Join the Quest
Phoebe and Hunter found Sarah! Sarah is an OER Wizard from the ancient times. She says:
Take this item. It will help you on your quest!
OER are not copyright-free, but rather are generally available for use under Creative Commons or similar open licenses. These licenses grant permission to Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute resources.
What are OER?
OER are open educational resources - teaching and learning resources, digital or otherwise, that are free for use and give users certain permissions about how they are used. OER are not copyright-free, but rather are generally available for use under Creative Commons or similar open licenses. These licenses grant free, perpetual permission to Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute resources.
Rights of OER Use
The “5 Rs” is a framework that encourages educators to capitalize on the unique rights associated with open content. These rights include the ability to:
Retain: Make and own copies of the work (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage).
Reuse: Use the work in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video).
Revise: Adapt, modify and translate the work (e.g., translate the content into another language).
Remix: Combine it with another resource to make a new work (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup).
Redistribute: Share the work with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend).
These rights, or permissions, are made possible through open licensing. For example, Creative Commons open licenses help creators of OER retain copyright while allowing others to reproduce, distribute, and make some uses of their work.
Attribution: The 5 Rs of OER is a derivative of the 5 R Permissions of OER by Lumen Learning, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
OER Licenses
It's important to recognize which resources permit which uses. Creative Commons licenses are some of the most common ways for OER licensing. There are six creative commons licenses, ranging from most open to least open.
Attribution CC BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND
This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.
Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA
This license 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.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
Attribution: About the licenses by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Creative commons license spectrum between public domain (top) and all rights reserved (bottom). Left side indicates the use-cases allowed, right side the license components. The dark green area indicates Free Cultural Works compatible licenses, the two green areas compatibility with the Remix culture.
Attribution: Shaddim; original CC license symbols by Creative Commons - Original CC license icons licensed under CC BY 4.0