Copyright provides legal protection for authors and creators, but also limits the ability for subsequent sharing and reuse. If you wish to use a resource for which you are not the copyright owner, it is necessary to seek permission from the copyright owner or ensure that you comply with the specific terms of the relevant copyright licences or exceptions.
By adding an open licence to a resource, a creator can retain copyright but permit specific forms of reuse. Adding an open licence, such as a Creative Commons licence, to any resource makes it an open educational resource or OER.
This section briefly defines copyright in order to describe the broader context within which open licensing operates. If you have any questions about copyright in relation to your own work, it is important that you contact an existing service or colleague within your institution who can advise you. The resources provided below are provided for background information purposes only.
Copyright
Copyright is a legal term meaning that the authors or originators of various kinds of work, including (but not limited to) images, literary works, pieces of music, films, sound recordings, books and software, have specific rights. Copyright is an intellectual property right that provides legal protection for authors or originators of works, establishing that the work is their intellectual property and that reputational or financial gain associated with the work should go to the author or originator. (Once again, the addition of an open licence to a work does not affect copyright. By assigning an open licence to a work, an author/owner can proactively extend permissions to reuse the work, according to the terms of the open licence. Open licences only act to restrict what a reuser may do under the license, not what the owner can do.)
In the United Kingdom (UK), there is no registration procedure for owners of a copyright work. The act of creating a work also creates the copyright, which then subsists in the physical expression of such works (Intellectual Property Office). The main legislation governing copyright in the UK is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Copyright exceptions
There are a number of limited exceptions to copyright (as defined in the Act listed above) that are relevant within higher education. These exceptions facilitate the use of copyright protected works without the need to seek permission from the copyright owner. For example, limited exceptions exist to copy or communicate copyrighted work for the sole purpose of illustration for education, teaching or scientific research, as long as certain conditions are met. In addition, an educational establishment may share copyrighted work as part of a lesson or examination, to students of that establishment, via a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), again, as long as certain specific conditions are met. Such conditions include a limit on the amount of material that may be shared, a requirement to provide attribution, checking that the material is not on the excluded works list, etc.
Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA)
The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) provides licences for the re-use of copyright works to organisations in the UK, including the education sector. Specifically, the CLA HE licence provides higher education institutions with licensing for works used in blended and online teaching and learning.
Further information on copyright and teaching
You can refer to the GCU Library copyright webpage for further information on copyright and teaching, and exceptions for education. The UK GCU Copyright Advisor is a tool that can provide online advice, and may also be of interest.
Creative Commons (CC) licences are the most widely used form of open content licensing globally. CC licences permit creators to retain copyright on their work, but grant a specific set of permissions to others to use and adapt their work. Once a resource has a CC licence attached to it, it becomes an open educational resource or OER.
If you wish to use, reuse and possibly create and share OER, it is worth taking some time to become familiar with Creative Commons licensing. This will enable you to identify suitable OER to use in your own teaching, and to understand how you can use, share, modify and re-share resources that you create. In the Creating OER section of this resource, License your OER, goes through the specific steps required to create your own OER.
Every individual CC licence communicates to potential users the terms under which they can use a resource. There are four CC licence elements:
- BY — The ‘BY’ or Attribution licence element requires that users of the resource attribute the licensor (copyright holder) of the resource. All CC licences (excluding CC0) include the attribution element
- SA — The ‘SA’ or Share Alike licence element requires that all derivative works that include this resource be shared using the same licence
- NC — The ‘NC’ or Non-Commercial licence element requires that the resource is “not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation”, ie commercial usage rights are withheld
- ND — The ‘ND’ or No Derivatives licence element allows the resource to be shared, but prohibits adaptation, translation or modification of the resource in any way.
These four licence elements are combined in various ways to create the six main Creative Commons licences (as listed below). All six of these CC licences include the attribution (BY) element, meaning anyone using a resource with this licence must attribute the creator/copyright holder. Note that CC licences are written in the format ‘CC’ followed by a space and then the relevant licence elements combined with hyphens.
In addition to these six main CC licences, there is a CC0 Public Domain licence which does not require attribution.
Creative Commons licence information is often displayed in the caption of an image, the footer of a webpage (like at the bottom of this webpage), and/or at the beginning or end of a document. This ‘Using OER and OEP for Teaching and Learning’ resource is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence. This means that anyone is free to share and adapt this resource, in full or in part, for any purpose; the only requirement is to provide attribution to The GCU Library and the National Forum as the original owner, creator and copyright holder (see the OER attribution drop down section of this webpage for further details about how to do this).
It is important to understand the different types of CC licences as both a potential user and creator of OER. As a potential OER user, you will review others’ OER to find material to reuse; the terms of the licence will specify exactly how you may reuse the resource. As a potential OER creator, you will need to think about what types of reuse, modification, translation and remix of your work you will permit before you select your CC licence (these considerations are dealt with in more detail in Creating OER and the Licence your OER drop down section).
The Creative Commons website is also an excellent resource for learning more about how CC licences work. See for example: What the licenses do.
In this section we examine how to find relevant, quality open educational resources for use and/or adaptation in teaching and learning, and how to evaluate OER based on recognised criteria. A rich variety of databases and repositories now exist from which to find OER suited to the topic you are teaching, so as to provide material in alternative formats and engage learners in complex topics. Many high quality OER have also been produced to support learning more generally, for example, through supporting information literacy or academic writing.
We suggest that the best way of learning about finding and evaluating OER is to try it out. The activity in this section focuses on a small search for one OER, and provides a rubric to evaluate it.
Search: Use one of the following widely-used and well-populated OER databases to identify an OER of your choice:
Note: This is a focused search for a small OER. While you will find full textbooks and courses in the databases listed, we advise selecting a more granular, smaller resource for the purposes of this task. An example of a small OER might be a single image or worksheet/handout, or perhaps a short guide, such as this online discussion design guide.
Evaluate: Assess your chosen OER using this Scoring Criteria for Evaluation of Open Education Resources rubric (LTTC, TU Dublin).
Note: A range of more detailed rubrics is provided below for reference; these may be suitable for more detailed evaluative work or to evaluate a full course or textbook.
Reflect: How much time did this take for you? How does this compare with the time needed to develop a new equivalent resource of your own? How did you make decisions about the OER selected, and where it fits with your teaching? How will you attribute it? Could your students undertake a similar activity?
Alternative rubrics
Nearly all Creative Commons-licensed resources require attribution, ie giving credit to the author/creator of the resource. However, even when you are using OER for which the licence does not require attribution (such as the CC0 Public Domain licence, as in the image above), it is good practice to provide attribution.
CC licences are flexible regarding how an OER can be attributed, but a good rule of thumb is to use the acronym TASL as a reminder of the specific information to include, ie Title, Author, Source and Licence.
- Title — What is the name of the resource? If a title was provided, it is good practice to include this.
- Author — The most important field to include in the attribution is the author, ie who owns the resource? Sometimes, the author/creator may require you to give credit to another entity, like an institution, company or group. This information is generally provided along with the open licence attached to the resource.
- Source — Where can I find this resource? Provide the source of the OER so that others can access it also.
- Licence — How can I use this resource? Name and provide a link to the specific Creative Commons (or other) licence under which the resource was made available.
Sometimes an OER will include a statement as to how the creator(s) would like the material to be attributed. If this is provided, you can simply use this statement.
For further information about attribution, you can refer to these useful sources:
