Unless noted otherwise
Facilitating a Digital Commons
for Generations to Come
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems Department
College of Business, San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
sverma@sfsu.edu
Presentation at the Ministry of Education
Government of Jamaica
http://www.moe.gov.jm/

me

also me
Institutional Academic Partner
Centre of Excellence
Mona School of Business
University of the West Indies
Jamaica
http://coe-msb.org/about

Teach
technology -> networks, databases, media
enables -> licensing and collaboration
use -> strategy, compliance, governance

Research
diffusion and adoption of innovative
technologies
how perception drives adoption

Service
The Commons Initiative at San Francisco
State University
http://commons.sfsu.edu

Fun
take things apart!
...and sometimes put them back together :-)

Resources

Makes sharing easy,
legal and scalable

Creative Commons Knowledge and
Culture
HTTP/The Web Documents
TCP/IP The Network
Ethernet Computers

Getting permission
Copyright holder
Get permission from copyright holder

Can we preempt
the asking of
permission for the
most common
requests?

A simple, standardized
way to grant copyright
permissions to your
creative work.

Copyright is based on the law of the land.
Creative Commons is a license within the
jurisdiction of the Copyright Law.
Creative Commons does not replace Copyright.
It facilitates attribution, propagation and use.

Step 1: Choose Conditions
Attribution Share Alike
Non-Commercial No Derivative Works

Step 2: Receive a License

CC Licenses are built on
top of copyright law

Human
Readable
Deed

Lawyer
Readable
Legal Code

Machine
Readable
Metadata

100+ affiliates in 72 jurisdictions

Over 400 million items

200+ Million CC Licensed Photos on Flickr

http://wikipedia.org

Education grants

“All digital software, educational resources and knowledge
produced through competitive grants, offered through
and/or managed by the SBCTC, will carry a Creative
Commons attribution license; and the open licensing
policy applies to all funding sources (state, federal,
foundation and/or other fund sources) that flow through
SBCTC as a competitive grant to any party...”

“Open High School of Utah curriculum is built
from open educational resources. These resources are the
foundation for their content and are aligned with Utah state
standards to ensure the highest quality educational
experience. The teachers enhance with screencasts,
interactive components, and engaging activities to
create high quality curricula for their students...”

Creative Commons creates a framework
that helps OER projects
achieve their objectives

Resources Curation

OLPC Jamaica
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm

Jamaica
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/

August Town Primary School
http://olpcMAP.net?id=813006

Providence Basic School, Liguanea http://olpcMAP.net?id=810009

Problem:
Curate and organize
Books
Music
Video
Audio
Animation
Catalog

Pathagar: A Book Server
Open Publication Distribution System
Pathagar : Path + Agar
पाठागार : पाठ + आगार
A Practical Hindi-English Dictionary http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/caturvedi/

OPDS: Open Publication and
Distribution System
http://code.google.com/p/openpub

The Internet Archive is an
incredible collection of over 3
million free books!
It has gems such as this film:
Jamaica in 1933

Resources Curation Dissemination

Internet Access
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Penetration.png

http://www.internetworldstats.com/car/jm.htm

How do we make
books available in
the middle of
nowhere?

Dreamplug
A self-contained low-power Linux server
AC Built-in
Solar Wi-Fi
Battery Hotspot
A “microcloud”
Approx. US$100

Middle of nowhere

Resources Curation Dissemination

Most importantly,
keep it open and accessible
for the generations to come.