Projects in 2017

OPEN EDUCATION

Significant part of our advocacy activity in 2017 was carried out on the international level and was mainly aimed at activists networking, animation of the common advocacy actions as well as formulation of new action concept.
As part of these operations we created Open Education Policy Network in our region, and simultaneously we cooperated with the activists of the whole region. We participated in every key events related to open education: OER17 (Alek Tarkowski was a conference co-chair), UNESCO EUROPEAN REGIONAL CONSULTATION, Open Education Global Conference, Creative Commons Summit, UNESCO 2nd OER Congress and OER Policy Forum which we had the pleasure to organize (detailed description provided below).
At the same time, in accordance with the adopted assumptions, we continued advocacy for the open education in Poland.

Advocacy for the open education in Poland
In Poland we engaged our organization in the discussions concerning the open education and other dimension of public resources openness (for example, open data, re-use of the public sector information); we also conducted direct advocacy actions with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Administration and Digitization. We also participated in the consultations dedicated to this issue, as well as in the works of Monitoring Committee for Digital Poland Operational Programme (this programme embraces the provisions regarding the resources openness which were introduced by us). At the same time, the scope of these works was limited due to the minor interest of the government in the theme of open education, mainly digital education (except for programming classes). We tried to participate in the discussions concerning Polish Educational Network, which in our view may be a showcase of open education.
While working in Poland we tried to see the public resources openness issue thoroughly and to support the opening of various types of resources from this perspective by taking advantage of the opportunities for advocacy and good terms with institutions. In 2017 our cooperation with the cultural heritage institutions was particularly successful.
By our work we supported the actions of Open Education Coalition; we also animated the cooperation as part of a small, informal coalition of organizations dealing with digital policy. Furthermore, we participated in the operations of more extended coalition of non-governmental organizations, which monitors political situation in Poland and cares for good standing of citizen society.
In the second half of the year we began the project of “Open Education Cooperative”, the purpose of which was to demonstrate the possibility of cooperation in the showcase of open education. In its first stage, the project will concern the creation of mathematical resources. We are carrying out the project with the assumption that the promotion of open education policy requires good examples of complex implementation of this model, going beyond the issue of educational resources availability.

Open Education Policy Network and OER Policy Forum
In 2017, a significant part of our actions was aimed at strengthening the activists of advocacy for open education policy in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Our main partners are the coalitions for open education in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. Our actions encompass evaluation of actions of Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. We organized a workshop focused on the exchange of experiences and coordination of actions among local activists. We supported the organization of conference by the Romanian coalition of open education. We held several webinars and participated ones which were prepared by SPARC and concerned the cooperation within Open Government Partnership.
Our flagship event was OER Policy Forum held in June 2017. The participants embraced 40 activists, experts and representatives of public administration from 23 European countries, including all countries from our region. The Minister of Education as well as the Minister of Administration and Digitization participated in this meeting. A two-day workshop was an opportunity to exchange experiences, have a discussion about good practices, and to initiate cooperation in the community of activists interested in the advocacy for open education.

Cape Town +10
Since March 2017 until September 2017 we actively participated in the project „Cape Town Declaration + 10 years”. It was aimed at formulating the recommendation for open education movement on the occasion of 10th anniversary of Cape Town Open Education Declaration. As part of this project we engaged in devising of 10 new directions of actions for open education, we coordinated the efforts of working group and created the project leaflet and website. Furthermore, we held the project’s premiere UNESCO 2nd OER Congress in September 2017 in Ljubljana.

