Open Educational Resources and Open Access

Licensing - the 5 Rs

OER will almost always have a license applied to them, usually from Creative Commons. These licenses tell you how the creator of the work is permitting their work to be used.

There are five principles that are important to understand about licensing used for OER. These concepts make up the basis for the types of licenses that creators apply and the limitations that those licenses may impose on your use of specific works. These can be summarized as below:

Retain

• Make, own, and control a copy

Revise

• Edit, adapt, and modify your copy

Remix

• Combine your original or revised copy with other existing material

Reuse

• Use your original, revised, or remixed copy publicly

Redistribute

• Share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy with others

This material is an adaptation of "Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources", which was originally written by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Creative Commons Licenses

The Creative Commons licenses that are commonly used for OER are listed below. The combinations of letters tell you exactly what limitations the creator has imposed on the work. OER will usually use the letter combinations to tell you what license the creator is using, but they may also use symbols like the ones below. It is a common practice to also provide a link to the Creative Commons webpage for that specific license, which provides a detailed explanation of that particular license.

CC BY 

• BY: credit must be given to the creator.
• Users may:
• Distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon

CC BY-SA 

• BY: credit must be given to the creator.
• SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
• Users may:
• Distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon

CC BY-NC

• BY: credit must be given to the creator.
• NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
• Users may:
• Distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon

CC BY-NC-SA 

• BY: credit must be given to the creator.
• NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
• SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
• Users may:
• distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon, for non-commercial purposes

CC BY-ND 

• BY: credit must be given to the creator.
• ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
• Users may:
•  copy and distribute, unadapted

CC BY-NC-ND 

• BY: credit must be given to the creator.
• NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
• ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
• Users may:
• copy and distribute, unadapted, for non-commercial purposes

CC0 

• Creator gives up their copyright
• No conditions on use

This material is an adaptation of “About CC Licenses” and published freely by Creative Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Attribution

All Creative Commons Licenses require attribution, however, there is not exactly a standard method, but there are certain principles to follow to ensure the important elements are included.

For your attribution statements, follow TASL:

• Title – What is the work called?
• Author – Who allows you to use the work?
• The licensor, not necessarily the author
• Source – Where can people find this work?
• License – Which license was applied to the work being used?

The way your attribution statement looks may differ depending on what medium you are using the OER in.