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There are plenty of resources that provide OER that can be modified for the specific needs of the user. Before beginning, there is a need to review what OER are in order for them not to be confused with other openly accessible materials. OER, “are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others.” (Creative Commons, 2018) Therefore OERs, to be identified as such, must follow the Five R’s of use: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute (Wiley, n.d.).
The five R’s are important to remember whether creating, sharing or remixing OER. When creating an OER the user must consider:
- What are your OER about?
- Who is your audience?
- Do relevant OER already exist to modify and support your topic?
- What platform will be used for hosting and sharing your OER?
- Is your OER ADA Accessible?
- Does your OER follow the Five R’s?
- Does your OER have a Creative Commons license?
Of course, with the use and introduction of OER there is always the question of how to protect created materials. While there is familiarity with some of the ways that intellectual works are protected (i.e. Copyright, Public Domain, Fair Use, Classroom Exemption, and the Teach Act), this handbook focuses on the CCL, a less familiar method.
Creative Commons is a license that is applied to something that is already under copyright. Therefore, Creative Commons does not replace copyright, but instead gives the creator the ability to dictate how the materials can be used. The majority of created work is automatically copyrighted and copyright can place strong restrictions on those created materials. Creative Commons allows those materials to be used by others within parameters set by the creator without the user having to expend time or money in contacting the creator for specific copyright release information. Creative Commons also meets the copyright standards both in the US and internationally. It is in a legal code and format that lawyers have approved, but is also comprehensible to the general public. It is also machine readable and includes a summary of key freedoms and obligations that are written in a format that software, search engines, and other technology can understand and interpret.
There has been a rising trend of the use of Creative Commons with OER in recent years. Since the inception of Creative Commons in 2001, and its first license in 2002, there have been over 1.1 billion open licensed works created in over 34 different languages. There has been a rising trend in use and creation of Creative Commons Licensed materials, with these materials having been viewed over 136 billion times (Merkley, 2015).
Creative Commons is easy to read and understandable icon-based license. These icons can be combined in various ways depending upon the creator’s criteria for use of the work. Each icon defines how the work can be used. The first icon demands attribution of the work; the second dictates no commercial use; the third icon means that there should be no derivatives of the work; and the final icon is a Share-Alike Icon. This last icon means that any derivatives of the work must possess the same Creative Commons License of the original (Creative Commons, n.d.a).
Creative Commons Icons by Creative Commons is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.
These icons can also be translated into text as CC-BY, CC-NC, CC-ND and CC-SA. It is important to remember that these icons can be combined in various ways. Compared to Copyright (All Rights Reserved) and Public Domain (no rights reserved), Creative Commons (some rights reserved), allows for flexibility and the possibility of freely sharing work while having control over how it is used.
One of the most common questions about CCL concerns how to cite or to give attribution to a work that has an existing license. There are some suggested best practices in order to give proper attribution to any work. All works must give credit to the creator; must include the title of the work, and must be linked back to the original work if in electronic format (this can be hyperlinked). They must also indicate the type of license (and link the Creative Commons license if electronic), whether any other copyright notice is associated with the work, and must include any derivative of the work (Creative Commons, n.d.b). The APA citation guide has recommendations on how to include Creative Commons licensed materials and give attribution within a work. They recommend that a licensed work appears in three separate areas within a paper where the work is being included. The citation for APA should be included first, within the text; second, in conjunction with the work (IMAGE, FIGURE); and third, within the references (Lee, 2016).
For Example:
Original Photo citation:
“Pole Position” by David Kracht is licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.0.
Figure 1. I need a vacation, Heather Seibert, 2018, OER Handbook. Under Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike – Non-commercial 4.0
Attribution:
This work, “I need a vacation”, is a derivative of “Pole Position” by David Kracht, used under CC BY NC SA. “I need a vacation” is licensed under CC BY NC SA by Heather Seibert.
APA Reference List
Kracht, David. (Jan. 2015). “Pole Position.” flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/30877770544/
The process of creating and obtaining a license for a work is a simple step-by-step process. This process can be done on the Creative Commons website and is found on the “Share your work” tab. The creator can then follow a step-by-step process and decide what parameters should be set for their created work based on their specific criteria. This will include the features of attribution, commercial use, derivatives, and share-alike specification options. A license will then be generated within Creative Commons and a link, as well as an embed code, will be provided for the newly created license.
It is important to reiterate that the CCL does not replace copyright and therefore non-compliance with the license does have legal consequences. Legal cases have involved Creative Commons materials in the past, although not involving Creative Commons as a litigant. One such case was Art Dragulis V. Kappa Map Group LLC (Creative Commons, 2017). Art Drauglis, a photographer, posted on Flickr in 2008, a photo, “Swain’s Lock” under a BY-SA 2.0 license. In 2012, Kappa Map published an atlas using Dragulis’s photo as the cover. Dragulis sued Kappa Maps in 2014, claiming that Kappa Maps was in violation of copyright. The courts ruled in favor of Kappa Maps, because the use of the map conformed to the Creative Commons License. Attribution was given to Dragulis for the work, and it was shared with the same license as the original. Essentially, the courts stood behind and affirmed that the license was followed correctly and there was no infringement of copyright (Creative Commons, 2017).
In conclusion, CCL is a legally sound way of giving direct permissions to other users for the use of copyrighted materials. This is especially important for OER and their ability to be freely used, shared, and revised by others. Creative Commons materials are remix-ready, can assist with internal rights management, reduce license proliferation, offer integrity in licensing models, support a culture of sharing, and are an infrastructure for supporting materials.
Quotable Quotes
“Our vision is nothing less than realizing the full potential of the Internet — universal access to research and education, full participation in culture — to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity” (Creative Commons, n.d.c).
Did you know?
A study conducted at Houston Community College proved that students who used open textbooks instead of traditional textbooks scored higher on final exams, had higher retention rates and had higher GPAs overall in their classes (Hilton and Laman, 2012).
Additional OER Resources
Open Access/MERLOT: Accessibility
https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/open_resources/accessibility
Community College Daily: Shaping the Future of OER (interview)
http://www.ccdaily.com/2017/11/shaping-the-future-of-oer/
ADA Compliance | Interactive Accessibility
http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/services/ada-compliance
OER & Accessibility
https://www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org/documents/r6_OER_and_Accessibility.pdf
Information and Technical Assistance on the Americans with Disabilities Act
References
1.Creative Commons. (n.d.a) Licensing types. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-types-examples/.
2. Creative Commons. (n.d.b) Use and remix. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/use-remix/.
3. Creative Commons. (n.d.c) Mission and Vision. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/about/mission-and-vision/.
4. Creative Commons (2017). Drauglis v. Kappa Map Group, LLC. Creative Commons Wiki. Retrieved from
https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Drauglis_v._Kappa_Map_Group,_LLC.
5. Creative Commons. (2018). OER Commons. Retrieved from https://www.oercommons.org/.
6. Hilton III, J., & Laman, C. (2012). One college’s use of an open psychology textbook. The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 27(3), 265-272.
7. Lee, Chelsea (January 2016). Navigating Copyright for Reproduced Images: Part 4. Writing the Copyright Statement. APA Style Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2016/01/navigating-copyright-part-4.html.
8. Merkley, Ryan. (2015). State of the Commons: 1 Billion Creative Commons Works. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/2015/12/08/state-of-the-commons-1-billion-creative-commons-works/.
9. Wiley, D. (n.d.). Defining the “open” in open content and open educational resources. Retrieved from http://opencontent.org/definition/.
