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Getting Started with OER: Creative Commons Licensing

This guide is your one-stop-shop for getting started with OER. You will learn the basics, learn about Creative Commons licensing, where to find OER and how to evaluate it, and what's happening with the University of Hartford's OER Initiative.

The Foundation

 

 

 

Creative Commons (CC) licenses act as a layer on top of copyright, offering an alternative to traditional copyright, and allowing the user or creator more flexibility with the material thanks to the "5R Permissions" (see box below). Once a CC license is chosen, it is forever, perpetual, it does not change.

Creative Commons Licenses

There are six Creative Commons Licenses:

 

CC-BY icon​

Attribution (CC-BY) - Anyone is free to remix, redistribute, and even commercially use your work, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author.

CC-BY-SA icon

Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) - Anyone is free to remix, redistribute, and even commercially use your work, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author and the new works are shared under the same license. This keeps all material derived from your original work to also be open.

CC-by-NC icon

Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC) - Anyone is free to remix and redistribute your work, but not commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author.

CC-BY-NC-SA icon

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) - Anyone is free to remix and redistribute your work, but not commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author and the new works are shared under the same license. This keeps all material derived from your original work to be both open and non-commercial.

CC-BY-ND icon

Attribution-NoDerivs (CC-BY-ND) - Anyone is free to redistribute your work, even commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author. Remixes and other derivative works are not allowed.

CC-BY-NC-ND icon

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC-BY-NC-ND) - Anyone is free to redistribute your work, but not commercially, so long as the new work attributes the original work and its author. Remixes and other derivative works are not allowed.

 

**As noted in the graphic to the right, CC licenses with the ND element are not generally considered OER, since they cannot be changed, only free to share. They are the "least open" before traditional copyright.

 

Content adapted from "Open Licensing and Creative Commons" by Affordable Learning Georgia, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Images by creativecommons.org - http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads

Creative Commons: Licensing Made Easy

Scale of Creative Commons Licenses

License

Creative Commons License
Getting Started with OER by Jillian Maynard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Updated by Taylor St. Pierre 7/2021.

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