Creative Commons Licenses are granted by the copyright-holder of a work and give users specific permissions to use, copy, and adapt it to their own purposes. OER creators assign CC licenses to their work in order to share it with other faculty and students. Creative Commons licenses make OER possible!
The 5 Permissions of OER:
Reuse: Use the content in its unaltered form
Revise: Adapt, adjust, modify, improve, or alter the content
Remix: Combine the original or revised content with other OER to create something new
Redistribute: Share copies of the original content, revisions or remixes with others
Retain: Keep access to materials after the learning event
University of Minnesota Libraries “Decision Map” © 2011 CC-BY-NC 3.0
In general, Copyright Law prohibits reproducing and distributing copyrighted works. A simple way to provide access to copyright-protected materials is to link to them, rather than reproduce the content. This works well for materials available in the library databases, as well as works available for free (but not freely licensed) on legitimate websites.
When linking is not possible, the "Fair Use Doctrine" (Section 107) allows a limited amount of copying for purposes such as teaching and scholarship. In determining whether the use made of a work in a particular case is a Fair Use, the factors to be considered include:
This 6-minute introduction to the ins and outs of open licensing was created by Open Oregon. The other video tutorials mentioned in the presentation are available from Open Oregon's YouTube page.
Creative Commons licensing is at the heart of the OER movement. CC allows creators to specify more flexible forms of copyright that allows "others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work." There are a range of options for the type of use that CC licenses allow:
