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Creative Commons: Make OER Copyright Simple

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

As TCEA works with various school districts, one question that often arises is “What can I use in my classroom with students?”  Teachers are often unsure about copyright. With Open Educational Resources (OER), teachers may find their copyright confusion compounded. In this blog entry, we will explore Creative Commons copyright and Open Educational Resources. We will also explore some actual student-created OER materials.

Ready to Remix?

Creative Commons copyright licenses allow you to remix content available on the web. The license the creator has set determines classroom usage. When considering content for OER, it must meet specific criteria. Those criteria include the following:

  • Licensed content must be free for any individual to use.
  • The content is licensed for unlimited distribution.
  • The content allows for adaptation, translation, remixing, and improvement.

This diagram explores the various types of Creative Common licenses available. For my own work, I prefer to use Attribution-ShareAlike. That copyright licensing ensures I am given credit for my work and that others attribute work to me. What’s more, it ensure that others can distribute my work (Share Alike) with wide audience in the same way I shared it with them. This satisfies my desire to ensure my content is cited, accessible, and remix-able by anyone.

creative commons

In addition to text, you can find a rich variety of images, audio, and video licensed as Creative Commons. You can also find content via Google Image Search, as well as by using the Chrome extension Image Google Search. My favorite find in the Creative Commons space includes a YouTube Audio Library, “Audio that is copyright free.”

Why Use Creative Commons (CC)?

Ideal for OER, Creative Commons is often used for the following reasons:

  • Makes content more accessible, adding to the 800 million CC-licensed works
  • Saves money by being less expensive since CC works avoid copyright fees, administrative costs, and make it easy to share education resources online
  • Empowers educators to reuse, remix, and adapt resources since permission has been granted
  • Enhances equity for all users who have access
  • Digital multimedia sharing is made easy
  • Legal because copyright violations are lessened and expectations for reuse are clear

Does All Creative Commons Copyright Lend Itself to OER?

Not all content licensed as Creative Commons can be used for open educational resources. This chart clarifies usage:

creative commons

 

As you can see from the chart above, work that is labeled as No Derivatives (ND) may not be used as OER. This presumes that the intent of materials for OER will allow teachers (and their students) to remix content. This is important since students and their teachers intent on creating their own digital textbooks may remix OER content from each other.

Can Students and Teachers Create OER Materials?

As you may have surmised, students and teacher can create OER materials (e.g. digital textbooks, websites, documents, images, videos, and audio files) that they can share with others. In fact, it’s easy to imagine groups of students learning how to use digital tools to create content that can be remixed by other students. Those other students may be in classrooms near by, far away, or around the world.

Here are four resources to explore when curating or creating OER materials with colleagues and/or students. More are added at the end of this blog entry for your review.

Ready to Create Your Own?

Creating content that will be remixed by others can be quite exciting. You can get your start simply with three tools. Consider that how you license content is what determines whether it is OER, not what tool you used to create it.

  • Google Docs ePub export – This tool provides for an easy way to create ePub-formatted ebooks. You can also export to Word, ODF, or PDF.
  • Book Creator – It allows you to create a simple ePub without media or an enhanced ePub with video, audio, and more embedded.
  • OneNote – Microsoft OneNote makes digital textbook creation easy. Students can work together on a single OneNote notebook that is organized into “notebook, section groups, sections, and pages.”

Once you have created your resource, share it with TCEA:

    1. Create a digital document using your tool of choice, then license it as Creative Commons license friendly to OER.
    2. When complete, submit it online. Add “OER: [Your Title]” to the title with a short description.
    3. View the contributions of others.

Creating OER Materials can be quite rewarding. Engage student learners, as well as teachers’ creativity, to create your classroom and/or school’s own OER resources. If you have Google Docs or Office 365, the tools are already at your fingertips to create accessible global learning opportunities.

Resources and Sources of OER

Other Curated Resources

 

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Digital Literacy

Simplify Your Search for Copyright-Free Images

by Alexis Cline
written by Alexis Cline

You can find an image of just about anything with a simple Google search, but not every image is usable. Copyright infringement, using images without the consent of the owner, is illegal and exposes you to the risk of a lawsuit. Students may not realize this, especially since finding, saving, and using images from the Internet is so easy.

Both for our own projects and in teaching our students about good digital citizenship, we must discuss appropriate use of material found online and make the effort to find and use copyright-free images. When labeled as Creative Commons, the owner has agreed in advance to make the graphic available for public use.

There are several ways to search for copyright-free images. My two favorites are Google’s Advanced Image Search and Makerbook, both of which are quick and simple to navigate.

Google Advanced Image Search
Bookmark this search option. It gives you enormous flexibility in tailoring your search results. In addition to specifying the image’s color, size, and file type, you can choose Filter Explicit Results to block inappropriate pictures. You can also specify the usage rights to include various levels of reprint permissions.

Once you have set the parameters, a search bar will appear. Fill in your search terms and note that the toolbar at the top of the window shows your image preferences for that search. You can easily adjust these settings for a new search using the toolbar’s dropdown menus.

Makerbook
This is where many designers find free images, textures, fonts, and vector graphics from a collection of websites designed for creatives. Each site’s policy is stated in the description next to its link. Some allow content to be used for any purpose and others restrict usage to non-commercial projects.

New Old Stock Photos and Unsplash are two of my favorite sites in Makerbook. New Old Stock Photos has a number of vintage images that are great for use in history, sports, and science. The images from WWII and NASA are particularly wonderful. Unsplash allows ten downloads each month of beautiful, artistic photos that can add color and dimension to any project or presentation.

For additional search tips and more information on the research process itself, check out the August 2015 issue of TechEdge. You can also learn about another great tool for citing photos easily with Photos for Class in this earlier blog post.

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