Infrastructure and lightweight markup language for OER:

The case of emacs-reveal

QR code for URL to presentation https://lechten.gitlab.io/talks/

Reality Check

Open Educational Resources (OER), characterized by 5 Rs of openness (4 Rs in [HWSJ10])
- Permission to retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute
Suppose that after this conference you aim to remix a presentation
- As usual, you obtain a PDF version
  “Conflict” by priyanka under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - How do you transfer contents into your OER?
    - PDF layout conflicts with your organization’s
- Maybe, you obtain a Powerpoint source file
  “mistake” by Kamin Ginkaew under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Layout likely to be destroyed in LibreOffice and OnlyOffice
  - Even if you used Powerpoint, positioning of elements in your organization’s style likely to be incorrect
- Now, you revise the contents in a silo
  “Conflict” by lastspark under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - (E.g., fix typos, update contents based on more recent research)
  - Do you notify the author? Do you collaborate? How?
  - How and where do you redistribute?

Agenda

Basic Terms
Requirements for OER
Emacs-reveal
Sample OER Courses
Conclusions

Basic Terms

(OER: UNESCO Definition)

Open Educational Resources (OER)
- OER are “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.” [Une12]
  “OER Global Logo” by Jonathasmello under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; from Wikimedia Commons
- Usually, Creative Commons licensing
  - Legal “standards” for international/global use
  - Permit 5 Rs of openness [Wil14],[HWSJ10]: retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute
- Briefly, such licenses offer freedoms that would otherwise be prevented by copyright law

(Free Software)

Ideal of sharing in software development
- Free Software = Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS)
  “Photo of Richard Stallman” by Victor Powell under CC BY-SA 3.0; from Wikimedia Commons
  - Term coined in 1980s by Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation
  - “Free” as in free speech or freedom, not free beer
Four freedoms
1. Run software (also changed versions)
2. Study software
3. Redistribute copies
4. Distribute modified versions
Note
- Those freedoms apply to OER
- All subsequently mentioned software is free software

Git

Git as Decentralized VCS

Version control systems (VCSs) keep track of shared repositories
- Repository: Collection of documents (software, learning and teaching resources)
- Keep track
  - Who changed what when why?
  - Synchronize (or restore) shared state
- A popular VCS: Git as free software
Git created by Linus Torvalds for development of kernel Linux
- Reference: Pro Git book
  “Git Logo” by Jason Long under CC BY 3.0; from git-scm.com
- Git as example of decentralized VCS
  - Every author has own copy of all documents and their history
  - Supports offline work without server connectivity
    - Of course, collaboration requires network connectivity
  - Distributed trust/control/visibility/surveillance

GitLab

Various companies offer to host Git repositories on the web
- GitLab is one of them
  “GitLab Logo” by GitLab under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; from gitlab.com
- Free software, which you could run on your own server
- DevOps platform
  - CI/CD (continuous integration, continuous deployment)
Manage Git repositories
- Web GUI for forks, commits, pull requests, issues, and much more
- Notifications for lots of events

Git and We

I believe that we should learn version control when we learn digital writing
- This includes (digital) OER
See [Ova19] for discussion in OER context with Git commands
1. Notification of original author if content changed
2. Showing how the content was changed
3. Linking changed content to original
OER self-study introduction to Git

Requirements for OER

(Licensing)

Sample licenses in line with 5 Rs
- CC0, public domain: Creator waives all rights
  - Beware! Proper academic conduct requires attribution anyways
- CC BY (Attribution): License and creator need to be credited
- CC BY-SA (Attribution and ShareAlike): License and creator need to be credited and derived works must be distributed under “same” license terms
Other licenses, incompatible with 5 Rs
- Non Commercial: Does not grant right to reuse, e.g., on Wikipedia or at university
- No Derivatives: Does not grant rights to revise and remix

(ALMS Framework)

Criteria for OER and software proposed in [HWSJ10]
- In brief, software and resources should be freely accessible

ALMS criterion	Examples	Counter examples
Access to editing tools	Free/Libre and Open Source Soft- ware (e.g., LaTeX, LibreOffice)	Powerpoint Google Docs
Level of expertise required to revise or remix	Not only for nOERds Challenging topic …
Meaningfully editable	LaTeX, Org mode (HTML)	(Scanned) PDF, flash, video
Source-file access	LaTeX, Org mode (HTML)	PDF for LaTeX PDF for office presentation

More OER Requirements

Extension of ALMS framework [Lec19]
- Requirements for “A”: Free/libre and open source software (FLOSS)
  - Free software for learners and teachers, OER users and creators
  - Platform independent
  - Also mobile and offline
- Requirements for “M” and “S”: Single sourcing [Roc01]
  - Single, collaboratively maintained source, no copy&paste
  - Separation of contents and layout
  - Source files with lightweight markup for collaboration with comparison and integration with version control systems such as Git
    “Git Logo” by Jason Long under CC BY 3.0; from git-scm.com

The paper cited here presents my interpretation of the ALMS framework (in German).

