CUNY Academic Commons

Thank you both for feedback on this.

Also, it's worth noting that it currently isn't possible to have the site license set to nothing, so some work would need to be done there.

Yes, and this is what prompted the ticket in the first place. I think now that we are beginning to see sites tagged as OER, we should offer more control and granularity in how the CC licenses are applied on sites. The original use case for this is Raffi's site - on which he has created an OER but does not want to license the whole site as open.

If "Inherit" is also an issue because we do not want the site to even have a sitewide license, then a "Not set" option would be better. Maybe the "Inherit" label is used if the site has set a site license and the "Not set" label is used when the site has not set a site license under the "Settings > Writing" admin dashboard page or during site creation.

I think an both an "inherit" option and "not set" option would be helpful but also somehow adding the a way to have a page with no license at all (perhaps accomplished through the not set option).

All of this is to say that yes, I agree with Boone that we likely need to have a longer discussion about how to refine the CC licensing in the Fall. I think getting librarians feedback would be helpful too. But first we may want to have a team convo to outline our goals for how the CC features will function on the commons.

Hi Sara & All,

Following up on this after the dev call on Tuesday.

I am sending along a few examples of how creative Commons Licenses display on Commons sites. Please correct me if any of explanations are incorrect or confusing.

By default, a CC license is displayed on every page/post on every site. If the admin uses the CC widget to put a license in the sidebar or footer, this becomes the site-wise license and then the CC is not displayed on every page/post.

Examples of pages with CC licenses

1.  https://khatchad.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

This site is actually one of the sites that re-started this conversation about the CCLicense. This prof has an oer on his site (linked in next bullet) but does not want the whole site to be open (i.e. putting the license in footer. So now, by default because not in footer every page has a CC license after the content body. Not ideal. We also dont have a way for authors to have a more restrictive license for use on content like their own writing or resume.

https://khatchad.commons.gc.cuny.edu/teaching/csci-40500-77100-software-engineering-sp-21/2.

2. https://iletc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Another example where it would make sense for some pages to have CC while others do not or are restricted from re-use. This is a center's site with center and event information but also a ton of open resources ("Materials" in menu). You will see that every page has the CC after the content that reads "This entry...." meaning that single page has xyz license type.

Examples of CC License in Footer

1. https://tlc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

2. https://psy327f22.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
On this site the CC is in the footer areas, even though it does look like it is in the page. You'll notice though that in posts, there is no "this entry..." language after the content because the CC license defaults to the footer widget.

When revisiting this functionality, we might consider three issues:

1. More signalling and education around how all Commons content will be CC or better yet (IMO)  revisiting this option and NOT assigning CC  immediately, but instead allowing users to select into applying CC to their site.

2. On sites where only some of the content is open, Admins should have a way to create pages that do not have to be under the CC license. For example, writing samples, CVs, and students' work (if they don't want to openly license it). This could mean turning the CC "off" or hiding it for the page.

3. Relatedly, users should have access to more restrictive licenses or tagging options. This resolves #2 and also provides a way to communicate that this  content is not open.

Hi All,

Circling back to this.

I think it might be best if the default CC license is no CC license:

- No widget in sidebar or footer by default
- No CC license on pages/posts by default

If default is no CC:

- Users could select to put the widget in the footer or sidebar to indicate that all content on the site, unless otherwise noted, is CC licensed.

- User could select the CC license on just a single page or post (similar to how they do now) when editing the page or post.

Is this above plan possible? What issues does it raise if our new default is no CC license?

Some questions/thoughts:

- What happens to already created sites, pages, posts? I would suggest we leave everything as is and this default is for all new sites.

- (How) should the CC license interact with the OER tag? If possible, perhaps we can add a notification that is triggered if someone selects the OER tag but no CC licenses are present on the site. The user would be able to select the PER tag but the notification (appearing as a dashboard banner) might say something like, "we noticed that you have tagged your site as an OER but no CC license is present. Please CC license the open content, or the whole site in Settings>General. To learn more about open licensing visit our documentation [here/link].

Are there other considerations/issues that we should consider?

I wanted to note on the main ticket here that I just started ticket #17101 as a subtask to address the OER tag and CC license notification system Laurie proposes above.

