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#FreeTheStandards

July 13, 2009

Chris Harris gave me permission to repost the passionate argument he shared this week on the aaslforum@ala.org list.  The post asked several critical questions, most importantly: Should our Standards for the 21st Century Learner be assigned a more liberal Creative Commons license?  Currently use of the pdf standards document is attached to a rather restrictive set of Rights and Permissions. 

It makes absolute sense for the documents we need to define our roles and our potential impact, to be flexibly licensed, especially in times when our brand is in serious need of redefinition.  In this time of belt tightening, and the resulting imminent threat to learners, I wouldn't want to have to wait for permission to be able to reproduce a document to distribute easily at a board meeting.  Actually, I really would rather not have to ask permission to share the Standards document widely at workshops and preservices.  Actually, I'd like not to have to go underground to more flexibly share sections of that pdf document through conversion to text.  I get the need for profit, but I wonder if we are looking at profit in a very small picture way in these times.  I wonder if our field is seriously misrepresented by our especially conservative approach to dissemination.

But, one of the questions absent from the forum discussion is: Doesn't much of the use we need for the document, as well as the sections of those books, fall under the category of fair use?

I am not a lawyer, but . . .

I believe, when we use content from copyrighted material, for the purpose of analysis, reinterpretation, remixing, and building our own new content, adding value--we do NOT even need to ask permission. 

So, if we are creating lessons around our standards and quoting standards in those lessons, regardless of where or how widely those lessons are archived, that seems to me to be a repurposing of the original work. That lesson or curriculum writing effort adds value to the original copyrighted content.  If I am creating slides for my presentations and sharing how a particular learning activity addresses a standard or two or three or four, and if I post those presentations on a portal like SlideShare, that too seems to me to be fair use. 

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education describes a set of principles for using copyrighted material in teaching, among them:

PRINCIPLE ONE: Under fair use, educators using the concepts and techniques of media literacy can choose illustrative material from the full range of copyrighted sources and make them available to learners, in class, in workshops, in informal mentoring and teaching settings, and on school-related Web sites.

LIMITATIONS: Educators should choose material that is germane to the project or topic, using only what is necessary for the educational goal or purpose for which it is being made. In some cases, this will mean using a clip or excerpt; in other cases, the whole work is needed. Whenever possible, educators should provide proper attribution and model citation practices that are appropriate to the form and context of use. Where illustrative material is made available in digital formats, educators should provide reasonable protection against third-party access and downloads.

PRINCIPLE TWO: Under fair use, educators using the concepts and techniques of media literacy can integrate copyrighted material into curriculum materials, including books, workbooks, podcasts, DVD compilations, videos, Web sites, and other materials designed for learning.

LIMITATIONS: Wherever possible, educators should provide attribution for quoted material, and of course they should use only what is necessary for the educational goal or purpose. The materials should meet professional standards for curriculum development, with clearly stated educational objectives, a description of instructional practices, assignments, and assessment criteria.

I hope that Chris's post and the ensuing discussion provokes some serious rethinking about our ability to share the essential information that represents our field.
 
Please read and respond to this important post, and the representative response by Dawn, and expand the discussion by sharing on Twitter with the hashtag #FreeTheStandards. 

This past Wednesday, I led a professional development workshop for librarians in the School Library System where I work. We had a professional book discussion around the two new AASL publications; Standards for the 21st Century Learner in Action and Empowering Learners. Overall, the response to these two books was very positive. Kudos (and many thanks) to everyone who worked on the committees and the books!

One area of concern was identified, however. In the Standards in Action book, there is a great 2-page spread on the self-assessment strand that speaks directly to the student. One librarian asked if she could make copies of the pages to share with students. That led me, as an ethical user of information, to check on the copyright and permissions for the book.

What I found was quite chilling. Though these two pages present a letter to students, there is no permission given in the book to allow copying of those pages to share with students. I thought maybe there would be something online, so I checked the standards website to see if there was a PDF or other permissions statements there. Indeed there is a new Permissions for Use page for the standards and then click on Permissions for Use. But what I found there actually made things even worse.

Under the new permissions for use, I actually had to tell librarians that they can no longer quote the standards that they are using within their lesson plan documents! Given the push to spread the standards and the whole Learning4Life initiative, this is surely in unintended outcome of AASL's attempts to secure the standards. And yet, an over zealous locking down of the standards is unfortunately preventing most use.

As stated on the permissions page: "Permission must be requested for publishing or posting a portion of the text or the original document in a print or online publication or on a Web site as well as linking to the PDF." A lesson plan is a print or electronic document, therefore permission must be requested for quoting the standards as is usually done in a standard lesson plan format. Additionally, a lesson plan could be considered a derivative work under the current wording: "The learning standards document is considered the core content if the publication cannot be written without the use of the content of the learning standards document. Such usage requires a license agreement and may include a fee."

A fee for including the standards in each lesson plan?

Most librarians in the workshop assumed that the permission for educational use granted in the standards document covered use in lesson plans. I did as well...until I read the new permissions page. The permissions page limits educational use to only the pdf document itself.

The PDF versions available on the AASL Web site are intended for personal and educational use. Printing or forwarding copies for your own private use or to share with others for purely informational or educational purposes is acceptable."

Any quoting of the document (i.e. listing standards on a lesson plan) would fall under the "Publishing or Posting Excerpts" section and would therefore require permission (and maybe a fee) for each lesson plan.

I love the new standards. I think they represent a great new way of looking at how we need to change learning and teaching for the 21st century. And yet, as much as I love the standards, the current permissions for use make it nearly impossible for me to share them or use them.

AASL, won't you please consider freeing the standards for a bit more use? Perhaps a Creative Commons non-commerical license? Or maybe members can be granted additional license to use the standards as part of their member benefits?

Thank you for your consideration of this concern.

Past President of AASL, Dawn Vaughn, also gave me permission to print her reaction to the post:

Chris,

One of the difficult aspects with the last standards was that we were bound by that fact that ALA owned the documents for the standards. The use of the standards was restricted by ALA. When we went through strategic planning when I was president, one of the main concerns was the ability of school librarians to have FREE access to the new standards once they were written. I agree completely with you that librarians should have access to use and integrate the standards in all areas of their teaching and professional development. One of the very best ways to integrate the standards into the curriculum is by matching them to curricular standards. The most common way to do that is to print the learning standard that is being addressed next to the curricular standard on a planning document or student pathfinder. This acquaints both the teacher and the student with the learning standards that we are teaching. With the current permissions, this cannot be done without permission. The best way to do this is by releasing the Standards for the 21st Century Learner under a Creative Commons Attribute, as Chris suggests. This would encourage the use of the standards that would not be restrictive and I believe that school librarians across the nation would integrate them even more readily. We need to make it easy for librarians to use the standards in both teaching and professional development.

Posted by Joyce Valenza Ph.D on July 13, 2009 | Comments (14)