|
| 1 | +title: Creative Commons Google Docs Add-on |
| 2 | +--- |
| 3 | +categories: |
| 4 | +community |
| 5 | +open-source |
| 6 | +google-docs |
| 7 | +plugin |
| 8 | +--- |
| 9 | +author: brandonopened |
| 10 | +--- |
| 11 | +pub_date: 2019-09-11 |
| 12 | +--- |
| 13 | +body: |
| 14 | +A few years ago I published a [Google Docs Add-on that allowed users to insert a Creative Commons license image and link into their Google doc](https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/creative_commons_license_chooser/803008856330). Since then it’s been used thousands of times and I’ve gotten some great feedback from teachers about how nice it is to teach their students about digital literacy. |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +### Why |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +I created the add-on after inspiration from students in one of the classes I teach at [Fresno Pacific University’s Graduate School of Education](http://www.fresno.edu/). I was teaching a course on digital literacy, and open licenses and fair use was a large portion of the course. |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +To get started, I used the [templates Google provided about building an addon](https://developers.google.com/apps-script/overview), took a look at the html etc on the Creative Commons License Chooser page itself, and eventually got something working! It took a couple of days off and on and mostly was me remembering javascriptI admit I had to pay a guy on Upwork to help clean up the code before I published it because sometimes the chooser would keep selecting hundreds of license images… of course, this was also before I was a bona fide contributor to the open source project I Product Manage, [OpenSALT](http://www.github.com/opensalt/opensalt). |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +My hope is that folks are able to normalize the idea of putting a Creative Commons license on their public documents, as well as when [uploading creative content to Youtube](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797468?hl=en) etc. Teachers in particular would be served by publishing a license so that if their work shows up unauthorized on [Teachers Pay Teachers without attribution or for commercial purposes](https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/12/19/on-teachers-pay-teachers-some-sellers-are.html), they have a legal avenue to pursue it to be taken down. Even [Medium has an option to publish documents with a CC license](https://creativecommons.org/2015/05/06/medium-embraces-cc-licenses/). |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +My nine year teaching career in Fresno Unified School District plus my career in Edtech (OpenEd.com, ACT) have opened my eyes to the need for a more open Web. Creative Commons licenses allow ‘free’ to not just be free, but able to conform to the five [R’s of open content](https://opencontent.org/definition/)(retained, reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed) and enable greater opportunities for innovation and equity. |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +### What |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +This month I’ve finally updated it from the old Google Docs add-on store to the Gsuite Marketplace and updated some links. I’ve also updated the [Github sit](https://github.com/brandonopened/creativecommons_gdocs)e as the main website for the app and hope to implement some changes based on the work in[ this Github repo](https://github.com/creativecommons/cc-license-chooser) with an updated license chooser process etc. The add-on has been installed thousands of times and usually has couple of hundred uses a month based on statistics. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +I hope in the future to use an API call to support different languages, and perhaps embed RDF into the Google doc if that is possible to make the license machine-searchable. This is a fun project that is useful and helping teach me more about coding and best practices for open source software. |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +### How |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +1. In Google Docs, select “Get Add-ons” |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +2. Input Creative Commons and press enter |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +3. Install and use! |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +#### Video tutorial |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +[A video tutorial is available here](https://youtu.be/sQZFlNXEVZ4) or by clicking on the image below. |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sQZFlNXEVZ4 |
| 54 | +" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/sQZFlNXEVZ4/0.jpg" |
| 55 | +alt="Video tutorial" border="10" /></a> |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +--- |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +[No rights reserved](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) for the content of this blog post by the author. |
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