Who can use the Language Box?

Anyone can browse the resources in the Language Box, but you have to register in order to download or upload resources. Registration is a short process, and once completed you can start to use the great resources you find here!

Why should I use the Language Box?

The Language Box allows you to publish your teaching and learning resources directly to the web, bypassing VLEs and personal websites. It also presents information to you in a fun, user-friendly way; and you can find relevant resources much more quickly and easily by checking what is commonly downloaded and what is new each time you log in. You can also see comments and activities suggested by colleagues in the languages community attached to your own resources - and those of others. And last but definitely not least, you can share resources with like-minded users across the country - and the world!

What is the copyright status of the materials on the Language Box?

We would like you to share as many of your resources as possible, but we understand that users might have some concerns about this, so we insist on one of two reasonably open Creative Commons licenses for ALL materials uploaded to the site. Creative Commons is a charitable corporation which helps educators create copyright licenses and publish online material. Creative Commons licenses allow users a range of freedoms over the work. The two licenses that we feel are most appropriate to the Language Box are:

i) The Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license. This permits the following:

"...lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work.but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature." See details at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

This is the license we would like you to use because it means people can share and re-purpose their resources in the most flexible way.

ii) The Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license.

"This license is often called the "free advertising" license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can't change them in any way or use them commercially." See details at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

You might want to use this license if, for example, your resource makes use of a third party's words/voice, and they have not given permission for any editing or altering of what they say.

Can I restrict who views my resources?

No, you can't, and the reason for this is that we want users to share their resources with as many people as possible, so we have not put any kind of limitation on who can view your resources.

If I upload a video, why can't I see it immediately after I've uploaded it?

This depends on the size of your video: if you are uploading a long piece of video, it is likely to have a large file size, and it will take some time for the Language Box server to process it.

What is the FAROES project?

The Faroes project is a JISC-funded Capital Project led by the Learning Societies Laboratory in ECS at the University of Southampton, and supported by pedagogic experts from the University of Portsmouth, and from Modern Languages and the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies at the University of Southampton.

Its primary aim is to establish a lightweight repository for learners and teachers to share their resources, using the best-practice principles of Web 2.0, and using feedback from the active community of language teachers and learning technologists that the project has been engaged with.

Why is the name "Faroes" used for the project?

We would like to create a chain of subject-specific repositories for different academic communities, so that users can share resources by "digital island-hopping" - so we chose a name connected to the island theme. If you are interested in becoming part of the chain, please contact the project team at www.faroes.ecs.soton.ac.uk

Why does the project have a puffin as its logo?

Because it is cute (and there are lots of puffins in the Faroes Islands). But if you can think of a better reason please let us know!