Open License
Sharing, modifying, and retaining are core concepts of Open Educational Resources (OER) thus OER not in the public domain require an open license such as Creative Commons.
Open Access and Fair Use retain copyright restrictions and do not meet the definition of OER; however, resources with these provisions could be affordable alternatives to traditional course materials.
Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons (CC) licenses are one of the most commonly used open licenses. There are six types of CC licenses but only four meet OER standards. CC licenses with No Derivs (ND) do not allow for remixing or adaptation.
These four CC licenses meet the definition of OER.
- CC BY Attribution
- CC BY-SA Attribution – Share Alike
- CC-NC Attribution – NonCommercial
- CC-NC-SA Attribution – NonCommercial – Share Alike
- Creative Commons | About the Licenses Learn more about the Creative Commons licenses
Attributions and Licenses for Your OER Work
Create an attribution for materials that you create or adapt. This task is made easy with the "Open Attribution Builder" tool.
- Open Attribution Builder This application lets you enter information for title, author, license, organization, and project. Generate the correct attribution
License the Vol State teaching materials that you create with Attribution – Non Commercial – ShareAlike
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Public Domain
Works that are no longer under the protection of intellectual property laws are considered to be in the public domain. Anyone may use these works without obtaining permission.
SOURCE: "Welcome to the Public Domain" from Stanford Copyright and Fair Use
Open Access
Open Access despite the name does not use an open license and copyright law restrictions may still apply .
Open Access does not allow for remix or adapting the work.
Learn more about Open Access
- What is open access? Explanation of open access (OA) from UC Berkeley
- Open Access Publishing (Cornell University Library) Use this library guide from Cornell University to learn more about Open Access.
Open Access Publications
- Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
- DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books DOAB's aim is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access .
Fair Use
Fair Use, a provision of copyright law, allows for the unlicensed use of copyrighted works. Fair Use is not an open license. There are four fair use provisions to consider: purpose, nature, amount, and effect on the market.
- Best Practices in Fair Use for OER [link to PDF] A Guide for Authors, Adapters & Adopters of Openly Licensed Teaching and Learning Materials. Published February 17, 2021
- Charts and Tools: Fair Use Resource from Stanford Copyright and Fair Use