OER & Copyright Basics

Before we can delve more deeply into the intersections of open education, universal design and culturally responsive teaching, we must understand flexible copyright and some basics about OER.

Copyright

At the heart of open education are flexible copyright licenses that facilitate sharing and adapting of course materials. This section covers the basics of open licensing. It is adapted from training provided by Open Oregon Educational Resources and may be a review for some of you.

What is an open license?

Keep in mind that all materials are automatically copyrighted, even if they are free to view on the web. An open license sits on top of the copyright for a document and specifies what can and cannot be done with a work. It grants permissions and states restrictions.

Broadly speaking, an open license is one that grants permission to access, re-use and redistribute a work with few or no restrictions (definition from Openedefinition.org).

Why should we care about open licenses? Want to edit existing OER texts to add more diverse perspectives or make the materials more accessible? This is made possible by open licenses. Want to involve your students as creators of course materials and/or build upon work from previous classes? Open licenses help facilitate this.

Please watch the short video for an explanation of open licenses:

Open Licensing Transcript

Traditional copyright (all rights reserved) versus openly licensed content

Traditional copyright:

Automatically granted at the moment of creation - no further steps needed
Copyright holder may give permission for certain uses if you contact them (this can take a long time)
You can make a fair use argument for educational reuse without the copyright holder’s permission, but that argument is only good for your course

Open license added:

You add an open license to your work to let users know which permissions you grant
Copyright holder specifies permission in advance for certain uses of their work (shortcut!)
You can share your open course widely because downstream users already have permission to reuse all the content under the terms of the open license

Creative Commons

There are many open licenses developed for different areas of knowledge. However, when it comes to open educational resources the most typical and common open licenses used are Creative Commons Licenses.

In 2001, inspired by the open source software license movement, a group of experts comprised of educators, technologists, legal scholars, investors, entrepreneurs and philanthropists gathered together to come up with a set of copyright licenses that would allow creators to easily share materials that were not software code, such as blogs, photos, films, books, etc.

They founded a nonprofit organization called Creative Commons and developed the first set of open licenses in 2002. These Creative Commons licenses brought clarity and ease to sharing materials online.

Decoding CC licenses:

CC-BY: Users can do the 5 R’s with the work as long as they provide attribution.

CC BY Share-Alike: Users provide attribution AND license their derivative work exactly the same way as the original.

CC BY Non-Commercial: Users provide attribution AND are not allowed to use the work for any commercial purpose.

CC BY No Derivatives: The work can’t be changed, so users can’t do the 5 R’s. Doesn’t meet the definition of open educational resources!

Copyright resources:

PCC's Copyright guide - Provides information about teaching with Creative Commons materials, FAQs about fair use, the TEACH Act, PCC copyright help, etc.
Creative Commons "About the licenses" - Explains Creative Commons licensing; this site also allows you to choose a Creative Commons license for your own works and provides icons and code for them.

Attribution:

Content in this section was adapted from "Open Licenses" by Amy Hofer, Open Oregon Educational Resources, licensed under CC Attribution.Other sources: "Open License" by Boyoung Chae, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges , licensed under CC BY 4.0.

OER

Basic information about open educational resources (OERs) is another baseline of understanding we should establish as a cohort. The information in this section is adapted from training provided by Open Oregon Educational Resources and may be a review for some of you. Some of the content in the video focuses on course materials that are in the format of a textbook but have flexible copyright, and are therefore, OER textbooks.

Keep in mind that this is only one sort of "open" approach. Some instructors (maybe you?) do away with textbooks all together; we'll talk more about other approaches throughout the cohort

OER Basics Video Transcript

The 5Rs of OER

Open educational resources (OER) are educational materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others (definition by Hewlett Foundation).

The term “open content” describes any copyrightable work (traditionally excluding software, which is described by other terms like “open source”) that is licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:

Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

To see how others define OER, please visit What is OER. by Creative Commons.

Quality

You probably noticed that this page is all about copyright status. Copyright status has nothing to do with the quality of the work. Just as you wouldn't look for a traditional copyright symbol to tell you whether a textbook is going to work for your course, an open license provides no guarantee. You're the subject matter expert - you need to evaluate open content just as you would any materials you use for your course.

OER Resources

PCC's OER guide for faculty - Includes information about finding OER, adopting OER at PCC, printing, OER research, etc.
Open Oregon Education Resources- Provides information about state funding opportunities, known OER adoptions from instructors around the state, etc.

Attribution:

This section was adapted from "Understanding the Basics of OER" by Amy Hofer, Open Oregon Educational Resources, licensed under CC Attribution.Additional sources:"Understanding OER" by Boyoung Chae , Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges ., licensed under CC BY 4.0 "Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources". by David Wiley, licensed under CC BY 4.0."Public Domain". by Boyoung Chae . Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, licensed under CC BY 4.0 ."Public Domain" by Wikipedia , licensed under CC BY SA 4.0.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Because you are here, I am guessing that you've done some thinking about your course materials and are concerned with the culture that we create through education.

This week, listen to (or read) this NPR interview with James Loewen, author of Lies my teacher told me: everything your American history textbook got wrong. Loewen discusses some obvious manifestations of racism in history texts, but some of the issues with our course materials may be less overt.

As you listen, consider the course materials in your own courses. Whose voices are represented? Whose are excluded? Which topics may have been omitted and why?

Week 1 tasks

Post in the Introductions forum (due Tue 4/23)
Review all material on the OER & Copyright Basics pages. Listen to the NPR interview with James Loewen.
Decide whether to meet in-person, via phone or online each week with your mini-group in your mini-group logistics forum. ASAP!
Meet with mini-group and discuss Week 1 prompts.
1 member from each mini-group posts discussion summary/responses to prompt in Week 1 Forum. (due Fri 4/26)
Read summaries from all groups in Week 1 Forum and respond with your thoughts and questions

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