3rd Learning Reflection

 Along this last session, we have been directed towards activities and tasks which gave us indications on the right license to be used on our OERs. The different possible types of licenses were analysed and it was advanced that the CC-BY license was the best one to be used for all OERs.

The session started with the sharing of our thoughts on a videopost from Frances Ferreira. She highlighted the increasing number of out school children in different developing countries around the world. The number of these children is alarming and keeps us realizing that even today, education is not free for everyone. Many people around the world cannot afford schooling because the education system is too costly for them. Some of these expenses are transport, learning materials, uniform, accessories and many others. However, investing on technological resources which will allow students to get in touch with OERs will help in spreading free education for everyone by making it more accessible.

The second activity based on the recommendation of Ahrash Bissell on the fact that CC-BY is the best license. It helped me analyze further more on the attributes which will be derived from this specific license. It is true that the more restrictive a CC license is, the more the OER will be affected in terms of its usability. An OER should be accessible by most means and restrictions derived from some CC licenses may not produce results which we are expecting as the promoters of free education worldwide. In this way, keeping it simple with a CC-BY license will surely serve the main purpose of our posting which is to educate freely. The next activity allowed me to reflect on the sharing of materials under the license CC-BY permits the author of the resource to allow sharing without the ‘share-alike’ restriction. Thus, someone may use this resource by adapting it to specific situations and share it again with a view to promote effective teaching and learning. In this sense, sharing through CC-BY licenses leads to greater freedoms and greater possibilities to enhance learning.

The video from Chris Betcher presented Creative Commons license as being an alternative to copyright. Copyright assumes you cannot use anything until you get permission whereas Creative Commons  allows you using it under permissions. I agree to the fact that things we do now will build the next generation and that if nowadays, we have the tendency to ‘illegally use’ copyrighted materials because of the imposed restrictions, the next generation will do same, assuming that it is the normal way of doing it. The debate on whether to include NC or not in the licenses has been a very sensitive issue. I personally think that for education to be free, NC should not be included on the licenses of OERs. Finally, the initiative of the OER University to provide free learning opportunities to post secondary students worldwide using OER courses is according to me a very good initiative. This will give students the opportunity to get to know this modern system of learning and enjoy all the benefits associated with it.

 
This online workshop has helped me a lot in discovering the field of protection of works which formerly was not of great interest to me. I was using online materials without bothering about the restrictions as long as this was not for commercial use. However, I have learned a lot through this workshop, and I can say that Creative Common licenses will help me a lot to publish my future OER which I aim to implement in my way of teaching.