Open Educational Resources (OER)

OER materials are published under an "open" license. Often, the open license will be a Creative Commons (CC) license.

Creative Commons licenses provide a way for you to let people make use of your work without having to ask you for permission. By applying a Creative Commons license, you are telling them what terms they have to meet to use your work. Creators often use a CC license because it provides "a simple, standardized way to give [their] permission to share and use [their] creative work— on conditions of [their] choice."

The benefit of the Creative Commons license is that "[t]hrough the use of CC licenses, millions of people around the world [can make] their photos, videos, writing, music, and other creative content available for any member of the public to use."

If you want to let others do whatever they want with your work, and don't want them to attribute the original work to you, use CC-0. (Public Domain)
 

If you just want make sure others provide attribution for your work, but don't care what else they do with the work, use CC-BY. (Attribution)
 

If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to make adaptations of (or create derivatives from) your work, but
2. want someone who adapts your work to make it available to others under the same terms as your original work,

use CC-BY-SA. (Attribution, Share Alike)
 

If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. want to prohibit them from making any changes/adaptations/derivatives of your work,

use CC-BY-ND. (Attribution, No Derivatives)
 

If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. don't want them to use it for commercial gain,

use CC-BY-NC. (Attribution, Non Commercial)
 

This combines the NC and SA restrictions. If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. don't want them to use it for commercial gain, and
3. want someone who adapts your work to make it available to others under the same terms as your original work,

use CC-BY-NC-SA. (Attribution, Non Commercial, Share Alike)
 

This combines the NC and ND restrictions. If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. don't want them to use it for commercial gain, and
3. want to prohibit them from making any changes/adaptations/derivatives of your work,

use CC-BY-NC-ND. (Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives)

You can get more information by looking at the different types of license on the Creative Commons website to understand the conditions. Creative Commons also has a chart to let you know what combinations you can make of different Creative Commons material.

[Images of Creative Commons Logos from Creative Commons website: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ (CC-0 image) and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ (all other images), licensed under a CC--BY 4.0 license.]

Application of a Creative Commons license does not limit your right to individually permit others from making additional use of your work which the Creative Commons license would prohibit -- the Creative Commons license just serves as a blanket license which lets others use your works under the terms of the license without requiring everyone who wants to use your work to contact you and receive express permission for their use.

There are different types of Creative Commons licenses which you can apply to your work -- which one you choose depends on how you want people to use your work. If you have created a work, and want to decide what Creative Commons license to apply to the work, make sure to pick the right license to achieve your goal -- once you release a work with a Creative Commons license, you can't later place additional restrictions on the work .See the box below on this page for a discussion of the different Creative Commons licenses which may apply to your work.

To properly use material made available under a Creative Commons license, you should properly attribute the materials. Here's some information on proper attribution:

Article

Here's a sample attribution for when you are using an article made available through a Creative Commons license:

Note: If you are referencing an article in a paper and citing it in APA style, you do not need to provide the attribution in your reference list. The attribution is for situations where you are making use of the article.

Image

Here's a sample attribution for an image. If you are using an image (or other graphic) in a paper, you would provide the attribution under the graphic, and then provide the APA citation in your reference list.

This short video both explains what a Creative Commons license is, and how to properly attribute material available under a Creative Commons License: