The mEducator project as a Digital Library of Open Educational Resources

The mEducator project as a Digital Library
of Open Educational Resources

Dionysia Kallinikou
Associate Professor of Law at Athens Law School, University of Athens

&
Marinos Papadopoulos
Attorney-at-Law J.D., M.Sc., Legal Lead Creative Commons Greece

Dionysia Kallinikou, Marinos Papadopoulos | URL: www.marinos.com.gr

Mallorca, September 27-29, 2009

The mEducator project develops into a digital library
of health educational material.
It is an integrator of information management
systems, that consists of important elements such as
data and metadata, human contribution (creators,
users, managers), IT infrastructures (computers,
networks, software) which are all orchestrated with the
aim to organize, manage, and make available, i.e.
open access to, knowledge in the health educational
resources and information to mEducator-users.
Instead of “owning” a publication, the mEducator
could “lease” it under a license agreement.



The mEducator focus as a Digital Library
The mEducator’s focus is not the quest how it will
digitize materials, store them and make them available
but rather the quest how it will manage the rights upon
the materials along with the materials.



Copyrights in the mEducator
It includes in its contents copyrighted works as well as
works under no copyright such as works in the public
domain. Included works can be delivered in any
medium and format.
It could contain many different copyrights, e.g. a
textual article or e-book are protected as literary works,
photographs as artistic works, etc.
Its website could also be subjected to different
copyrights.



Jurisdiction & Copyright Law of the mEducator
managing partner
Liability for Copyright issues considers the Greek law
to which AUTH, mEducator’s managing partner, is
subject.
Greek Copyright Law 2121/1993.



Copyright Law and Digital Rights
Directive 2001/29/EC.
Right for reproduction of copyrighted material.
Right to distribute and the rental & lending right.
Right to communicate the work to the public.



Reproduction of copyrighted material
A user and/or mEducator are not allowed to
reproduce or communicate copyrighted material
unless permission is granted by the intellectual property
right-holder.
Unauthorized reproduction of such material leads to
civil liability in the form of damages and criminal
responsibility remedied through fines or potential
imprisonment.
Permission for exercising the right for reproduction of
copyrighted material must be granted in writing
otherwise it is null and void.



Right to distribute & the rental and lending right
It is a sine-qua-non requirement for the operation of
any digital library, including mEducator.
It was not until Directives 2001/29/EC and
100/1992/EEC, the latter as it was codified with Directive
2006/115/EC, that the need for harmonization of
legislation in the EC market was stressed.
The Greek legislation does not make full use of
Directive 100/1992/EEC for the public lending right.



Right to communicate the work to the public
The copyright holder has the exclusive right to
communicate the protected work to the public.
To ensure unobtrusive access to collected cultural
and educational materials, provisions should be
enacted in the Greek Copyright Law, which will allow
depository institutions to enable unobtrusive access to
works by giving them the rights of public lending online,
digital disposition, and creation of multiple copies, in a
way that caters for both the author’s copyright as well
as a user’s right to access information and cultural and
educational works.



Open Access & Openness in the mEducator
Open Access means the free availability of literature
and works of authorship, audiovisual works etc on the
public Internet, permitting any users to read, download,
copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of
these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as
data to software, or use them for any other lawful
purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers
other than those inseparable from gaining access to
the Internet itself.
Only constraint to Open Access: give authors control
over the integrity of their work and the right to be
properly acknowledged and cited.



The Creative Commons licenses in the mEducator
CC licenses are the most notable tools in the arsenal
of legal means seen as implementation resources for
pushing ahead the agenda of Openness and Open
Educational Resources.
License out and allow for the distribution of the
author’s material on the basis of protocols designed to
enhance reusability and build out the information
commons.
The conditional use of educational resources
available in an information commons is a distinctive
characteristic of Open Educational Resources.



Functionality of Creative Commons licenses in
mEducator
A recommended functionality would be to adopt a
list of very few standard copyright policies based on the
differentiation of the six Creative Commons licenses.
The differentiation of the six Creative Commons
licenses is based on the combination of four elements,
the so called Creative Commons License Conditions.



The Creative Commons License Conditions

Attribution
Share-Alike
Non-Commercial
No Derivatives



Questions for CC-based moduling of content in
mEducator
Would you allow commercial use of your work?
YES
NO
Would you allow the creation of derivative works from
your work?
YES
YES, provided that derivative works are licensed
under a Share-Alike license
NO



Option 1 for CC-licensing based on CC-moduling
YES
your work?
YES

Creative Commons Attribution v.3.0. license



YES
your work?

Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike
v.3.0. license



YES
your work?
NO

Creative Commons Attribution, No-Derivatives
v.3.0. license



NO
your work?
YES

Creative Commons Attribution, NonCommercial v.3.0. license



NO
your work?

Creative Commons Attribution, NonCommercial, Share-Alike v.3.0. license



NO
your work?
NO

Creative Commons Attribution, NonCommercial, No-Derivatives v.3.0. license



Integrate CC applications to mEducator
Moduling through the mEducator’s site could
associate with the selection process of the proper
Creative Commons license through Creative
Commons’ site, thus enabling smooth content-licensing
as well as understanding the meaning and use of said
licenses.
Most local jurisdictions have developed similar sites
that provide clear and detailed information upon the
licenses in the official languages of said jurisdictions. All
local jurisdiction sites have integrated their application
with the Creative Commons site in the U.S. through
which licensing is achieved.



The problem of incompatibility of Copyright Laws
The problem: incompatibility in legal framework
stemming from differences in Copyright Laws in various
jurisdictions.
The solution: Creative Commons licenses may provide
the legal sameness for Open Educational Resources.



Methods to overcome Copyright problems
Identifying the copyright holder and seeking

permission to re-license the materials using a
compatible Creative Commons license.

Finding replacement materials already carrying a
compatible Creative Commons license or that are in
the public domain.
Creating replacement materials, and then licensing
them with a compatible Creative Commons license.
Deleting or obscuring the incompatible materials,
thereby eliminating the issue.



Basic actions to promote the CC-licensing solution
License adoption as high-level policy.
License as default.
License in the footsteps of an Opinion Leader.
Get licensing in the classrooms.



of Open Educational Resources

Thank you!
The presentation is available through the Bulletin Βoard of the
URL: www.marinos.com.gr
as well as through the mEducator project’s site.



The mEducator project as a Digital Library of Open Educational Resources

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