I also started #17102 to go over how the universal footer's CC information will need to change (or be omitted) to reduce conflicts/confusion as we change our default to no CC license at all and leave the choice to add this licensing to users either during creation or later on.

We discussed during our last meeting changing the creation flow License section to say something like:

"By default, you reserve all rights to your content, subject to the Commons Terms of Service [ToS link].

You can click below to add an open Creative Commons license to your work. You can also do this later in your settings.

Add license (button starts license walkthrough and adds sidebar)

(Click here [new documentation link, outlined in #17102] for more about open licensing and full ownership of your Commons content."

I also agree that we leave the licensing as-is on everything existing now, but we could link to this new CC documentation page in Settings>Writing where the license can be changed. I think we also need the ability to remove CC licensing entirely in that popup dialog, correct?

The new documentation page should also cover how to use different licensing on different pages or posts of a site, as Laurie mentions.

We discussed during our last meeting changing the creation flow License section to say something like:

"By default, you reserve all rights to your content, subject to the Commons Terms of Service [ToS link].

You can click below to add an open Creative Commons license to your work. You can also do this later in your settings.

Add license (button starts license walkthrough and adds sidebar)

(Click here [new documentation link, outlined in #17102] for more about open licensing and full ownership of your Commons content."

For the most part this sounds good to me. I would lean towards changing the language to be a bit more accessible, something like:

By default, you retain all rights to your content, subject to the Commons Terms of Service [ToS link]. This is different from other web platforms that retain all rights.
If you would like to openly license your content so that others can reuse and remix your content, can select Creative Commons license for your site below. You can also do this later in your settings. For more information about Creative Commons open licensing and your ownership of your content see here": [new CC documentation link, outlined in #17102] To read more about the Commons' committment to open education see here [link to oer section].

-- Add license (button starts license walk-through and adds sidebar)--

I also agree that we leave the licensing as-is on everything existing now, but we could link to this new CC documentation page in Settings>Writing where the license can be changed. I think we also need the ability to remove CC licensing entirely in that popup dialog, correct?

Yes current licenses will stay as is, perhaps we add a link to new documentation in dhasboard with CC selector. And yes we'll need some process and option to remove the CC that is akready applied.

The new documentation page should also cover how to use different licensing on different pages or posts of a site, as Laurie mentions.

There are several different documentation pages I need to write. I will comb through current ticket and start a new ticket that lists all these new pages that need to be created.

Thanks for your help planning the documentation, Laurie. The changes to the language sound good to me. We'll just want to make sure it doesn't seem too daunting during the creation flow. Once we finish the copy review in #17090, I'll get all of the new text to Ray for #16960 and we can see how it's looking.

Hi Laurie,

The Creative Commons changes on cdev are not going to make the next v2.1.0 release. What you see on cdev is just for testing purposes. With that being said, I've updated the License description on the "Create A Site" page to match your copy on cdev.

Thanks Ray. Apologies for my confusion.

Ray, is there anything here that needs to be reverted or rolled back before the 2.1.0 release?

Ray, is there anything here that needs to be reverted or rolled back before the 2.1.0 release?

No, I didn't commit anything under 2.1.x branch; everything is self-contained for testing on cdev. Will commit at a later date when we've finalized what we want to do.

Perfect, thanks!

Hoping to consolidate where we are here on the different Creative Commons issues and find a way forward. Does this seem accurate to others, especially you Laurie?

- For this ticket's first subtask #17101 we need to settle on the language and prompts we want in place when a user is choosing OER and CC designations in different parts of the admin.

- For the second subtask #17102 we need to complete the copy in the Google Doc linked below. It is for a new Creative Commons documentation link in the footer, so we can be more nuanced than just linking to a CC license.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V35mrEZZOzMxWkZF2vytVNuHN5lS4dEgeXnOfIJB4TM/edit

- We need to work on the new ticket #20782 about the Terms of Service, Mission, and Privacy Policy updates so we can roll this all out as a coordinated whole given the overlap on licensing etc.

- There is a connection with #18995 about deleting an account, which Boone said recently he is going to look into updating. We'll want to say something, either in the delete flow or the Creative Commons language or both, about how a group or site can be deleted, but if it was available under a CC license they can remove the content but cannot revoke the license or how the content was used previously.