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Open teaching materials in the Netherlands
Hello,

Maybe this is interesting for Wikimedians too, certainly for Wikibookians.
The Dutch ministry of education is going to set up "Wikiwijs", a project to
develop provide open and free school books or teaching materials to Dutch
schools. In the elections the parties promised to abolish parents' payments
for school books, and now the government has to cope with the costs.

On a seminar in Amersfoort at Friday it became obvious that many questions
are still unanswered. Wikiwijs is intended to be a platform for
collaboratively developping teachings materials, but also link to already
existing materials (also commercial ones). Although a letter of the minister
to the parliament said that only teachers will be able to edit on Wikiwijs,
now this remains to be discussed.

Kennisnet (a government foundation known to Wikimedians because it supported
Wikipedia with technological help) and the Open University are commissioned
to create Wikiwijs. The man from the Open University admitted that Wikiwijs
will not work like a wiki, and Marjon Bakker from Wikimedia Nederland asked
him why the name is Wikiwijs then. (But on many occasions the minister and
others compared Wikiwijs to Wikipedia - are they exploiting our good name?)

The organisation of Dutch high schools wants to set up a different project.
This has to do a lot with the distribution of power between the agents in
the educational system in the Netherlands, and also within the schools.

Nearly all already existing initiatives for open teaching materials use the
CC-NC-SA, the Creative Commons license that prohibits commercial use. I was
told that you cannot explain to teachers why others should have the right to
commercially exploit their work...

The project manager of the organisation of Dutch high schools gave me a very
striking reason against a license that allows commercial use: Most of the
teachers want to teach with the help of ordinary school books, with
additional material taken from the internet. They want to have something on
paper. If the school book publishers are allowed to make print versions from
open content, then the teachers want those print versions. They will put
pressure on their head masters to buy them, and then the shift from print to
digital will not occur, and the plan of the organisation to save 385
millions € will not become reality. So, the manager says, the better if the
publishers cannot sell print versions.

Ziko van Dijk

read more in German on
http://groups.google.de/group/infobrief-wiki-welt/msg/21c9f6c00634d13c?



--
Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde
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Re: Open teaching materials in the Netherlands [ In reply to ]
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hello,

<snip>

> The project manager of the organisation of Dutch high schools gave me a very
> striking reason against a license that allows commercial use: Most of the
> teachers want to teach with the help of ordinary school books, with
> additional material taken from the internet. They want to have something on
> paper. If the school book publishers are allowed to make print versions from
> open content, then the teachers want those print versions. They will put
> pressure on their head masters to buy them, and then the shift from print to
> digital will not occur, and the plan of the organisation to save 385
> millions € will not become reality. So, the manager says, the better if the
> publishers cannot sell print versions.

But no publisher will have an exclusive right to print such textbooks,
so these textbooks would cost much less than existing alternatives, in
fact just slightly above printing costs.

This is an especially salient point if these headmasters really do
value print versions so much; the alternative of using an obscure
copyright mechanism to force them into all-digital does not make much
sense to me.

Thanks,
Pharos

> Ziko van Dijk
>
> read more in German on
> http://groups.google.de/group/infobrief-wiki-welt/msg/21c9f6c00634d13c?
>
>
>
> --
> Ziko van Dijk
> NL-Silvolde
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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Re: Open teaching materials in the Netherlands [ In reply to ]
2009/5/19 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>

> Hello,
>
> Maybe this is interesting for Wikimedians too, certainly for Wikibookians.
> The Dutch ministry of education is going to set up "Wikiwijs", a project to
> develop provide open and free school books or teaching materials to Dutch
> schools. In the elections the parties promised to abolish parents' payments
> for school books, and now the government has to cope with the costs.
>
> On a seminar in Amersfoort at Friday it became obvious that many questions
> are still unanswered. Wikiwijs is intended to be a platform for
> collaboratively developping teachings materials, but also link to already
> existing materials (also commercial ones). Although a letter of the
> minister
> to the parliament said that only teachers will be able to edit on Wikiwijs,
> now this remains to be discussed.
>
> Kennisnet (a government foundation known to Wikimedians because it
> supported
> Wikipedia with technological help) and the Open University are commissioned
> to create Wikiwijs. The man from the Open University admitted that Wikiwijs
> will not work like a wiki, and Marjon Bakker from Wikimedia Nederland asked
> him why the name is Wikiwijs then. (But on many occasions the minister and
> others compared Wikiwijs to Wikipedia - are they exploiting our good name?)
>
> The organisation of Dutch high schools wants to set up a different project.
> This has to do a lot with the distribution of power between the agents in
> the educational system in the Netherlands, and also within the schools.
>
> Nearly all already existing initiatives for open teaching materials use the
> CC-NC-SA, the Creative Commons license that prohibits commercial use. I was
> told that you cannot explain to teachers why others should have the right
> to
> commercially exploit their work...