Reform of the Copyright for Education in the European Union
Within the field of education our main aim in the ongoing EU reform of the copyright was to ensure that the new provision enabled free teaching and learning, in particular in the digital environment. The plans of the European Commission proved that we could not expect a reform, which would not limit creativity and would not use new technologies in education. Therefore, in 2017 we built the awareness of the problem among the teachers and educators, and encouraged them to engage more in the debate on copyright and education. We created a network of over a dozen of European organizations from the education sector, which supported our stipulation. Particularly important for us is the cooperation with the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) and Education International (EI/IE).
As part of the project:
• We organized the campaign „Right Copyright for Education Right Now!”, which enabled us to build awareness of stakeholders in the member states; we collected 5000 signatures and our stand was supported by 34 organization;
• In June 2017 in the European Parliament we organized the event „What educators need from copyright reform”, hosted by MEP Marietje Schaake;
• We conducted the survey regarding the teachers’ approaches to education in 5 member states (Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland) the final outcome of which was the report „Creator, Rebel, Guardian, Unsuspecting User. Teachers and modern educational practices”;
• We conducted a research regarding the use of so called extended collective licensing in the European countries, which in the opinion of the Commission could exclude the possibility of applying the allowed educational use.
In November in Brussels we organized a workshop oriented on the educational institutions, within which we co-planned activities around copyright reform in progress, with the perspective of the coming year.
The project in 2017 was implemented together with the Dutch non-governmental organization Kennisland (https://www.kl.nl/) as part of Communia European society. Common action in this field will be continued in 2018.

PUBLIC POLICIES

Advocacy actions related to copyright reform in the European Union
In 2017, as members of Communia society we conducted advocacy actions on the European Union level, related to the ongoing copyright reform. The actions were aimed at the European Parliament as well as the member states (as part of the Council) and its main objective was to improve some elements in the directive proposed by the Council. In particular, we engaged in: educational exception, exception for the benefit of texts and data mining, related rights for the press publishers and the obligation of content filtering by intermediaries. Furthermore, we took advocacy actions to add to the proposed directive exceptions related to the freedom of panorama and user generated content (UGC).
Natalia Mileszyk, a member of our advocacy department, was accountable for the coordination of works of the society.
Among our most significant ventures are the following:
• Copyright for Education project (described above);
• School of Rocking Copyright – a course of international workshops (Lisbon, Zagreb, Budapest) aimed at reinforcing the advocacy competences of other organization engaged in the reform in progress;
• “What creators really need from the copyright reform?” – the event held in April in the European Parliament hosted by MEP Michał Boni;
• policy lunch with MEP Julia Reda during CopyCamp conference in Warsaw
Moreover, we undertook several direct actions related to contact with the decision makers, as well as the indirect actions aimed at coalition building for the benefit of proper copyright reform. We also actively presented the issue of reform during the most significant openness community events, such as Creative Commons Summit, RightsCon, UNESCO OER Congress, Mozfest, Open Education Global Congress.

Advocacy Action in Poland
In 2017 we worked in favour of openness and Internet users rights on the national level. Particularly important for us was the support building for our stipulations related to the EU copyright reform in Poland by way of organizing meetings, journalistic activity, as well as monitoring and commenting on the stand of the Government of the Republic of Poland in this matter.
Furthermore, on the national level, we engaged in the following:
• geo-blocking – we conducted advocacy actions in favour of abolishing geo-blocking of the content protected by copyright;
• re-use of public sector information – we are the co-authors of the report „An act on the re-use of public sector information after a year of reinforcement” and we organized meetings for stakeholders;
• Internet regulations and openness – we organized and conducted theme sessions on Internet Governance Forum Polska. Alek Tarkowski is a member IGF Polska Committee;
• Regulation of the collective management of copyrights – we actively participated in the legislation process concerning the implementation of the related directive.

Future Not Made in the EU
The project ‘Future not Made in the EU’ (https://futurenotmade.eu/) was to show the stake for which Centrum Cyfrowe, and other organizations engaged in digital rights fight for by taking advocacy actions related to EU copyright reform.

Research regarding the implementation of the directive on the re-use of public sector information in the EU member states
At the end of 2017 we were invited by Spark Legal Network as a legal expert to participate in the research entrusted by the European Commission, which concerned the overview of the directive on the re-use of public sector information. As part of the research we gathered and analyzed legal data within the scope of the re-use of public sector information in Poland. The research was conducted in 10 EU member states. As part of the analysis we performed the following:
• We researched the synergy of the provisions on re-use with other acts (for example, copyright act, protection of data bases, spatial infrastructure, personal data protection);
• We analyzed the clarity and functionality of the provisions of the new act on re-use of the public sector information in the matters of references, conditions and charges for the re-use;
• We analyzed the specific character of the re-use of the public sector information which is owned by the institutions of culture.

