April 7, 2016 - The presentation was part of the Intellectual Property Caucus Panel Presentation, held on April 7, 2016, at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) 2016. Jones addresses how blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies and powers bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, can help solve the problem of maintaining intellectual property (IP) rights over open educational resources (OERs), and how blockchain technology will influence the future of the writing discipline and pedagogy.

1. Sherry Jones
Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design
Using Blockchain Technology to
Maintain OERs and IPs

3. Introduction
The following presentation by Sherry Jones was part of the Intellectual
Property Caucus Panel Presentation, held on April 7, 2016, at the
Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) 2016.
Jones addressed how blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies
and powers bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, could help solve the
problem of maintaining intellectual property (IP) rights over open
educational resources (OERs), and how blockchain technology could
influence the future of the writing discipline and pedagogy.

4. 3 Points to Address
1. Promoting the publication of OER alone is not enough to ensure
recognition of IP.
2. OER + Blockchain Technology will be a possible solution for
maintaining IP for both universities and educators/students.
3. Students will become publishers of OERs (and co-owners with
universities of the IP of OERs).

5. rgMOOC: An OER Project
• OER Project: rgMOOC (2013), formally known as “Rhetoric and Composition: The
Persuasive Power of Video Games as Paratexts,” is a globally open-access English
Composition II MOOC; the project was funded by the Colorado Immersive and Game-
Based Learning Initiative; Jones served as the principal investigator and UX designer of
the rgMOOC open access learning environment. The course was co-taught by Jones
and Caruso.
• OER Artifacts: All instructors and students made artifacts were published as OERs.
• OER Publication Method: Artifacts were published on web 2.0, social media, and LOR.
• OER Project Design Logic: 1) Enable instructors to share their materials with the world;
2) enable college and instructors/students maintain co-ownership over creative
commons IP of all artifacts; 3) enable students to add their rgMOOC artifacts to online
portfolios.

6. rgMOOC OER
Artifact:
Mightybell
● Asynchronous weekly discussions with
alternate reality game (ARG) style
YouTube videos were published on the
Mightybell.
● Using avatar names (to protect
privacy), students watched and
answered questions publicly on
Mightybell.
● All Mightybell discussions were
published as OERs.

7. rgMOOC OER
Artifact:
Twitter
● Synchronous weekly Q & As,
in the style of alternate reality
games (ARG) were held on
Twitter.
● Instructors, students, and
anyone on the web
communicated via avatar
handles (to protect privacy).
● All Twitter prompts and
responses were open access.

8. rgMOOC OER
Artifact:
Titanpad
● a synchronous 2 hours
collaborative essay writing
competition was held on Titanpad.
● 14–16 students per group co-
authored multiple Titanpad essays.
● Students collectively published
their works as OERs with rgMOOC
attribution.

9. rgMOOC OER
Artifact:
Pathbrite
● All rgMOOC video tutorials
were published as OERs on
Pathbrite.
● Pathbrite served as the
library or the “secret vault”
of rgMOOC.

10. 3 Problems Encountered with rgMOOC OERs
1. OERs published within the college LOR system were hidden from
public view (not open access).
2. OERs published on the web lacked permanence (technologies can
change how and where information is displayed).
3. Creative Commons IP was not always recognized; those who
borrowed rgMOOC materials did not provide proper CC attribution.
Recognizing CC IP helps build author’s ethos (compensation is not of
primary concern).

11. Proposal: Use Blockchain to Maintain OER
IP (1 of 2)
• What is Blockchain? Blockchain is a distributed database and public ledger technology
that powers Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
• What does Blockchain do? It saves information in a “block” that is added to the end of
a chain of records; it maintains permanence of the original information recorded and
shared with a community by referencing previous records (all records are permanent
and traceable).
• Why is Blockchain revolutionary? It supports the “decentralization” of information,
meaning that there is no need to store information in a central database, while
maintaining records of all information with attribution to the originating creator/author.
Eliminating chances of fraud and manipulation.

12. Blockchain
Technology
in Banking
Illustrated
Image Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/vivekravisankar/2015/11/01/blockchain-the-
decentralization-of-cs-education/#56b123936576

13. Proposal: Use Blockchain to Maintain OER
IP (2 of 2)
• Blockchain in Education? On Feb. 22, 2016, Sony Global Education (a division of
Sony) announced that it is using blockchain to house educational data for association
with a “universal education ID.”
• Blockchain Supports IP? Melanie Swan, founder of Institute for Blockchain Studies
and affiliate scholar of IEET, predicts that “blockchain could replace or supplement all
existing IP management systems” (Swan, 2015, VII, Blockchain: Blueprint for a New
Economy).
• Blockchain for OERs? Since blockchain will help maintain OER permanence and
traceability, it eliminate the need to save OERs on centralized databases, such as LOR.

14. Implications of Blockchain for Higher
Education, Writers/Authors, and the
Teaching of Writing
• Higher Education: 1) Colleges can leverage blockchain technology to document all
educational records, and to ensure that all student-made-artifacts will carry both the
colleges’ and students’ information (co-ownership of IP) in a blockchain; 2) plagiarism
checking will be made obsolete by blockchain.
• Writers/Authors: 1) Can claim authorship over a piece of writing no matter how
many copies of that same writing exist; 2) self-publishing is supported with no fear of
IP loss.
• Teaching of Writing: Encourage students to collaborate and publish writings, in a
community of writers, for real audiences as OERs (supporting the mission of WAC and
WID), while upholding both college and students’ co-ownership of IP.

15. Presentation By:
Sherry Jones
Philosophy | Rhetoric | Game Studies
sherryjones.edtech@gmail.com
Twitter @autnes
http://about.me/sherryjones