Mediamaisteri Group 2005©1 Virtual communities and licensing Mediamaisteri Group PL 82 (Pyynikintie 25) Tampere Finland mediamaisteri.com SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©2 General overview of virtual communities A virtual community may support some organization that wants to make its existing traditional operation more effective Some web communities operate only relating to a certain topic or objective Many web-based virtual communities are becoming more and more professional When developers and users see that they will get more from the virtual community than they give, the community starts to expand rapidly The role of the main developer or developer team is vital SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©3 General overview of virtual communities It is very difficult to get virtual community developing only by thinking resources and financial aspects of the work Virtual community grows from the genuine need to work for the community  Has to fit to the individual objectives! In time members of the community will find resources that they can use to the benefit of the virtual community and also benefit from that  Win-to-win situation SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©4 General overview of virtual communities Input to the virtual community can be described as an investment to the future Product selling and services linked to the community work substantial benefits f.ex. by saving money in yearly license fees getting learning content for the organizational use Virtual community is challenging to start but the impact can be global in content or software production areas SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©5 Technical perspectives Virtual Community can use different technology models Protocols can be http, https etc.  Usually normal web standards (client/server) Content creation standard usually in learning html, xhtml, xml  SCORM Learning object is based on idea of how virtual community shares content Video, sound, animation, excesise standards (IMS QTI, GIFT etc.) SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©6 Content perspectives Requirement for the community to live and prosper = Enough valuable content motivating the participation Community members and supporters should encouraged to submit content into the portal There may be a barrier to submitting content that has been expensive to produce to the community Institutes and organizations work with very different business models  government funding vs. comercial training SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©7 Content perspectives Those who submit content into the database must accept the following terms: The name of the author is recorded in the database, but also other users have right to use and modify the object Modified content can be imported into the system with reference to the original document as the basis of their content A new version of the content can be uploaded into the system by the original author, successor or validators and chief editors Users can translate existing learning objects to their own language and import the translations into the system SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©8 Licensing models in general Open Source Software products are licensed, not sold Traditionally software companies have developed software in-house and used end user license agreements  Limited rights to use the software for specific purposes Usually, source code is not shared and distribution is restricted In academic circles software has been for a long time developed with the principles of open source code and free distribution Licensing models can be divided to a) Technical licensing models b) Content licensing models SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©9 Technical licensing models 1) Commercial licensing 2) Double licensing 3) OS -licensing SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©10 Content licensing models 1) Commercial licensing 2) Separately agreed use 3) OS -licensing  Creative commons Offer some of your rights to any taker, and only on certain conditions Possible to match conditions from the different options Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works Share Alike ( SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©11 Creative commons (Open content) Open community operates by utilizing open principles Virtual communities develop certain content or software  involves co-operation and is based on idea of releasing all work to be utilized by anyone interested Only rule is that you have to share you work also back to the virtual community Every community has a responsible developer group that decides which completed contents or software are released in community The actual release occurs under a license (GPL/GNU), which enables free use and further development of products SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©12 Creative commons (Open content) One example of the software released under GNU/GPL is Linux operating system In scope of eLearning similar open communities are for example Moodle ( and FLE ( Worldwide there are tens of similar virtual communities in eLearning Also the communities specialized in open content are starting to work under comparable licenses ( SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©13 Discussion Why is licensing important for the virtual communities? What kind of experiences do you have of using different licensing models? SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN

Mediamaisteri Group 2005©14 Sources Bäck, A. & Väliharju, T. Creating an e-Learning Content Community for Graphic and Media Communication Technologies Lee, Fion S.L.; Vodel, Douglas; Limayem, Moez; Virtual Community Informatics: A Review and Research Agenda. Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application (JITTA), 2003, 5, 1, pp Välimäki, M. & Oksanen, V. Evaluation of Open Source Licencing models for a Company Developing Mass Market Software SELEAC / EDU-ELEARN