Monday, March 20th, 2006.
With the release of the first version of the its new educational software suite under the Qedoc brand, Image Intelligence Software has announced that it is giving full backing to Creative Commons licencing.
"Our software is for creating distributable files - modules," explained the Qedoc project's producer. "Just as you can use a graphics editor like Photoshop to create artwork, so you can the Qedoc Quiz Maker to create files with interactive learning content. We need a workable, solid licencing scheme for our contributors and authors to be able to release and share their work. Creative Commons fits the bill precisely."
This is a major step forward for sharing interactive educational content. To date, freely shared educational materials have mainly been static documents consisting of text and diagrams, and usually distributed in PDF, Word or HTML formats. Interactive materials have tended to remain behind restrictive commercial walls and tied in to commercial interests.
Widespread sharing of interactive educational materials has lacked two main things to date: a technological vehicle for creating and sharing, and an appropriate licencing scheme. The Creative Commons track record has already shown that it is the right way forward for the licencing, as the MIT OpenCourseWare project has demonstrated. It is hoped that the Qedoc Software Suit will provide the approppriate technological vehicle.
Creative Commons, founded in 2001, is a San Francisco-based not-for-profit entity backed by numerous renowned academics and other experts. It offers licencing schemes to the general public catering for the needs of individual artists, musicians, educators and writers. Its website is at http://www.creativecommons.org.
Image Intelligence Software Ltd., founded in 2000, is the UK-based software subsidiary of a long-established management consultancy company. |
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