On 31 January 2020, at 2:00 pm in Via dei Barucci n. 20 – 50127 Firenze – at the headquarters of the Institute of Legal Informatics and Judicial Systems (IGSG) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), individual members, the institutional member and contributors of CC Italian chapter gathered to discuss and deliberate on the following:
Agenda:
1) introduction and report on the Italian Chapter projects;
2) report on the CC Chapters’ meeting (3 December 2019);
3) forthcoming Italian Chapter elections;
4) proposals for panels at the CC Global Summit (14-16 May 2020 in Lisbon);
5) Glossary / Thesaurus: state of the art and benchmark analysis;
6) planning of events for the promotion and enhancement of the Chapter’s activities;
7) Open Education, spreading of the CC licenses;
8) operational issues: translation of the FAQ, SeLiLi, news archive;
9) collaborations and partnerships;
10) any other business.
Deborah De Angelis (Chapter Lead and Representative to GNC) held the presidency and, after having verified the regularity of the convocation and that the following members of the Chapter were present, appointed Laura Sinigaglia as secretary:
-Deborah De Angelis (Chapter Lead and Representative to GNC);
-Laura Sinigaglia (Contributor of the Italian Chapter);
-Sebastiano Faro (Member of the institutional member of the GNC);
-Ginevra Peruginelli (Member of the institutional member of the GNC);
-Manola Cherubini (Member of the institutional member of the GNC);
-Sara Conti (Member of the institutional member of the GNC);
-Paola Corti (Contributor of the Italian Chapter).
And via skype:
-Claudio Artusio (Individual member of the GNC);
-Simone Aliprandi (Contributor of the Italian Chapter).
And by phone:
-Mariasole Rinaldi (Member of the institutional member of the GNC).
1) Introduction and report on the Italian Chapter projects
Deborah De Angelis thanked the participants and presented them the activities carried out by the Chapter in the past months.
In the first place, she illustrated initiatives to enlarge the Italian CC community, which concerned the establishment of contacts and connections with possible stakeholders. The Chapter approached International universities based in Rome in order to propose them projects about Open Culture, with the aim of involving other types of universities in the future.
The Chapter started to have some contacts with Egyptian Museum in Turin in order to start a project about CC licenses. The museum is one of the most active Italian realities regarding Open Culture, and it has shared with CC BY 2.0 the images of its collection on the website.
In order to increasingly involve the Public Administration, the Chapter promoted a possible working table with some directorates-general of MIBAC (Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities) in order to share with CC licenses the images of cultural heritage, data and archives.
The Chapter, likewise, approached the Capitoline Superintendence for a project concerning the Urban Art in Rome.
Finally, the Chapter started a dialogue with “Matera Hub” (Materahub manages international pilot projects to support cultural and creative industries, encouraging innovation and inclusion processes and a new entrepreneurial vision to face contemporary challenges) with which it is expected a meeting to discuss possible ways of cooperation.
2) Report on the CC Chapters’ meeting (3 December 2019);
Deborah De Angelis updated the assembly on topics discussed during the Chapters meeting. In particular, she focused on the interpretation of the numbers concerning the spread of CC in the world. In fact, a discrepancy seems to emerge between the number of Chapters (42), the individual (447) and institutional (54) members, and the presence of CC in the world (in 72 countries). The last one is far more than the number of Chapters, so there are many countries where, despite the presence of a CC community, there aren’t formal Chapters. These considerations must be analyzed in relation to the awareness that, despite the work of the past 15 years, the use and correct understanding of the licenses have not yet reached a satisfactory level. Therefore, there is a lot of work to do in order to spread the CC culture and the CC licenses too.
Then, Deborah focused on a technical issue concerning the definition of the term of office of Chapter Lead and Representative to GNC. In fact, the rules of the Network Strategy are conflicting with the rules of the GNC Charter. The intent is to clarify that rules with a proposal approved during the annual GNC meeting.
3) Forthcoming Italian Chapter elections
As said in point 2, Deborah De Angelis underlined the need to renew the offices once the technical aspects will be clarified, encouraging everyone to run for the elections. Any further consideration should be postponed until after the Global Summit, during which we should have more information.
4) Proposals for panels at the CC Global Summit 14-16 May 2020 in Lisbon;
Deborah De Angelis speaked about the ideas gathered during the past months as probable subjects of interest for the community, selecting the topics to be proposed as a panel at the next CC Summit.
From this perspective, some issues are too much strictly connected to the Italian context or not entirely in line with the CC approach and not appropriate for the Summit.
The following points fall into this category: a) creation of an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system with local and central commissions for disputes resolution on the interpretation, application and termination of CC licenses; b) best national practices for implementation of art. 14 of Directive 790/2019; c) problems related to the implementation of art. 15 and the connection between CC licenses and newspaper articles.
These topics, although considered inappropriate for the Summit, are interesting for the CC community and will be highlighted by the Italian Chapter as topics of discussion.
