education become the new NORM! 

What was the best career advice you ever received? What was the worst career advice you ever received?

I have followed my own intuition. Worst is people trying to get what they want you to do to achieve their purpose, and not for the common good. 

What would you like to say to Creative Commons on our 20th anniversary?

I want CC to be the new crest jewel for making a better world!

What does ‘Better Sharing, Brighter Future’ mean to you?

Education for All, People are FOR and by the PEOPLE

 Join us from wherever you are for the 2021 CC Global Summit, which takes place 20-24 September!  Register here >>

 

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