Correction, it was actually mentioned that the Wikiwijs project was
intending to use the CC-BY license. And I'm in conversation with at least
one other organisation that intended to use NC, but might change their
might. Things are not as NC as they seem at first sight :)


>
>
> The project manager of the organisation of Dutch high schools gave me a
> very
> striking reason against a license that allows commercial use: Most of the
> teachers want to teach with the help of ordinary school books, with
> additional material taken from the internet. They want to have something on
> paper. If the school book publishers are allowed to make print versions
> from
> open content, then the teachers want those print versions. They will put
> pressure on their head masters to buy them, and then the shift from print
> to
> digital will not occur, and the plan of the organisation to save 385
> millions € will not become reality. So, the manager says, the better if
> the
> publishers cannot sell print versions.
>
> Ziko van Dijk
>
> read more in German on
> http://groups.google.de/group/infobrief-wiki-welt/msg/21c9f6c00634d13c?
>
>
>
> --
> Ziko van Dijk
> NL-Silvolde
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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Open teaching materials in the Netherlands [ In reply to ]
Ziko wrote:

"Nearly all already existing initiatives for open teaching materials use the
CC-NC-SA, the Creative Commons license that prohibits commercial use. I was
told that you cannot explain to teachers why others should have the right to
commercially exploit their work..."

What a great news! All those wat too expensive school teachers that
are a burden to the Dutch taxpayer voluntarily move to become
volunteer teachers. Please pass the champaign on this. Let's
celebrate!

Where is Mike Godwin our legal counselor. I really need a terrier
preparing a big law suit on this. Just in case a single teacher would
have the guts to accept a pay check while using CC-NC-SA material in
class.

Why? That is my interpretation of 'commercial': making directly money
while using the material. Article 4c of CC-NC-SA is very clear about
this: "You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in
Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or
directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary
compensation." Even Dutch teachers can be instructed to read aloud the
last three words "private monetary compensation."

So far, so good for the first part of the defense, thank you Mike.
That was only the part concerning the selfish and myopic Dutch
teachers. Now for the second part, to open their eyes. Primary and
secondary education might perform a whole range of goals, and a tiny
little one of them is to prepare kids for a future role as income
earning participants in society (deliberately not specifying in which
way). Having been educated with CC-NC-SA materials those poor kids
will not be allowed to make any money with the knowledge thus
gathered. This contradicts at least one of the primary goals of
education.

What the Dutch teachers want sounds all too much like wanting to get
direct monetary compensation at the taxpayers expense up front for
creating the teaching materials *and* failing to deliver the materials
(distribute it to who paid for it, the taxpayers, that is the public
at large, so distribute it freely) *and* looking for ways to collect
royalties without repaying the expenses paid up front.

A great counter example is the image project. The WMF has paid for the
creation of content (imagery) with the explicition condition the
material is freely licensed. If the Dutch minister is going to pay 385
million euro annually for the creation of content without requiring
the material to be freely licensed, he is f***ing nuts.

Dedalus

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Re: Open teaching materials in the Netherlands [ In reply to ]
effe iets anders wrote:
> 2009/5/19 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>
>
>
>
>
> Correction, it was actually mentioned that the Wikiwijs project was
> intending to use the CC-BY license. And I'm in conversation with at least
> one other organisation that intended to use NC, but might change their
> might. Things are not as NC as they seem at first sight :)
>
>
>
>
>>
>> read more in German on
>> http://groups.google.de/group/infobrief-wiki-welt/msg/21c9f6c00634d13c?
>>
>>

You might direct them at our fine article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Learning_Environment

Personally I can tell, that in my studies in library and information
sciences in the Keuda Kerava business oriented studies learning
institute, we have been using the [[Moodle]] learning platform,
with some very significant utility, despite some very minor
technical glitches in the software. It includes blogs, wikis
threaded forums and much more.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: Open teaching materials in the Netherlands [ In reply to ]
Dedalus wrote:
> Ziko wrote:
>
> "Nearly all already existing initiatives for open teaching materials use the
> CC-NC-SA, the Creative Commons license that prohibits commercial use. I was
> told that you cannot explain to teachers why others should have the right to
> commercially exploit their work..."
>
> What a great news! All those wat too expensive school teachers that
> are a burden to the Dutch taxpayer voluntarily move to become
> volunteer teachers. Please pass the champaign on this. Let's
> celebrate!
>
>
One shouldn't be so harsh on the teachers, who probably haven't given
much thought about the implications on NC licences.