A further question raised by Claudio Artusio is about the users who lose the link for the attribution of the CC licenses. In such situations the user won’t have any evidence about his correct use of the work released with a CC license. In order to support him, Claudio has suggested the possible involvement of whom provides timestamping services. The Chapter could start a dialogue with these subjects in order to define how best implement the service. In any case, the Chapter would be only a facilitator in the process.
Finally, the Glossary/Thesaurus was identified as a project to be presented at the 2020 Summit (point 5).
5) Glossary / Thesaurus: state of the art and benchmark analysis
Italian Chapter with its institutional member (IGSG – CNR) and with the cooperation of the Argentine Chapter is studying the opportunity to build up a Glossary/Thesaurus of CC licenses in the Italian and Spanish languages trying to make it broader, to be presented in Latin America, Spain and Italy with the target of a more inclusive study. The final goal is to fix a work methodology suitable for the creation of a shared platform that could be used as a base for the translation of the Glossary/Thesaurus in all the Chapter’ languages. The feasibility study focuses on a specific case study target group which is the scholarly community which offers online open courses.
The Glossary provides definitions to specific terms within CC licenses. The sources of such definitions come from the texts of the licenses, FAQ and consolidated material by the Italian Chapter and the CC Certificate for Educators and Librarians materials. The Thesaurus offers a specific domain knowledge representation, together with semantic relationships.
The feasibility study and its outcomes could be useful to both the community and users. Glossary/Thesaurus could be an useful tool to promote the cooperation between Chapters and improve the widespread understanding of the licenses to lay users as well as to professionals. During the meeting, we spoke about the possibility of identifying a reference English glossary. Deborah De Angelis asked for some information about it to both Cable Green and the Slack platform but has not received further information yet. In the end, we planned the panel presentation at the next CC Summit 2020 and time scheduling of the next steps (in early March IGSG will send the Glossary/Thesaurus to the Chapter lead for the second step related to the target).
6) Planning of events for the promotion and enhancement of the Chapter’s activities
Deborah De Angelis reported that the Chapter intends to organize meetings, workshops and moments of sharing in order to increase the spread of Open Culture values and the implementation of CC licenses in Italy.
A long-term goal could be creating an Italian Summit where the Italian CC community could meet each other sharing feedback and knowledge. This project could bring together the CC community and who, in the meantime, will take part in the Chapter’s activities.
7) Open Education and spreading of the CC licenses strategy
The discussion was about the content release system in the library repositories and problems related with that. When the authors choose the type of license, they often choose not proper licenses (for example because they no longer have rights on their works). In these cases the repository becomes responsible and obliged to respond. For this reason a lot of librarians are interested in this area and follow courses and workshops that are not directly for them.
Then, the assembly discussed the definition of “open access”, a term often used improperly. In fact, it is used related to licenses that are not in this category (the only licenses compatible with the concept of open access are CC BY and CC BY-SA. In some cases, CC BY ND is also acceptable).
Then the assembly moved on Open Education and Paola Corti presented the METID (Methods and Innovative Technologies for Learning) of the Politecnico di Milano and their MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Many MOOCs are defined as “open” but in fact they release content for free without using a proper open license. METID, on the contrary, uses CC licenses, as a requirement necessary to upload to the platform. At the same time, METID supports users about the correct use of licenses, explaining them different practical implications, and providing them additional material (for example images released with CC licenses).
In the platform there are different types of CC licenses, but METID is working for the implementation of the CC BY.
Then, Paola reported on Unesco’s Open Educational Resources Recommendation, a Unesco request for action for the member states to share with open licenses in order to obtain funds.
8) Operational issues: translation of the FAQ, SeLiLi, news archive
Deborah De Angelis made a point about the Chapter website, published recently but work in progress.
FAQ: Claudio Artusio is handling the translation and updating of the FAQs on the old website of the Italian group and the new ones posted on creativecommons.org. When the translation will be finished, it could be available on the Italian Chapter website and published also on creativecommons.org.
NEWS ARCHIVE: Laura Sinigaglia is uploading the entire news archive and calendar from the old site of the Italian CC working group.
SELILI: Simone Aliprandi reported the need to upload the entire Selili archive to our new website server to not lose it. It could be useful selecting the most transversal contents in order to give them visibility on the chapter website as a FAQ support.
COMPUTER SPECIALIST: The Chapter needs a technical figure able to support its activities permanently.
9) Collaborations and partnerships
Deborah De Angelis pointed out the intention of the Chapter to create a network of partners, and that the efforts of the Chapter in the past months is aimed to realize it. The goal is to involve private and public partners in order to create productive collaborations to implementate the values of open culture.
10) Any other business.
Simone Aliprandi raised the issue of the application of CC licenses by the Public Administration. There is a lot of confusion in this regard, especially in the field of cultural heritage. In fact, in cases where the normative reference is the Italian Cultural Heritage Code and not the Copyright Law, the use of licenses can be not only incorrect but completely misleading and counterproductive.
As there is nothing else to deliberate on, the meeting is closed at 17:00, after drafting, reading and approving these minutes.
The president The secretary
Deborah De Angelis Laura Sinigaglia
