My understanding of Creative Commons

This week's reading is informative and useful. They helped me understand Creative Commons better. I used to know the existence of CC, but at that time I only knew CC was a circular icon. I did not know its specific meaning and purpose. After learning this week's readings and videos, it is now clear to me. Now, I do not look at these icons and wonder and fear that I am violating copyright.

As I watched this week's video, I realized that there are some differences between OER and Creative Commons. In my opinion, OER includes Creative Commons, but Creative Commons is not the whole of OER. OER advocates that we can copy, share, and edit the resources we acquire. However, this is not necessarily the case at Creative Commons. I think the most important thing about Creative Commons is sharing because every Creative Commons icon allows you to share your knowledge. However, some of these icons have some restrictions and regulations for users of a resource. However, OER requires more than sharing. OER wants to give the user of knowledge more permission than just sharing.

I think the most interesting knowledge from Unit 3's reading is about what to do with people who break creative commons rules. I am glad to read that most creative commons users are well-behaved. I love the rule that if a rule violator corrects an error within 30 days, the rights to use creative commons will automatically be restored. What a generous rule that is. I think it is a good rule to give some people who did not intentionally break the rule a chance to correct their mistakes. 

In my opinion, Unit 4 focuses on the difference between adaptations and collections. As mentioned in the reading material, it is difficult for us to use a unified standard to judge whether a person's editing of knowledge belongs to adaptation or collection. It depends on people's subjective judgment. I think first we need to know what is an adaptation and what is not. I think an example in the reading explains it very well and very clearly, "Making a book into a movie, or translating an essay into another language can be seen as an act of adaptation. However, Correcting punctuation and spelling, or converting an essay from PDF to HTML cannot be interpreted as adaptation". This example is also a good example of what an adaptation is and what a collection is. I think adaptation is when the user of the resource changes the knowledge in the resource. It is like when I change a few lines from a story or add some extra plot to an original story. However, a collection is the user does not change the knowledge in the resource. It is like I find a lot of stories and put them in a book, but I do not change the content of any of the stories. That is my idea of the difference between an adaptation and a collection.

Watching! Here come the video and reading!

• Unit 3: Anatomy of a CC License (from the Creative Commons Certification course)
• Unit 4: Using CC Licenses and CC-Licensed Works (from the Creative Commons Certification course)
• Creative Commons, the 5Rs, and OER