To commemorate the event, NDU hosted Naeema Zarif, Creative Commons Regional Coordinator for the Arab World. Ms. Zarif met NDU President Fr. Walid Moussa, who expressed the importance of capitalizing on recent trends in open education to broaden access, foster innovation, and alleviate student textbook costs.

During the symposium, Dr. Fawzi Baroud, Assistant Vice President for Information Technology, described the history of  NDU’s involvement with open education beginning with his own participation in the U.S. State Department sponsored Open Book Project in 2014 and the continued collaboration with Creative Commons to create awareness and devise capacity building projects for an optimal OER culture within the university. He also traced the University’s future trajectory with regard to OER and the role it will play in advancing OER in Lebanon and the region. Ms. Zarif went on to speak about CC licenses in a panel titled “Creative Commons Licenses and the Future of Open Education in the Arab World.”

The symposium’s second day (titled “NDU Student Attitudes toward the Use of OER”) focused on the piloting of OER in a university-wide English course targeting close to 600 students in more than twenty sections across three campuses. Dr. Kamal Abouchedid, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, highlighted the integration of OER as a strategic initiative at NDU and as a means of fostering open education.

The design of the course was described by Dr. Sandra Doueiher, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of English. Joining the discussion from Denmark via Skype, Dr. Ena Hodzik spoke about the scholarship of OER, specifically about the issue of quality and utility in the integration of OER. Dr. Hodzik went on to explain that the student survey administered by NDU closely aligned with the major themes in the literature of OER.

Survey results were presented by Dr. George Abdelnour, Chair of the Department of English and Translation. The extensive survey sought student feedback on the use of OER based on general attitudes, effectiveness, quality, and learning outcomes of the resources used. By a 2 to 1 margin, he explained, students showed high levels of satisfaction and engagement with OER. The findings also showed a favorable inclination toward enrolling in courses using OER in the future.

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 كانت السنتين الماضيتين مفعمة بالنشاط و الحيوية خصوصا في منطقة الشرق الاوسط و شمال افريقيا من خلال العديد من المشاريع المتنوعة مثل:  مشروع الكتاب المفتوح، ندوة اليونسكوالاقليمة للمصادر التعلمية المفتوحة في دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي و اليمن، توقيع مذكرةتفاهم مع جامعة سيدة اللويزة في لبنان، تنظيم فيديوهات بث مباشر على اليوتوب في مختلف المناسبات للحديث عن المسالة التقنية الملحة المتعلقة بحق المؤلف في العالم العرب، إضافة الى قيام الجزيرة الانكليزية بترجمة كتيب البيانات الصحفية الى اللغة العربية. وكذلك إطلاق حملة دعم للمطالبة بحرية باسل خرابيط؛ والقيام بإجتمعات حيوية للمجتمعات التابعة للمشاع الابداعي في لقائين تاريخين: اللقاء الاقليمي لاعادة الهيكلة, بناء القدرات و مشاركة افضل التطبيقات العملية للمشاع الابداعي في المنطقة, و لقاء الترجمة لوضع اللمسات الاخيرة على الترجمة الرسمية لباقة رخص المشاع الابداعي  4.0 الى اللغة العربية. و من المتوقع ان تشهد سنة 2016 تطوارت مثيرة و نمو متسارع  لمجتمع المشاع الابداعي في العالم العربي أيضا

اليوم و بعد عملية مطولة و جهد شاق و مكثف قام الفريق القانوني و اللغوي بانهاء ترجمة النسخة ٤.٠ النهائية لرخص لمشاع البداعي الى اللغة العربية وهي جاهزة الان للمشاورة العامة

المشاورة العامة هي مساحة مفتوحة للجميع – من المحامين الى مستخدمي رخص المشاع الابداعي, من اللغويين الى المترجمين – للمساهمة برأيهم. إذا كان لديك تعليقات او مساهمات جوهرية حول الجوانب المختلفة للرخصة سواء الجوانب القانونية أو اللغوية او قابيلة الاستخدام فان تعليقاتك و مساهمتك مرحب بها و سنكون سعداء بمشاركتك لنا برايك و أفكارك من خلال الرد على هذه الرسالة باللغة العربية. ينبغي ارسال التعليقات في اقرب وقت ممكن حتى يتاح للفريق الوقت لممراجعة, لذلك نرجو منكم ارسال تعليقات قبل ٢١ يوليو/تموز 2016

مع استمرار الجهود لتوسيع و حشد الدعم و التعاون بين الأقران في العالم العربي فإننا نامل ان تكون هذه المشاورة العامة فرصة لتعزيز التعاون عبر الحدود. هذا الدعم و التعاون القضائي و القانوني لهو نموذج  قوي وفعال في المنطقة و من المرتجى ان يصبح منهجية قابلة للتطبيق في المشاريع المستقبلية

كل التهاني للمشاع الابداعي في العالم العربي و نتطلع لسماع تعليقات الجموع العربي حول الترجمة

The post النسخة النهائية من الترجمة العربية لرخص المشاع الابداعي متاحة للمشاورة العامة الآن CC4.0 appeared first on Creative Commons.

