Created: March 2017
Last Updated: April 2020
This learning experience is part of a playlist — two or more learning experiences focused on specific areas of the digital world. You can find this playlist, Sharing Your Work Online — What License to Use?, here. This particular learning experience is the sixth in a sequence of six. Learning experiences in a playlist build off of each other, but they were designed so that they can also be completed on their own!
| Estimated time: | 30 minutes
|
| Group or individual activity: | Individual |
| Ages: | 13-18 years old |
| Grades: | Grades 8-12 |
| Online / offline elements: | This learning experience contains an offline activity and a challenge that requires a computer or mobile device with Internet access. |
| Areas: | Main area: Law Additional areas: Content Production |
| License: | This learning experience has been created by Youth and Media and is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionShareAlike 4.0 International license. For more information, please visit https://dcrp.berkman.harvard.edu/about |
*Please note: If you are unfamiliar with Creative Commons licenses, we recommend that you complete the “Creative Commons” learning experience, also part of the Licensing for Digital Creators playlist, before engaging in this activity.
Learning Goal
Understand what the implications are when you choose a particular license for your work.
Materials
Computer or mobile device with Internet access
[Optional] Paper
[Optional] Pen or pencil
Resources
Guide: License Features - by Creative Commons
Webpage: Open Source Licenses - by GitHub
Activity
The other learning experiences in this playlist explore a variety of topics around licensing, from copyright and public domain to Creative Commons. When creators choose a license for their work, they are deciding what others can or cannot do with what they’ve produced. Now, you are going to license a piece of your own work, ensuring that others can use it in exactly the manner you would like.
Challenge
Choose a license for a creative work (e.g., video, photo, poem, song) you will publish online. Upload your content on a particular platform and select your license (or name the license in the description of the file or in the title). Ask someone (e.g., friend, family member) about how they might use the work you posted. See how this use compares to what you intended when you chose the license. Are they allowed to use your work the way that they said they might, given the license you chose? Write a paragraph describing your work, the license you selected, and why (provide three reasons), and what others might be able to do with this content. If you are unable to upload your creative work online, you can still share it with someone offline and have a discussion about the license that you chose.
Next Steps
Great job on completing this challenge! We bet that others are excited to see what you learned! We encourage you to share your write-up and the creative work you have made (this can be the actual work itself, or a photo of it if it is a static image) with the same friend or family member, or another friend or adult (e.g., an educator, mentor, or advisor). Feel free to also share your work with the Youth and Media team through email (youthandmedia@cyber.harvard.edu). Please indicate the title of the learning experience in the subject line of the email.