COV Video Content Guidelines

[Wesley Fryer]

We've needed to formally create some "content guidelines" for our COV learning community videos, and I'd like to seek your input on this. Here are some ideas:

1- Contributed videos should be appropriate to show in K-12 classrooms. While not all content needs to be necessarily "appropriate" at an intellectual/cognitive level for primary age students, the words and language used should at all times be appropriate. (i.e. no profanity, derogatory language, racist language, etc.)

2- Themes of contributed videos should be generally positive and constructive. Issues can certainly be addressed as "Public Service Announcements" (PSAs) which are contentious and challenging to communities, but topics should be addressed in a way that is always appropriate. Use the "school board litmus test." Is the video appropriate to show and share at a local school board meeting? If not, it is likely not appropriate to be shared here on our COV learning community.

3- Remember the videos you create not only represent yourself and your school, but also your community and our state. We want to put our best foot forward. This does not mean we want to avoid all topics which could be controversial or difficult (addressing drug abuse, teen pregnancy, etc. in a PSA or service learning video can be VERY appropriate, for example) but it does mean we want to consider our audience and purpose. In general, most videos created and shared here should focus on some aspect of oral history, community history, school history, family history, or state geography.

4- Images, audio, music and video footage included in your video must comply with U.S. copyright law. To comply with copyright, COV project facilitators recommend participants use:

1. Homegrown media: Media you create personally and either have the copyright to or obtain permission to copy and use
2. Creative Commons media: Media created by others and licensed up-front for re-use and remixing
3. Fair-Use media: Media which can be used under fair use provisions of US Copyright law

For more information and guidance about copyright, Creative Commons and fair use guidelines, please refer to the Copyright and Fair Use Resources section of our project wiki. Please include source citations for your video either in the video as end-credits or as a comment to your shared video posted in our online learning community.

If you have a question about whether a topic is appropriate to address in a video shared here on the COV learning community, please contact one of of our project facilitators and/or post the question here in our forum.

What points would you add or change to the suggested guidelines above?

[Sherri]

This looks great. Do you want to mention anything about copyright here or just leave that to the workshop?

[Wesley Fryer]

That is a good idea to address copyright guidelines here, Sherri. That probably should be included as a 4th guideline. How about this:

4- Images, audio, music and video footage included in your video must comply with U.S. copyright law. To comply with copyright, COV project facilitators recommend participants use:

1. Homegrown media: Media you create personally and either have the copyright to or obtain permission to copy and use
2. Creative Commons media: Media created by others and licensed up-front for re-use and remixing
3. Fair-Use media: Media which can be used under fair use provisions of US Copyright law

For more information and guidance about copyright, Creative Commons and fair use guidelines, please refer to the Copyright and Fair Use Resources section of our project wiki. Please include source citations for your video either in the video as end-credits or as a comment to your shared video posted in our online learning community.