Research Guides: Open Educational Resources: Creative Commons Licenses

About

Hello! Take a look at this page for information about open licenses offered through Creative Commons. These licenses can be applied to teaching material. Each one provides a different level of permission for how a work can be used. For all licenses, it is important to give attribution to the original creator of a work.

This page includes some key terms that are used in the OER Community. This will help you to better understand your options when it comes to using or creating open materials.

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons Licenses
All Creative Commons licenses have many important features in common. Every license helps creators — we call them licensors if they use our tools — retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work — at least non-commercially. Every Creative Commons license also ensures licensors get the credit for their work they deserve. Every Creative Commons license works around the world and lasts as long as applicable copyright lasts (because they are built on copyright). These common features serve as the baseline, on top of which licensors can choose to grant additional permissions when deciding how they want their work to be used.

Key Terms

Adopt - In the same way a faculty member "adopts" a traditional textbook, they can adopt OER. Adopting an OER means that an instructor is integrating Open Educational Materials into their courses without major changes or alteration to the work. For example, you might find a textbook through Openstax that you can select for your course, and implement immediately.

Adapt - License permitting, educators may choose to change or modify open teaching material to suit their needs. Adapting OER involves making edits to the text, images, or other components of a work to customize it. This is one of the benefits of using OER - the ability to tailor the material.

Create - To create OER is to author your own material. It is not enough to modify a preexisting OER. Rather creation involves compiling and crafting your own resource and applying an open license to your finished product.

The 5 Rs of Creative Commons Licenses

Retain - make, own, and control a copy of the resource
Revise - edit, adapt, and modify your copy of the resource
Remix - combine your original or revised copy of the resource with other existing material to create something new
Reuse - use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly
Redistribute - share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource with others