All OER are made available under some type of open license, a set of authorized permissions from the rightsholder of a work for any and all users. Open licenses are an integral part of what makes an educational resource an OER. The adaptability and reusability of OER make it so that they are not just free to access, but also free for instructors who want to alter the materials for use in their course. The most popular of these licenses are Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Creative Commons licenses are customizable copyright licenses that allow others to reuse, adapt, and re-publish content with few or no restrictions. CC licenses allow creators to explain in plain language how their works can be used by others.

Choosing a License

Choosing a CC license can be confusing at first, but the online Choose a License tool can help. This tool generates a license based on which rights you want to retain and which you would like to give to users. For example, if you want to share your work and allow others to adapt it, but you do not want others to be able to sell your work, you might consider using the CC BY NC license.

Before you choose a license, keep in mind that an OER should be able to exercise all the 5 Rs of open content. Not all of the CC licenses meet this definition. Specifically, the CC BY ND and CC BY NC ND licenses do not allow revising or remixing content, two of the most significant freedoms of OER for many instructors.

For this project, you've agreed to share your assignment with a Creative Commons CC BY Open License.

Sharing

Concept Review

True or False:

The four Creative Commons conditions are: Attribution, Share Alike, Non-Commercial, No-Derivatives

• True

• False

When reusing any work with a creative commons license, attribution is suggested, but not required as part of the license condition.

• True

• False

Using the Attribution Builder, generate an attribution statement for the following linked image: Think! by Christian Weidinger

Activity

Go back to the Open Pedagogy renewable assignment you created in the previous section. Be sure your resource is properly marked with an open license and publicly accessible (public link sharing in Google Docs is acceptable if you’re not ready to make it broadly discoverable).

Here’s an example of an openly licensed handout on open education for faculty. It was created with a Google Docs template. The handout was adapted from an existing OER (see attribution statement) and modified to meet the needs of the creator for a faculty workshop.

• Open Education (OE): A Fact Sheet for Faculty

Once you’ve created your renewable assignment, consider emailing the resource link to your colleagues or students for review.

Attributions

All Creative Commons Licensing wording from The OER Starter Kit Workbook by Abbey K. Elder & Stacy Katz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.