Creating a License for your OER Work

As soon as you create a resource in a tangible format, that material is protected under United States copyright law. Rights to use the resource, including selling it, are yours unless otherwise defined by a publishing contract. How, then, do open educational resources stay completely open?

OERs use non-restrictive open licenses to give permission to the public to distribute, remix, or create new works out of these OERs. Many OERs use Creative Commons as their open license system of choice. Creative Commons licenses have a legal document behind each license type, along with a “human-readable” easy to read reference version and a machine-readable code. Open licenses are compatible with United States copyright law, because you, as the author or publisher, are giving explicit permission to use your works to the public.

Image taken from Washington State University Creating OER LibGuide

The easiest way to select a Creative Commons license is to use the Choose tool on the Creative Commons website, which asks you a few questions and even gives you the code to embed the image and link to the license on your website.

This video (also embedded below) by OGRepository is intended to help you choose compatible resources and choose a valid license for your work. Suppose you are developing an open educational resource (OER), and you want to incorporate another OER within your own. If you create a derivative work by adapting or combining works offered under Creative Common licenses, you must not only follow the terms of each of the licenses involved, but also choose a license for your work that is compatible with the other licenses. This video was found on the University of Texas Austin’s Create OER LibGuide.

This information is adapted from:

Affordable Learning Georgia, Help with Creating OER, Applying a License to OER

Quick Check: