Licensing your content

Screenshot: License editor

As docendo is used to publish your work (e.g. courses, tables, pictures etc.) to a broad learning community, you may wish to license your content in order to define the rules for the usage. Therefore, docendo provides the functionality to license every single resource that you create on or upload to the platform. This licensing feature is based on the definitions and licenses by the non-profit organization Creative Commons (CC).

Within docendo, we utilize the LicenseChooser of Creative Commons, that consists of a user interface for licensing a certain resource and displays the name as well as the corresponding image for the current choice (both elements are linked to a precise definition of the present license). Through the widget, the user determines if he wants to license a resource at all, or if he omits this step. Choosing the first alternative, the user can utilize the three activated checkboxes Allow Remixing, Prohibit Commercial Use and Require Share-Alike to define his type of license. Out of these different conditions, the appropriate license with the respective name and image are created. The image can consist of several icons which are listed below, while an overview of all available licenses, names, images and icons is provided on the Licenses page of CC.

• Attribution: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.
• Share Alike: You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
• Non-commercial: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for non-commercial purposes only.
• No Derivative Works: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

For licensing a published resource, docendo applies an architecture that is similar to the one for choosing a layout. Hence, the applicable licenses are also defined on three different levels:

1. on the installation level. An user with administrative rights defines the default license for your docendo installation. This license will be used for all your content if you do not override it or create a new license on one of the following levels.
2. on user profile level. The link Edit license settings in your user profile leads you to a list of available licenses from which you can choose your own default license for all your content. The displayed list can be extended with customized licenses. If you set a license in your user profile, it will override the default license set on the installation level.
3. on resource level. Using the link Edit metadata within a resource editor, you can choose or create a new license for this specific resource. The new choice will then override the license set on profile level and installation level.

• LicenseChooser widget of Creative Commons
• The definition of available licenses from Creative Commons
• Wikipedia on Creative Commons