Hi John,

Our Better Sharing fundraiser is going strong. 

We hope you’ll join us next Tuesday, July 19th by making a donation to our Better Sharing, Brighter Future campaign. CC is a nonprofit that depends on the contributions of supporters like you. Every gift, small or large, makes a difference. 
 

Last week, we looked at the complicated landscape of social media and the possibilities and limitations of CC licenses in promoting “remix culture” on popular platforms like TikTok.   

This week, we’ll explore CC’s efforts to advocate for Open Education practices and policies in U.S. community colleges and governments around the world.

Open education is built on the principle that access to knowledge is a human right. 

Yet for many around the world, the right to access high-quality, effective educational resources is not always a guarantee. The high cost of textbooks, curricular materials, and dreaded paywalls blocking scholarly research continue to be major barriers for students, teachers, and even the curious person attempting to learn something online.

To make matters more complicated, most publicly funded scientific research and educational resources are not openly licensed.

To address this, CC’s Open Education Platform supports national governments and education institutions in implementing Open Education policies. For example, in 2016, Creative Commons worked with the United States Department of Labor (DOL) to create, adopt, and implement an open licensing requirement (CC BY) for learning materials created by community colleges using DOL public funding, resulting in the production of over 65,000 workforce development open educational resources (OER). CC also assisted in the creation of an open library (SkillsCommons) to freely host the OER produced, which is still widely used today. 

We’ve also advanced global Open Education policy efforts. CC helped write and advocate for the UNESCO Recommendation on OER, formally adopted in 2019. This is an official UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) document unanimously adopted by 193 member states, providing national governments specific recommendations to support Open Education in their countries and to collaborate with other nations. CC is a proud member of the OER Dynamic Coalition, established by UNESCO with the goal of creating materials and offering direct support services to UNESCO member states working to implement the Recommendation.

However, there is still more work to be done. 

As we look toward the next 20 years, we are dedicated to working with national governments and education institutions to safeguard access to knowledge as a human right.

This is the last in our series on CC’s programming. If you’d like to learn more about Open Climate, Open Journalism, Open Culture, or Open Education, please visit our website. You can also follow our blog for regular CC updates on our work.
 

In the meantime, here are some ways you can support our Better Sharing campaign: 

 Donate

• Make a donation (consider becoming a monthly donor!) 

• Fundraise for us by starting a Facebook fundraising page 

• Would you prefer to send a check? See our Donor FAQ for other ways to make a donation. 

 Share

• Share why you support the open movement or how CC has impacted your work on social media, with the hashtags #CCTurns20 and/or #BetterSharing and tagging @creativecommons

• Share our Creative Commons’ Open Minds podcast 
   

Thank You!
The CC Team