The A for access to editing tools is best characterized by free software, and it should be extended to include access to OER on any device, also mobile and offline.

I suggest to extend M and S of the ALMS framework by the concept of single sourcing from technical writing. With single sourcing, we collaboratively maintain documents without the need for copy&paste. Recall that copy&paste is bad as it creates isolated duplicates in silos. Besides, contents should be developed independently of layout concerns, for which so-called lightweight markup languages are a good technical starting point.

Briefly, lightweight markup languages are just text documents that pose no barriers to editing and that harness the full power of version control systems such as Git.

Emacs-reveal

Free software to create OER presentations [Lec19b]
- Howto of emacs-reveal (generated with emacs-reveal)
Software on GitLab
- Source code: https://gitlab.com/oer/emacs-reveal/
- Docker images

Presentation Features

HTML slideshows using reveal.js with audio explanations
“Online Resources” by LUTFI GANI AL ACHMAD under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
- To be viewed with standard Web browsers (platform independent), either on- or offline
- Features include
  - Animations and slide transitions; speaker’s view with preview, notes, and timer; embedding of images, audio, video, mathematical formulas; table of contents; bibliography; keyword index; hyperlinks within and between presentations; themes for different styling; responsive design with touch support; quizzes for retrieval practice; code highlighting and evaluation for programming languages
Satisfies above requirements

OER Presentations with Emacs-Reveal

Presentations written in Org mode
- Lightweight markup language coming with editor GNU Emacs
  - Contents separated from layout
Org mode converted to HTML with emacs-reveal via GitLab CI/CD
- With proper license attribution for images [Lec19c]
  “licensing” by Ralf Schmitzer under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Human-readable, e.g., images on this slide
  - Machine-readable with RDFa (in HTML source code)
- PDF variants as secondary formats

Sample Markup

Excerpt of Org mode source code for earlier slide:

** (OER: UNESCO Definition)
    - *Open Educational Resources* (OER)
      - OER are
        “[[https://en.unesco.org/oer/paris-declaration][teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.]]” cite:Une12
        {{{reveallicense("./figures/logos/Global_OER_Logo.svg.meta","30rh")}}}
      - Usually, [[https://creativecommons.org/licenses][Creative Commons licensing]]
        - Legal “standards” for *international/global* use
        - Permit *5 Rs* of openness cite:Wil14,HWSJ10:
          /retain/, /reuse/, /revise/, /remix/, /redistribute/
      - Briefly, such licenses offer *freedoms* that are restricted by
        standard copyright law

Note
- Simple markup, e.g.:
  - ** for 2nd-level heading; - with indentation for nested lists; * and / for bold and italics
  - Citations to BibTeX bibliography with cite,
  - (Not shown here: animation of slide parts)
- OER logo embedded with reveallicense
  - License metadata handled automatically

Sample OER Courses

Presentations and courses with emacs-reveal: https://oer.gitlab.io/
Take a look, contribute, join forces!

Separation of Contents and Layout

Shown above: Contents specified in text files (Org mode)
- Layout information separately in CSS files
Consequences
1. Content experts do not need to be layout experts
2. Remixing independent of layout conventions (of, say, different collaborating institutions)

Include Mechanism

Org provides in include mechanism

Remixing of smaller learning objects into larger units without copy&paste

E.g., a Docker Introduction:

#+TITLE: Docker Introduction
#+DESCRIPTION: OER introduction to Docker and comparison of containerization with virtualization

#+INCLUDE: "programming/Docker.org"
#+INCLUDE: "programming/Docker-First-Steps.org" :minlevel 1
#+INCLUDE: "programming/Docker-Conclusions.org" :minlevel 1

#+INCLUDE: "~/.emacs.d/oer-reveal-org/backmatter.org"

Thus, updates and improvements do not exist in isolated silos but in shared repository
- Single sourcing [Roc01]

Use of SPDX Headers

Emacs-reveal adopts licensing recommendations of REUSE project
Each source file contains so-called SPDX headers, e.g., Docker.org from previous slide:
```
#+SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2018-2021 Jens Lechtenbörger <https://lechten.gitlab.io/#me>
#+SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0
```
- License information of remixed OER generated automatically
  - With backmatter.org from previous slide
  - Human and machine readable (with RDFa, based on extension of CC REL [AAL+12])

Conclusions

Reality Check Revisited

Open Educational Resources (OER), characterized by 5 Rs of openness (4 Rs in [HWSJ10])
- Permission to retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute
Suppose that after this conference you aim to remix a presentation
- As usual, you obtain a PDF version
  “Conflict” by priyanka under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - How do you transfer contents into your OER?
    - PDF layout conflicts with your organization’s
- Maybe, you obtain a Powerpoint source file
  “mistake” by Kamin Ginkaew under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Layout likely to be destroyed in LibreOffice and OnlyOffice
  - Even if you used Powerpoint, positioning of elements in your organization’s style likely to be incorrect
- Now, you revise the contents in a silo
  “Conflict” by lastspark under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - (E.g., fix typos, update contents based on more recent research)
  - Do you notify the author? Do you collaborate? How?
  - How and where do you redistribute?

