License info for images - metadata

Posted by karen on June 20, 2008 in Uncategorized

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to record information about an image’s license, attribution, etc. In the past, I have used not-very-efficient techniques such as recording this info separately in a text file and sometimes trying to include it in the file name.

A friend recently recommended storing this in the Properties Summary. (Right-click an image; choose properties; click Summary tab and Simple.) What a simple and useful idea. I am going to start recording the following (slightly modified from CC suggestions; see below):

  • License: [include license and license URL]
  • Attribution URL:
  • Attribution name:

Here’s an example. (You can download it to view the properties.)

That reminded me that I’d heard that Creative Commons suggests a standard for metadata. They suggest something called XMP — Extensible Metadata Platform. In reading more about this, it appears that you need special tools, both to create and to read this. (I’m not entirely clear on this though; I spent almost an hour looking for an example image and couldn’t find one. If anyone knows of one, please post a link.) Possibly not very feasible for the “mass” audience. The good news is that doing this makes content machine-searchable as open content.

For now, I think I’m going to stick with using properties for this.

What other ideas do you have?

Tags: oer | metadata | licensing | images | photos | clip art

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What is most important about OER?

Posted by karen on June 12, 2008 in Uncategorized

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I am facilitating a series of hands-on workshops to help educators to learn about the value of OER. What topics do you think are most important to spread this movement? Licensing issues? Available resources? Wiki editing skills? Open source tools?

Tags: oer | licensing | wikis
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When share alike doesn’t work

Posted by karen on April 29, 2008 in Uncategorized

In discussing licensing options for open education items, I suggest that the CC BY license is in many ways the most open license. While share alike sounds like a great option, because it prompts sharing down the road, it is sometimes overly restrictive. It’s not always easy to envision how this might the case, so here is an example.

I am working with a school district to create a series of movies that highlight vocabulary and essential questions in their social studies curriculum. The essential questions come from their textbook, and the publisher has given permission to include these in the movies. Because this material is copyrighted, however, we cannot “share” the movies we are creating beyond this district (or others to whom the publisher has extended permission). As such, we can’t include any share alike images. This eliminates a lot of great material.

Tags: oer | licensing | creative commons | semantic web | share alike
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