Loomio
Tue 14 Mar 2017 12:55AM

CCANZ website redevelopment + impact case studies

EH Elizabeth Heritage Public Seen by 49

Kia ora koutou

One of the things I'm excited about getting stuck into this year is redeveloping our CCANZ website, and we're really grateful that Prefer, who have long hosted our website for free, are continuing to support CCANZ by doing this work for a nominal fee. Our website will of course continue to be completely open source.

I've been thinking a lot about how best to make use of our website as a communications tool and I wanted to share this thinking with you all and get your ideas.

The primary comms goals of the CCANZ website are that it should:
- persuasively tell the story of what the CC movement is and why you should join in
- give easy-to-understand factual information about what the CC licences are and how to apply them etc.
- signpost useful sector-specific information and resources
- show what CCANZ is up to as an organisation and invite people to join our community.
(As well as all the regular stuff like newsletter sign-ups, how to find CC works online, etc.)

In terms of design, tone, and content, I want the CCANZ website to be as welcoming and accessible as possible, both to people who are considering CC for personal use and those who are visiting for work/professional purposes. I see that accessibility working across a variety of axes:
- making sure people who are visually impaired can use the website as easily as possible
- being less monolingual
- making better use of visual imagery and video, for those who learn better through those media than through text
- making it really clear what help CCANZ can offer to organisations who are considering using CC so that they don't feel they have to muddle through it alone.

One of the things that we want our website to do better is demonstrate the impact of using CC. We have lots of great case studies but they are often more about the process of choosing to move to CC rather than the impact of what happens after you do.

So my questions for you all at this stage are:
1. If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you want the CCANZ website to be able to do? Give me your wishlist! If we can't make it happen now there's always the chance we can work towards it in the future.
2. Where in Aotearoa do you think CC is having the biggest impact, and how can we demonstrate this?

Mā te wā
Elizabeth

EH

Elizabeth Heritage Wed 5 Apr 2017 11:36PM

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind when I get to the content-loading phase.

WM

Wayne Mackintosh Thu 6 Apr 2017 2:27AM

Hi Strypey,

Thanks for the amendment - that works well.

Minor typo - the concept is "Free cultural works" and here's the reference link: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition

KB

Keitha Booth Thu 6 Apr 2017 5:40AM

Thanks, Strypey annd Wayne, for your interest, suggestions, and involvement.

As Elizabeth says, we are not yet at the content-loading stage, so will add your licence suggestions to our list.

We are still seeking feedback from all Loomio folk on:

  1. If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you want the CCANZ website to be able to do? Give me your wishlist! If we can’t make it happen now there’s always the chance we can work towards it in the future.2. Where in Aotearoa do you think CC is having the biggest impact, and how can we demonstrate this?

Big thanks to those of you have have replied. We would love to hear from others as well.

Keitha

Keitha BoothInterim Public Lead
Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand
[email protected]
Mobile: 0274 454 616

WM

Wayne Mackintosh Thu 6 Apr 2017 8:55AM

Mmm Keitha

The discussion of free cultural works signified licenses is a fundamental issue relating to the core business of open licensing. The CC HQ site makes a clear distinction between FCW approved licenses and the non-free versions. See for example https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

This distinction has been noticably abscent on the CCANZ site.

I am a pragmatist - we do not have all the time and money in the world and concrete suggestions as how to improve the copy of the current site within our means are legitimate contributions.

DS

Danyl Strype Thu 27 Apr 2017 3:59AM

"concrete suggestions as how to improve the copy of the current site within our means are legitimate contributions."

I agree with you @waynemackintosh, but I also appreciate the facilitation comment by @keithabooth reminding us of the larger scope intended for this thread. Blue skies brainstorming can be really good for pulling out ideas that people might not suggest otherwise, due to thinking they are expensive or difficult. Ideas which may in fact turn out to be either cheap and easy, or worth the expense and effort.

My apologies for not getting around to addressing the case studies question yet, I think it is a really important one. People tend to be more inclined to adopt things they see as working for others, so highlighting successes (even limited successes) across a range of use cases is really key to increasing use of CC licensing, and implicitly debunking pro-ARR FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) from The Stacks.

DS

Danyl Strype Wed 10 May 2017 11:27AM

On the subject of case studies, to really tell the story of how CC licensing is working for people, perhaps we need to cast our net wider? There have been important successes internationally in some sectors where, for a range of reasons, CC licensing hasn't had much impact in Aotearoa yet (eg music). Maybe we need a mixture of local and international stories on our website?

Focusing back on local case studies, as @elizabethheritage observed in the discussion starter, many of our case studies were written in the early years of CC ANZ. Back then, adoption was really all there was to write about, because there hadn't been time for results to come in.

It would be interesting to reinterview the people whose cases were studied, beginning with the earliest ones, and write follow-ups. I'd be curious to know what the specific results were, whether they think CC licensing worked out for them, and whether they're still using it. I think we're beyond the cheerleading stage of advocacy now. While its certainly important to celebrates success stories, arguably it's just as useful and important to discuss and reflect on the failures.

For example, take electronic music producer Module's ambitious 'Pattern dot Life' project. The live album is still available on Archive.org, but the website has not been maintained, and it's difficult to find any information about the project online. Did Module complete the project? Does he consider a success? If not, why does his current web presence not mention it anywhere I can find, and why does none of his other music seem to be licensed under CC?

DS

Dmitry Sokolov Fri 12 May 2017 8:59AM

Strypey,

looks like accessibility problem again.

Would you be interested in participating at the "collective memory"
project?

The requirements to the platform are collected. A quote would be
appreciated.

Please contact me offline: [email protected]

I think, every CC masterpiece deserves being easily found...

Cheers,

Dmitry

DS

Danyl Strype Wed 24 May 2017 9:23AM

One other thing I'd like to see prominently displayed on the website is an events calendar, sortable by region. A lot of event-related info is posted on the blog, in NZ Commons pieces and so on. Maybe there's a way event info can be tagged as such in blog posts, so the events calendar can import them and push them as an event record to a view on the front page (maybe 3-7 events), with a 'more upcoming events' button linked to its own events calendar page.