The past two years have been specially vibrant, with a wide range of projects including the Open Book Project , a UNESCO regional seminar on OER in the GCC and Yemen,  Notre Dame University—Louaize in Lebanon signing an memorandum of understanding as an affiliate, Google hangouts on various occasions to tackle pressing issues in the digital ecosystem, and the Al Jazeera English translation of the The Data Journalism Handbook  to Arabic.

Other projects include #FreeBassel campaign support and the two historic meetings: the Regional Meeting to restructure, build capacity, share best practices, and the translation meeting to officially translate the 4.0 version of the CC license suite into Arabic. 2016 is also projected to have more exciting developments for the rapidly-growing CC community in the Arab world.

After an extensive process, the legal team finished the CC4.0 Licences Arabic Translation Draft for public consultation.

The public consultation is an open forum where everyone, including lawyers, active license users, linguists, translators, and others are invited to contribute to the project. If you have comments about different aspects of the licenses, particularly in regards to legal, linguistic or usability issues, please feel welcome to provide feedback and share your thoughts by replying to the thread in Arabic.

Comments should be submitted as soon as possible to allow enough time for review, so we encourage you to post here or to the CC Arab World list before the 21st of July 2016.

As efforts across the Arab world continue to expand and gather peer support, we hope that the this public consultation will foster more collaboration. Inter-jurisdictional support is a model that is particularly strong in the region, and hopefully it can become a viable approach for future projects.

Congratulations to the CC Arab World! We look forward to your public comments.

*An Arabic version of this announcement was posted to the CC Arab World list as well.

The post CC 4.0 Arabic Translation Draft Open for Public Consultation appeared first on Creative Commons.

Currently, NDU students across three campuses are taking part in the University’s first pilot English course fully based on open educational resources (OER). Following the University’s strategic decision to integrate OER in teaching and learning, students enrolled in Sophomore Rhetoric, the University’s core English requirement, are the first cohort to pilot the use of open educational resources in the classroom, reducing textbook costs while promoting a culture of sharing and sustainability on campus.

The adoption of OER follows NDU’s signing of an Affiliate Agreement with Creative Commons, the non-profit organization providing copyright licenses for the free use and sharing of academic and creative resources.  OER used in the pilot course have been licensed by Creative Commons and are thus freely available to students and faculty, thus avoiding any copyright infringements. As an institutional affiliate of Creative Commons, NDU is leading the way among higher education institutions in Lebanon in the promotion of open education and open access.

“Students have been demanding innovation in the classroom for a long time now,” Department chairperson and Creative Commons Public Lead George Abdelnour explained, “and by blending digital technology and high-quality academic resources that are freely and openly available online we are trying to make the learning of writing more effective and engaging.” The piloting is taking place in 25 sections of English Rhetoric with a total student enrollment of 500.

The development of this new, OER-based course was the product of collaboration between the Department of English and Translation at the Faculty of Humanities and the Division of Computing Services under the leadership of Assistant Vice-President for Information Technology, Dr Fawzi Baroud. A committee of three faculty members from the Department of English and Translation led efforts to identify, integrate, and redesign the course, namely Drs. Sandra Doueiher and Ena Hodzik, both Assistant Professors of English and Applied Linguistics, and adjunct faculty member in English Nathalia Geha.

The post Notre Dame University – Adopts OER under CC Licenses appeared first on Creative Commons.

In support of the #FreeBassel Day Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the EFF, the Creative Commons Arab World will organize a virtual Arabic Wikipedia Edit-a-thon to translate and expand pages that cover topics of interest to him.

• Updating Arabic Creative Commons Wikipedia Page
• Updating Arabic Creative Commons Licenses Wikipedia Page
• Creating a Wikipedia Page about Copyright law of Syria
• Creating an Arabic Wikipedia Page for Bassel
• Add resources to Arabic Open Content Wikipedia Page
• Create an Arabic Wikipedia Page for Patent Troll
• Enhance Arabic Wikipedia Page for EFF
• Create an Arabic Wikipedia page for Open Music Model
• Create an Arabic Wikipedia page for Smart Contract

The virtual Edit-a-thon will take place on Sunday the 15th of March from 5pm to 8pm GMT. The list of topics can be viewed in Arabic on this Google Doc

The activity will be coordinated through the @ccArabWorld twitter

The post This is not a protest! Edit for #FreeBassel appeared first on Creative Commons.