Reality Check Revisited

Open Educational Resources (OER), characterized by 5 Rs of openness (4 Rs in [HWSJ10])
- Permission to retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute
Suppose that after this conference you aim to remix a presentation
- ~~As usual, you obtain a PDF version~~
  “experience” by Nithinan Tatah under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Maintain layout separately from contents
    - Each organization with own layout
- Maybe, you obtain a Powerpoint source file
  “mistake” by Kamin Ginkaew under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Layout likely to be destroyed in LibreOffice and OnlyOffice
  - Even if you used Powerpoint, positioning of elements in your organization’s style likely to be incorrect
- Now, you revise the contents in a silo
  “Conflict” by lastspark under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - (E.g., fix typos, update contents based on more recent research)
  - Do you notify the author? Do you collaborate? How?
  - How and where do you redistribute?

Reality Check Revisited

Open Educational Resources (OER), characterized by 5 Rs of openness (4 Rs in [HWSJ10])
- Permission to retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute
Suppose that after this conference you aim to remix a presentation
- ~~As usual, you obtain a PDF version~~
  “experience” by Nithinan Tatah under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Maintain layout separately from contents
    - Each organization with own layout
- ~~Maybe, you obtain a Powerpoint source file~~
  “infrastructure” by Nithinan Tatah under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Exchange lightweight markup, editable with any software,
    rendered into HTML
  - For platform-independent consumption, including offline and mobile
- Now, you revise the contents in a silo
  “Conflict” by lastspark under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - (E.g., fix typos, update contents based on more recent research)
  - Do you notify the author? Do you collaborate? How?
  - How and where do you redistribute?

Reality Check Revisited

Open Educational Resources (OER), characterized by 5 Rs of openness (4 Rs in [HWSJ10])
- Permission to retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute
Suppose that after this conference you aim to remix a presentation
- ~~As usual, you obtain a PDF version~~
  “experience” by Nithinan Tatah under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Maintain layout separately from contents
    - Each organization with own layout
- ~~Maybe, you obtain a Powerpoint source file~~
  “infrastructure” by Nithinan Tatah under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Exchange lightweight markup, editable with any software,
    rendered into HTML
  - For platform-independent consumption, including offline and mobile
- Now, you revise the contents in a silo
  “Society” by Nithinan Tatah under CC BY 3.0 US; cropped from the Noun Project
  - Now, we collaborate with version control

Dr. Jens Lechtenbörger

jens.lechtenboerger@ercis.uni-muenster.de

Leonardo-Campus 3
48149 Münster
Germany

Bibliography

[AAL+12] Abelson, Adida, Linksvayer & Yergler, CC REL: The Creative Commons Rights Expression Language, in: The digital public domain: foundations for an open culture, Open Book Publishers, 2012.
[HWSJ10] Hilton, Wiley, Stein & Johnson, The four ‘R’s of openness and ALMS analysis: frameworks for open educational resources, Open Learning 25(1), 37-44 (2010).
[Lec19] Lechtenbörger, Erstellung und Weiterentwicklung von Open Educational Ressources im Selbstversuch, MedienPädagogik 34, 101-117 (2019). https://doi.org/10.21240/mpaed/34/2019.03.02.X
[Lec19b] Lechtenbörger, Emacs-reveal: A software bundle to create OER presentations, Journal of Open Source Education (JOSE) 2(18), (2019). https://doi.org/10.21105/jose.00050
[Lec19c] Lechtenbörger, Simplifying license attribution for OER with emacs-reveal, in: 17. Fachtagung Bildungstechnologien (DELFI 2019), 2019. https://dl.gi.de/handle/20.500.12116/24399
[Ova19] Ovadia, Addressing the Technical Challenges of Open Educational Resources, portal: Libraries and the Academy 19(1), 79-93 (2019). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/715616
[Roc01] Rockley, The Impact of Single Sourcing and Technology, Technical Communication 48(2), 189-193 (2001).
[Une12] UNESCO, 2012 Paris OER Declaration, 2012. https://en.unesco.org/oer/paris-declaration
[Wil14] Wiley, The Access Compromise and the 5th R, 2014. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221

License Information

Except where otherwise noted, the work “Infrastructure and lightweight markup language for OER: The case of emacs-reveal”, © 2021 Jens Lechtenbörger, is published under the Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 4.0.