It's a natural reaction for the unfamiliar to believe that NC merely
keep things away from commercial exploitation. We all know that the
opposite is true, but at the same time it's counterintuitive. Those
teachers just need to be educated a little. Yes, commercial publishers
would be able to print and sell the freely licensed material, but they
would need to compete with the non-profit sector. It would be mostly
uneconomical for them to do that. Although their printing costs might
be less through economies of scale, they will still have the costs of
marketing and distribution added to that, along with a small profit on
top of that.

A teacher can produce and print what she needs for a class of 30 at a
fraction of the cost, less if she doesn't bother with the chapters of
the book that are not relevant to her class. Producing single chapters
is even less economical for the big publishers, because the distribution
costs do not go down with the size of the publication; they are likely
increased because of the added administration.

What will make open licences work will not be the proscriptive clauses
in such licences, but their undermining of established economic
infrastructures.

The Encyclopædia Britannica has learned that the hard way. The record
and movie manufacturers are still in the middle of their lesson. The
newspapers are in full panic. Once the teachers have figured it out it
will be the turn of the textbook publishers.

Ec

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Re: Open teaching materials in the Netherlands [ In reply to ]
Hi All,

Being VERY closely involved in Wikiwijs within the Kennisnet
Foundation (my employer) I can only agree with effeietsanders
statement. Things are often not as NC as they seem :)

The wikiwijs project is still taking shape but is founded on a few
guiding principles

1) Be as Open as you can be (not just open content, but also open
source and open standards). CC-BY is definately the way we would want
to go.
2) This should not be a top down project. Although the initial push
was done by the minister, the teachers and schools who are to work
with this are able to fill in their needs and give the project more
shape.
3) Connect to any and all other initiatives with regards to
educational content in the Netherlands, on any level (from small
content elements to complete lesson plans) by offering connections on
al these levels by means of open standards.

Funny thing is here: I have taken a lot of the lessons I have learned
from the Wikimedia community and our Advisory board members back to
Kennisnet and together with the Open University we have tried to apply
these experiences in the Wikiwijs project.

Little headsup: Melissa Hagemann (advisory board member) and me have
submitted a proposal for a workshop at Wikimania 2009 which will deal
with Open Educational Resources and the Wikiwijs project. If this gets
approved by the programme committee I invite you all to come (should
you have to opportunity to attend wikimania this year)

Kennisnet and the Open University are currently in an orientation
phase together with the potential members of the Wikiwijs community.
When more is known about the practical details of the project I will
post it here :)

Jan-Bart







On 19 mei 2009, at 22:03, Dedalus wrote:

> Ziko wrote:
>
> "Nearly all already existing initiatives for open teaching materials
> use the
> CC-NC-SA, the Creative Commons license that prohibits commercial
> use. I was
> told that you cannot explain to teachers why others should have the
> right to
> commercially exploit their work..."
>
> What a great news! All those wat too expensive school teachers that
> are a burden to the Dutch taxpayer voluntarily move to become
> volunteer teachers. Please pass the champaign on this. Let's
> celebrate!
>
> Where is Mike Godwin our legal counselor. I really need a terrier
> preparing a big law suit on this. Just in case a single teacher would
> have the guts to accept a pay check while using CC-NC-SA material in
> class.
>
> Why? That is my interpretation of 'commercial': making directly money
> while using the material. Article 4c of CC-NC-SA is very clear about
> this: "You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in
> Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or
> directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary
> compensation." Even Dutch teachers can be instructed to read aloud the
> last three words "private monetary compensation."
>
> So far, so good for the first part of the defense, thank you Mike.
> That was only the part concerning the selfish and myopic Dutch
> teachers. Now for the second part, to open their eyes. Primary and
> secondary education might perform a whole range of goals, and a tiny
> little one of them is to prepare kids for a future role as income
> earning participants in society (deliberately not specifying in which
> way). Having been educated with CC-NC-SA materials those poor kids
> will not be allowed to make any money with the knowledge thus
> gathered. This contradicts at least one of the primary goals of
> education.
>
> What the Dutch teachers want sounds all too much like wanting to get
> direct monetary compensation at the taxpayers expense up front for
> creating the teaching materials *and* failing to deliver the materials
> (distribute it to who paid for it, the taxpayers, that is the public
> at large, so distribute it freely) *and* looking for ways to collect
> royalties without repaying the expenses paid up front.
>
> A great counter example is the image project. The WMF has paid for the
> creation of content (imagery) with the explicition condition the
> material is freely licensed. If the Dutch minister is going to pay 385
> million euro annually for the creation of content without requiring
> the material to be freely licensed, he is f***ing nuts.
>
> Dedalus
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


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