The Creative Commons Global Network (CCGN) is a passionate community that lights up our vibrant, collaborative, global commons. The CC Network is also critical to our mission of sharing. To support CC Network members, we launched a scholarship program for CC Certificate courses. 

Today, we are proud to highlight our first 10 CC Certificate Scholarship recipients. The CC Certificate provides an-in depth study of Creative Commons licenses and open practices, uniquely developing participants’ open licensing proficiency and understanding of the broader context for open advocacy.

After launching the official CC Certificate courses in July of 2018, we offered 18 scholarships a year later. We’re thrilled to enroll our first scholarship recipients in the September 2019 and January 2020 classes! They join the ranks of 507 other participants from 42 countries or territories who have enrolled in  CC Certificate courses. These initial scholarships are just the start. We aim to increase the number of scholarships we offer by 50% next year, and further increase the number in subsequent years. 

Although we will share more about our scholarship recipients on the CC Certificate website in the coming weeks, we are delighted to name them here:

September 2019 courses:
Alice Joseph Mihayo
Brian Ssennoga
Fitriayu Penyalai
Margaret Lopez

January 2020 courses:
Juliana Monteiro
Margorie Merel
Jorge Gemetto
Nurunnaby Chowdhury
Raphel Berchie
Roshan Kumar Karn

How does the scholarship program work?

It’s simple. Creative Commons offers as many scholarship tickets as we can to CC Network Chapters. As leaders in the field with regular connection to local community members, Chapter leads and representatives determine the recommended scholarship recipients. They send scholarship recommendations and contact information to CC, and we help recipients register in the Librarian or Educator Certificate courses. 

The Scholarship program covers 80% of the recipient’s ticket, requiring scholarship recipients to contribute the remaining US $100. 

In this initial round, we’ve prioritized scholarships for CC network members in Global South countries who want to use Certificate knowledge to fuel their own community efforts and “pay it forward” to their communities. Once we are able to offer all interested CC Country Chapters in the Global South at least one scholarship, we will provide scholarships to other CC Country Teams until, one day, we’ll have at least one community member trained in every interested CC Network country.

The post Meet Our First CC Certificate Scholarship Recipients! appeared first on Creative Commons.

From June—August 2019, Creative Commons hosted eight CC Certificate classes for Academic Librarians and Educators. Participants in the classes studied Creative Commons licenses, copyright, the public domain, and open practices. Certificate students developed open licensing proficiency and deepened their understanding of the broader context for open advocacy. See examples of the assignments participants shared under CC licenses here!

Graduates from these classes included 67 educators and 90 librarians. Together, they joined the Certificate alumni community of 442 remarkable people making extraordinary changes in every region of the world. From translating Certificate content in multiple languages, to hosting workshops to developing entire graduate-level courses, CC Certificate alumni bring a new level of advocacy to open education and open access.

#MondayMotivation my @creativecommons certification came in! Still super proud of the work I accomplished and the knowledge I gained to move forward in my librarianship. #LibraryTwitter pic.twitter.com/DmFCrcTXcp

— Elizabeth Beaver Batte (@beaverbatte) September 9, 2019

Image: Elizabeth Batte tweeted her Certificate graduating from the June 2019 class. She will join Jeanne Pavy, another June Certificate graduate, and present how they plan to use gained knowledge on campus, and the impact of CC licenses in higher education at the 2019 LOUIS User Conference on October 15.

The 2nd #Creatives #Commons Algeria Chapter meeting was held this morning at the University of Bejaia. I’ve given a session titled: what is Creative Commons? @algeria_cc @creativecommons pic.twitter.com/OelHf0o6q8

— Kamel Belhamel (@kamelbelhamel) September 24, 2019

Image: Certificate alumnus, Kamel Belhamel, puts his CC knowledge to great use at the University of Bejaia, in Algeria. View his slides and the 2nd CC Algeria Chapter meeting notes.

Here’s what our alumni are saying:

• 72% use the knowledge they gained from the course at least weekly
• 86% use the knowledge they gained from the course at least quarterly
• 62% are consulted by colleagues as an open licensing expert since graduation

Interested in taking the CC Certificate? Don’t miss out—we are now accepting new registrations for our 2020 courses!

The post Congratulations to Our 157 June CC Certificate Graduates! appeared first on Creative Commons.

Over the last several months, Creative Commons has collaborated with the American Library Association (ALA) on the first-ever print complement to the CC Certificate program—and we are thrilled to announce that the book will be available in November!  

