ZTCs @ LAMC

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available to students, educators, and the general public. They are openly licensed so that others can adopt or reuse this material for their own purposes. 

To be more specific, when we say that OER are openly licensed, we mean that they can be retained, reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed. In practice this means:

• Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
• Reuse - the right to use the content in settings like classes, study groups, on websites, in videos, etc.
• Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
• Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
• Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

(See OpenContent.org, UNESCO and OER Commons for the above definitions).

 

Anderson, T. & O'English, L. (2018). Open educational resources: Tools for affordable learning. Washington State University Libraries. Licensed. Retrieved  from http://libguides.libraries.wsu.edu/affordablelearning

Not all, but many creators of OER choose to apply licenses indicating how others can use their work. Most commonly used are Creative Commons licenses, or a set of statements that indicate the author's wishes when it comes to citing their work, using it for commercial purposes, adapting it, and redistributing it.

 

Six Creative Commons licenses are frequently used by creators of OER. These licenses indicate whether authors want to allow their material to be used for commercial purposes, modified, or redistributed.

There are six different license types, listed from most to least permissive here:

 

CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any

medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

CC BY includes the following elements:

• BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

 

CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any

medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

CC BY-SA includes the following elements:

• BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
• SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

 

CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any

medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

It includes the following elements:

• BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
• NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

 

CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any

medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. 

CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:

• 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

 

CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in

unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. 

CC BY-ND includes the following elements:

• BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
• ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

 

CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in

unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:

• 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