Training for the Ministry of Science and Higher Education
At the request of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education we trained 100 scientists, employees of science institutions as well as the institutions finance science from such areas as copyright and openness in science. As part of this training, the participants got acquainted with the basics of copyright, Creative Commons license, assumptions of the open access movement and the issues related to opening research data. We also designed a leaflet which is the source of the basic knowledge of copyright and openness in science.

CREATIVE COMMONS

In 2017 we actively participated in the process of devising Creative Commons Network Strategy, whose co-chair was Alek Tarkowski. We engaged in the process due the key meaning of reinforcing the cooperation and communication on global scale, between the activists of Creative Commons and related projects. As part of these actions we performed the following:
• We participated in drafting the Creative Commons Global Network Strategy;
• We participated in building and development of two working groups within the new Global Network: Open Education Platform and Copyright Reform Platform
We also played the key role in the planning of the Commons Summit 2017. Alek Tarkowski was responsible for one out of five paths of the event, The Future of the Commons. Finally, Alek Tarkowski is one of the initiators of the project “Big Open” aimed at strengthening the cooperation between various openness organization and common discussion about the strategic goals for the coming year. As part of the project, at the conference together with Wikimedia Deutschland we organized Mozfest workshop.

OPEN CULTURE

Opening Culture Workshop
In 2017 we launched the project of the Open Culture Studio. The said workshop gathers the representatives of the institutions of culture, social researchers, designers, programmers and users so they can work together on innovative and effective ways of sharing the digital resources of culture. The workshop is a laboratory space supporting the public mission of the institutions of culture by bringing closer the open digital resources of heritage to their audience.
In 2017 we focused on drafting of the cooperation proposal for the institutions of culture searching for effective ways of implementing technologies in order to share their resources on the Internet and connect with new recipients. We carried out the analysis of the research results, conducted expert consultations and entered into key cooperation and partnerships.
Furthermore, we carried out pilotage creative process engaging teams of four Warsaw institutions of culture: Polish History Museum, National Museum in Warsaw, the Museum of Warsaw and the KARTA Centre, as well as the group of cooperating experts. The purpose of the process was to devise four prototypes of digital tools. The actions were concluded with the competition, in which two winning projects were distinguished: ‘Muselfie’ worked out by the team of the National Museum in Warsaw and the ‘Paths of Wanderers’ of the KARTA Centre. Next year, both of the projects will be implemented and available for the users.
We also worked on the platform and web app for Fundacja Zapomniane (The Forgotten Foundation) – an organization engaging in the commemoration of places of holocaust which were not designated.
As part of the cooperation with the Institute of the Polish Culture of the University of Warsaw, we
also worked on the prototype of a guide to the main campus of the University. Besides, we started cooperation with the School of Form SWPS, which enables us to conduct laboratory classes of prototyping of the archive solutions.

Open Monuments
In 2017, Open Monuments, a social networking site and open catalogue of monuments, the purpose of which is to enable citizens to access the knowledge of Polish monuments and engage in the activities in favour of their protection, had already been operating for 6 years. It was another year of successful cooperation with educators and animators from minor centers, which inspired them and provided them with tools and knowledge to create innovative animation actions focused on local heritage. Due to the financing obtained from the programme ‘the Patriotism of Tomorrow’ of the Polish History Museum, together with the animators of culture we formulated the scenarios of using the Open Monuments in the actions for local cultural heritage. With the materials we reached the significant network of culture animators from the whole country (with the support of our partner – Association of Creative Initiatives ‘ę’).
In 2017 we carried out the promotion and information campaign encouraging the use of Open Monuments. The spot promoting the website appeared in the Warsaw underground, municipal transport of Warsaw, Tricity and seven local cinemas in Poland.