What is ccLearn?

 
ccLearn is a division of Creative Commons that is dedicated to supporting open learning and open educational resources (OER). Our mission is to minimize barriers to the creation, sharing, and reuse of educational materials—legal barriers, technical barriers, and social barriers.

 

Why ccLearn?

 
Educational paradigms are changing. The Internet has profoundly altered the ways in which information is accessed and shared. One of the most exciting new trends is the growth of OER: free, authoritative educational resources that can be easily accessed, shared, and modified by anyone at any time. The availability of open educational content is growing exponentially, but its use does not appear to be widespread. Worse, much of the OER currently being created is incompatible — legally and technically — with other OER.

 

What are ccLearn’s goals?

• Minimize legal, technical, and social barriers to the creation and reuse of OER.
• Bring new communities and groups into the world of open learning.
• Change the culture of education so that teachers have greater control over their
  pedagogy, greater freedom to experiment, and a larger community for support.
• Empower participation and expertise in education from around the world.

What does ccLearn do?

 
ccLearn works to minimize the following barriers to integration, development, and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER):

 

Legal Barriers

 
Restrictive or incompatible licenses hinder the ability to access, modify, and share content in educational settings. Creative Commons has developed a suite of licenses that allow educators to open up their works, and ccLearn acts as a guide to help educators, students, and everyone in between ensure that the CC licenses they choose match their goals.

Technical Barriers

 
To be useful, open educational resources must be easy to find and access. ccLearn works to provide technology tools that will create a common pool of open materials, so that appropriate OER can be easily identified and utilized.

Social Barriers

 
OER development and access are only the first steps. ccLearn conducts research and outreach to address concerns about content quality, standards, and pedagogy and ensure that learners everywhere can realize the promise of a world where openness is supported by default in both formal and informal educational settings.