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Virtual communities and licensing

Virtual communities and licensing. Mediamaisteri Group PL 82 (Pyynikintie 25) 33101 Tampere Finland mediamaisteri.com. SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN. General overview of virtual communities.

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Virtual communities and licensing

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  1. Virtual communities and licensing Mediamaisteri Group PL 82 (Pyynikintie 25) 33101 Tampere Finland mediamaisteri.com SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  2. General overview of virtual communities • A virtual community may support someorganization that wants to make its existing traditionaloperation more effective • Some web communities operateonly relating to a certain topic or objective • Many web-based virtual communities arebecoming more and more professional • When developers and users see that they will get more from the virtual community than they give, the community starts to expand rapidly • The role of the main developer or developer team is vital SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  3. General overview of virtual communities • It is very difficult to get virtual community developing only by thinking resources and financial aspects of the work • Virtual community grows from the genuine need to work for the community Has to fit to the individual objectives! • In time members of the community will find resources that they can use to the benefit of the virtual community and also benefit from that  Win-to-win situation SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  4. General overview of virtual communities • Input to the virtual community can be described as an investment to the future • Product selling and services linked to the community work • substantial benefits f.ex. by saving money in yearly license fees • getting learning content for the organizational use • Virtual community is challenging to start but the impact can be global in content or software production areas SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  5. Technical perspectives • Virtual Community can use different technology models • Protocols can be http, https etc.  Usually normal web standards (client/server) • Content creation standard usually in learning html, xhtml, xml  SCORM • Learning object is based on idea of how virtual community shares content • Video, sound, animation, excesise standards (IMS QTI, GIFT etc.) SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  6. Content perspectives • Requirement for the community to live and prosper = Enough valuable content motivatingthe participation • Community members and supporters shouldencouraged to submit content into the portal • There may be a barrier to submitting content that has been expensive to produce to the community • Institutes and organizations work with very different business models  government funding vs. comercial training SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  7. Content perspectives • Those who submit content into the databasemust accept the following terms: • The name of the author is recorded in thedatabase, but also other users have right to use and modify theobject • Modified content can be imported into the systemwith reference to the original document as the basis of their content • A new version of the content can be uploaded into the system by the original author, successor or validators and chief editors • Users can translate existing learning objects to their own language and import the translations into the system SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  8. Licensing models in general • Open Source Software products are licensed, not sold • Traditionally software companies have developed software in-houseand used end user license agreements  Limited rights to use the software for specificpurposes • Usually, source code is not shared anddistribution is restricted • In academic circlessoftware has been for a long time developed with theprinciples of open source code and free distribution • Licensing models can be divided to a) Technical licensing models b) Content licensing models SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  9. Technical licensing models 1) Commercial licensing 2) Double licensing 3) OS -licensing SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  10. Content licensing models 1) Commercial licensing 2) Separately agreed use 3) OS -licensing  Creative commons • Offer some of your rights to any taker, and only on certain conditions • Possible to match conditions from the different options • Attribution • Noncommercial • No Derivative Works • Share Alike (www.creativecommons.org) SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  11. Creative commons (Open content) • Open community operates by utilizing open principles • Virtual communities develop certain content or software involves co-operation and is based on idea of releasing all work to be utilized by anyone interested • Only rule is that you have to share you work also back to the virtual community • Every community has a responsible developer group that decides which completed contents or software are released in community • The actual release occurs under a license (GPL/GNU), which enables free use and further development of products SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  12. Creative commons (Open content) • One example of the software released under GNU/GPL is Linux operating system • In scope of eLearning similar open communities are for example Moodle (http://moodle.org) and FLE (http://fle3.uiah.fi/) • Worldwide there are tens of similar virtual communities in eLearning • Also the communities specialized in open content are starting to work under comparable licenses (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL) SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  13. Discussion • Why is licensing important for the virtual communities? • What kind of experiences do you have of using different licensing models? SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

  14. Sources • Bäck, A. & Väliharju, T. Creating an e-Learning Content Community for Graphic and Media Communication Technologies. 2004. • Lee, Fion S.L.; Vodel, Douglas; Limayem, Moez; Virtual Community Informatics: A Review and Research Agenda. Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application (JITTA), 2003, 5, 1, pp. 47-61. • Välimäki, M. & Oksanen, V. Evaluation of Open Source Licencing models for a Company Developing Mass Market Software. 2002. SELEAC 2003-4715 /001-001 EDU-ELEARN

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