Open Educational Resources

Creative Commons Licensing

A valuable aspect of Open Educational Resources is the ability to be easily, and legally, manipulated for use in different applications by others.  Creative Commons has developed a simple, standardized system to grant copyright permissions that allow content to be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon.  While there are alternatives available, many OERs use Creative Commons as their license system of choice.

• Creative Commons licenses have a legal document behind each license type, along with a “human-readable” easy to read reference version and a machine-readable code.

• All Creative Commons licenses allow content creators to retain copyright and receive credit for the work they deserve.

• Creative Commons licenses allow creators to specify how others can copy, distribute, and make use of the work.

Images by Creative Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0 International.

The open licenses developed by Creative Commons can be found below with a brief description.  For more information on specific licenses, follow any of the links.

 CC 0 - Public Domain 

This license enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law.

 CC BY - Attribution

This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, 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.

 CC BY-SA - Attribution - ShareAlike

This license lets others remix, adapt, 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.

 CC BY-ND - Attribution - NoDerivs

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.

 CC BY-NC - Attribution - Non-Commercial

This license lets others remix, adapt, 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.

 CC BY-NC-SA - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

 CC BY-NC-ND - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

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.

Adapted from "About the Licenses" by Creative Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0 International.

Whether creating original content yourself or developing the content of others, licensing is an important part of OERs.  The following resources provide a wealth of information for anyone interested in open licensing in general and in Creative Commons licensing.

Creative Commons Licenses - A good place to start, this page from Creative Commons provides a general introduction to the Creative Commons Licenses.

Open Attribution Builder - From Open Washington, this tool assists in generating the attribution for the content you create and the OER content you make use of. 

Creative Commons License Chooser - Developed by Creative Commons, this tool streamlines the process of choosing which license is appropriate, as well as creating relevant links and code to assist.

The OER Starter Kit - This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to all aspects of the use and creation of open educational resources (OER).  Specific information about copyright and licensing can be found in the two sections of the Copyright chapter, COPYRIGHT AND OPEN LICENSING and CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES.

Open Content: A Practical Guide to using Creative Commons Licences - Intended to provide interested individuals and organizations with practical guidelines for the use and application of open content licenses: How do open content licenses work? How do I choose the most suitable license for my individual needs? Where can I find open content online?

Open education, copyright and open licensing in a digital world - In this micro-course offered by OERu, you will learn to effectively apply knowledge of copyright, open licensing and license remix compatibility utilizing open education practices to support tertiary learning in a global digital context.

Creative Commons FAQ: General License Information - General information about Creative Commons Licenses.

Creative Commons FAQ: Licensee Information - General information about using resources with Creative Commons Licenses.