The CC Certificate program is Creative Commons’ official training in open licensing. It targets copyright law, CC legal tools, and the recommended practices of working in our global, shared commons. The CC Certificate is currently offered as a 10-week online course, or as a 1-week in-person training (bootcamp) to educators and academic librarians.

After training hundreds of academics, technologists, lawyers, instructional designers, and non-government organizations, we’ve received many requests to make the Certificate accessible to more people. Addressing that demand, we:

• Implemented a training program for facilitators, so we can host more classes at once;
• Launched a scholarship program to make the Certificate program more affordable to colleagues in the Global South; 
• Collaborated with colleagues around the world on translations in multiple languages as well as Certificates for different audiences (ex: GLAM); 
• Posted all of our course content freely accessible in downloadable file formats online; 

And now, we’ve collaborated with the American Library Association to create the print companion to our online course! Titled Creative Commons for Educators and Librarians, this publication is licensed CC BY, and offers an additional way to access the open-licensed Certificate content. Pre-order this book in print at the ALA bookstore, ahead of its official release in November 2019. 

Learn more about the CC Certificate course here.

The post Book Preview: “Creative Commons for Educators and Librarians” appeared first on Creative Commons.

This month, I’ll mark five years as CEO at Creative Commons. That makes me the longest-serving CEO in the organization’s history, and it’s also the longest I’ve served with the same job title. Every day I get to work with some of the brightest, most dedicated staff and community members in the open movement. Anniversaries are a good time to reflect, and as we all arrive home from our annual CC Summit in Lisbon, I wanted to share a few reflections on where we’ve come from, and where we’re headed.

TL;DR – In the last five years we’ve rebuilt CC from the ground up, with a more solid financial foundation; a revitalized multi-year strategy and plan to focus on a vibrant, usable commons powered by collaboration and gratitude; and a renewed and growing network. We’ve developed and launched new projects and programs like CC Search and the CC Certificate program, and through it all, played a vital role in defending, advancing, and stewarding the commons.

We produced this video, entitled “Remix,” not long after I started at CC to share our new strategy.

Some key facts. In the last five years, we’ve:

• Articulated a new vision for CC, with a 5-year strategy to bring it to life, that focuses on a “vibrant, usable commons, powered by collaboration and gratitude”
• Developed and launched CC Search, now indexing over 300M images, working closely with partners like the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum, and Flickr
• Redesigned the entire Creative Commons Global Network from the ground up, from codes of conduct to community prioritization and collaboration, with a goal of being more open, accountable, and community-led. The new network is nearly 3x larger than the previous affiliate community.
• Established “The Big Open,” a platform to acknowledge the interconnected nature of the many communities we work in, including Mozillians, Wikipedians, Open Education, Open Science and academia, Open Government, and Open Data
• Co-created the CC Certificate with community experts and advisors, and certified over 250 people from all over the world to be practitioners and advocates
• Authored the State of the Commons report, published every year since 2015 to demonstrate the size and reach of the Commons online, today at over 1.4B works (with the next report out in mere days)  
• Hosted the largest and broad-reaching community-led CC Summits ever, in Seoul, Toronto, Toronto (again), and Lisbon
• Raised over $26M from foundations, corporations, thousands of individual donors, and dedicated event sponsors, to support our work and community around the world
• Worked with institutions around the world to help expand and protect the commons, from the New York Met, to Flickr, to Medium, to MIT’s edX platform. In each case, we’ve been there to teach, advise, support, and advocate on behalf of CC users, open knowledge, and shared creativity
• Built a more diverse team at Creative Commons, with a majority of both leadership and staff who are women, and a global staff that better represent the communities and cultures we serve, and the geographies in which we work

The all-new CC Search

We’ve had some difficult moments too. In 2015, CC was forced to make a round of difficult layoffs in order to stabilize our budget and program. We recovered, but those kinds of changes are painful for everyone. In 2017, we learned that CC community member and friend Bassel Khartabil had been murdered by the regime in Syria. Many of us joined together with his family and friends to create a fellowship in his name, and I’m proud to see that Majd Al-Shahibi will speak at this year’s summit as the inaugural Bassel Khartabil Fellowship recipient.

This can be a lonely and unforgiving job. People treat you like a character — like the Office of the CEO — not like a person who has feelings, hopes, and doubts. And no doubt I have made mistakes. Like many in a role like this, I constantly replay how things worked out, and wonder how I might have done them differently in a different context. I think it’s normal for leaders to do that, and I’d worry about anyone who says they regret nothing, or would never change a past decision. Most of the leaders I admire obsess about doing the right thing, both before and after the fact, but also recognize that we almost always have to do something — hopefully the right thing, or at least the best thing for the moment we’re in, with the information we have. Still, within these difficult moments lies the knowledge that everything we do moves us towards a more equitable world.

None of this work would be possible without the team of talented humans who make up the CC team. I am full of gratitude for their daily energy, excellence, and commitment to the work we do. CC is also quite fortunate to have a strong Board of Directors who have provided mentorship, advice and counsel, and helpful criticism and support. I especially want to acknowledge our former board chair Paul Brest, whose board term ended last year, and who taught me a great deal about leadership, management, and strategic planning (and logic models). Finally, I want to thank my wife Kelsey, who was an active leader in the CC movement long before I came along, and who continues to support my work as an advisor and partner.

Creative Commons Global Summit by Sebastiaan ter Burg.

What’s next?

Creative Commons’ 20th anniversary is just around the corner (Jan 15, 2021), and it deserves a celebration worthy of the organization’s reach and impact. We’ve already started planning, and we hope to create a celebration that looks as far forward as it does back.

CC Search is taking off, and we’ll soon be adding more content types like open textbooks and audio. We’re also working on enhanced search tools that will enable new types of discovery and re-use.

The CC Certificate continues to grow and sell out with each cohort. We’ll be opening up a round of scholarships to improve accessibility for anyone who wants to take the course (though all the content is also CC BY, allowing anyone to read, copy, and remix it). We’re also expanding the content to serve additional communities, like the GLAM sector.

And this year, for the first time in CC’s history, the Global Network will lead and govern itself, set priorities and drive community growth and development. That’s a profound change, and a collaborative result that I’m  certain will have an incredible impact.

There’s so much more to do, so many important ways we can help. “Pick big fights with your enemies, not small fights with your friends,” has been a favorite phrase of mine, and today there remain so many vital fights to have on behalf of shared knowledge and free culture. And CC has so many good friends to fight them with. I’m deeply grateful for those collaborations.

I look forward to doing this work for many years to come, with all of you in The Big Open.

The post Looking forward and back: Five years at Creative Commons appeared first on Creative Commons.

From January to April 2019, Creative Commons hosted three CC Certificate courses and a Facilitators course to train the next cohort of Certificate instructors. Participants from Australia, Qatar, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia, Canada, Argentina, United Kingdom, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Denmark, New Zealand, Sweden, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and United States engaged in rigorous readings, assignments, discussions and quizzes. See examples of the participants’ assignments they’ve publicly shared under CC licenses. With these courses now complete, we are thrilled to announce 62 new CC Certificate graduates and 7 new CC Certificate facilitators!

Interested in taking the CC Certificate?  We are now accepting new registrations for our June and September courses.

There is nothing more gratifying than following your passion. Thank you @creativecommons for offering a course for educators. I encourage other educators to learn more about #openlicensing #cccert pic.twitter.com/uMhtA9TCwV

— Cathy Germano (@cjgermano) March 31, 2019

The CC Certificate provides an in-depth study of Creative Commons licenses and open practices, uniquely developing participants’ open licensing proficiency and understanding of the broader context for open advocacy. The training content targets copyright law, CC legal tools, as well as the values and good practices of working in the global, shared commons.

u know, I’m more delighted w getting the #cccert not for the knowledge or community (cool tho they were/are) but for the experience of taking a course that was different and where facilitators exhibited a real and meaningful flexibility with assignments + listened to feedback pic.twitter.com/wFxHjy7GdW

— ℳąhą Bąℓi, PhD مها بالي (@Bali_Maha) April 2, 2019

The CC Certificate is currently offered as a 10-week online course to educators and academic librarians. In late 2019 / 2020, Creative Commons will expand Certificate offerings to include 1-week boot camps, additional facilitator trainings, scholarships, and translations of the Certificate into multiple languages.

Just received my #cccert! Thank you for a great online course @cgreen and @creativecommons! Learned a lot! Ready now to spread the love @KAU, the rest of Sweden and wherever needed and wanted! #ONL191 #OER #OpenEducation #openaccess #LastNightInSweden pic.twitter.com/LxgUNYhRR3

— Jörg Pareigis (@joergelp) April 1, 2019

Congratulations to our 62 new Certificate and 7 facilitator graduates; we are filled with gratitude for their amazing work. Now… let’s go change the world!

The post Congratulations to the new 62 CC Certificate Graduates and 7 Facilitators! appeared first on Creative Commons.