Grants/CC Latin Policy
Describe the project you are proposing as clearly as possible in just five sentences.
The adoption of Creative Commons licenses by governments and universities to share public sector information as well as educational and scientific material is triggered by policy, administrative decisions, and legal context. The definition of public licenses and the implementation of early Open Access policies started in Anglo-Saxon countries. Latin countries (in Europe and America) are also adopting the model, however their political structure and legal culture differ from the Anglo-Saxon countries (centralized governments and research institutions, pyramidal organizations, resistance to American initiatives, differences between copyright law and droit d'auteur...). Therefore, argumentation and strategies towards CC licensing, Open Access and Open Data policies require a culturally different approach. This project proposes to study local approaches and experiences of implementation of CC licenses and CC0 by governments, universities and public institutions by the means of desk research, interviews and workshops in Argentina, Peru and Mexico, as well as in France, Italy and Spain.
Detail the tangible project output (e.g., paper, blog post, written materials, video/film, etc.; this would be in addition to the final written report that successful grant recipients will be expected to deliver to CC at the conclusion of the project).
There are at least two tangible outputs of the project, a comparative study of administrative structure, policy and civil law culture in Latin-American and Latin-European countries: - a paper by the two CC project leads who are researchers in law, public policy, political science - blog posts with short videos of the interviews to illustrate best practices, key findings and local experiences of implementation of CC licenses and CC0 by representatives of governments, universities and public institutions.
Describe the community you are targeting. How would the project benefit the community?
The targeted community consists of civil servants, academics and administrative and policy-making staff members of governments, universities and public institutions such as national libraries located in Latin-America and in Latin-Europe. The project will identify the legal and policy context of data, public information and other works which could be licensed under a CC licence or CC0. The project will define and compare best practices and experiences from negotiations for the adoption of CC licenses and Open Access policies.br />
The two project leads have relationships with the targeted community as advisors to many institutions on the implementation of CC licenses in their country. CC project leads of neighbouring countries have similar relationships with local institutions enabling them to recommend potential interviewees. Besides being CC project leads, the two proponents studied CC licenses in their doctoral dissertations and in other publications. Both are interested in open government initiatives worldwide and last May together they developed a workshop in Buenos Aires on Open Government and Open Data: http://www.caicyt.gov.ar/noticias/gobiernos-abiertos-datos-abiertos/.
How will you measure and evaluate your project’s impact - on your main participants? Other contributors? On the larger community?
The project impact can be measured quantitatively by the number and sector representation of public actors who will describe their experience, and qualitatively by the relevance of best practices, worst practices and recommendations which will be proposed, based on the cultural context identified by empirical findings and desk research.
How many participants do you expect to be involved in your project? How will you seek and sustain their involvement?
About 5 interviews should be conducted in each country. An incentive for participant involvement is the opportunity of learning how new projects are born and structured in other countries and therefore how to improve their capacity to extend their CC policy to other projects.
Describe how your project will benefit Creative Commons' mission to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in "the commons".
By identifying triggers and hurdles in the adoption of CC licenses by public sector, universities and libraries, the project allows sharing of experiences and best / worst practices in the negotiation and the implementation of a CC licensing strategy. One of the research goals is to analyze how CC licensing and Open Access (OA) policy could be a good solution suitable to public institutions with similar legal, administrative and cultural background.
Describe what technologies and tools your project will use. What kinds of technical skills and expertise do you bring to the project? What are your technical needs?
The project requires basic communication, interview recording and blogging tools. Technical needs are covered by the project leads and their institutions. Their technical skills and expertise include knowledge of CC licenses, OA policies, local institutional landscapes, civil law and latin administrative and policy culture. The project is part of the research agenda of the two project leads who have tenured academic positions and experience in negotiating with local partners of public institutions.
What challenges do you expect to face, and how do you plan to overcome them?
Personal relationships may influence the success of local negotiations for adoption, and one challenge is to go beyond that reality and address other factors that enabled personal relationships to have such impact on local decision-making (long-term policy traditions, authority of the persons in the organizational structure...). The solutions provided should accomodate local needs without losing interoperability with global solutions (e.g., not write a new licence to accomodate local wishes which would fragment the Commons). By using scientific methodology of political science and law, we should be able to avoid these pitfalls.
How do you plan to sustain your project after the Creative Commons funding has ended? Detail specific plans. How do you plan to raise revenue to continue your efforts in the future?
The research will be completed within the project period. But it could continue after the delivery of the report and the paper, for instance by presenting the paper to more conferences, or leading more interviews in more countries. The personal costs that are presently already covered by national research agencies employing the project leads will continue. Networking is ensured through the CC affiliated institutions. Future meetings which imply a travel budget would require fundraising through other means (European or national project proposals). This comparative study and the resulting paper are the first step of a long term research project about these tendencies worldwide.
How can this project be scalable, or have a scalable impact?
The analysis of argumentation, strategies and negotiations with governments, public libraries and research institutions can be transposed to other countries from Latin culture and the argumentation can probably be extended to the entire community (with some adjustments).
What resources and support do you expect Creative Commons to provide to your project to ensure its success (if any)?
Financial support through a Creative Commons Catalyst Grant is necessary to conduct interviews in neighbouring countries of the two project leads and to organize a workshop at the mid-term of the project to discuss and refine initial findings. In addition, a short discussion about CC0 and CC adopters with CC General Counsel and CCi Project Manager will be very helpful for the research.
Describe how your organization currently communicates with its community members and network partners. (100 words)
We are currently using on-line communication tools, such as websites, blogs, mailman lists, emails, instant messaging, social networking tools, skype and phone. In addition, both organizations have face-to-face meetings and seminars with community members and are meeting network partners at conferences or CC-related events.
Legal
Yes
