Open educational resources (OER) are educational materials that:

• Have been released under an open license that permits their free use and repurposing by others, or
• Reside in the public domain.

Because the materials are openly licensed or in the public domain – in other words, they are not under all-rights-reserved copyright – you have permission to do what David Wiley (n.d.) calls the “5 R’s”:

1. Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
2. Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
3. Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language, update for currency, add accessibility features)
4. Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a new work)
5. 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, add it to a repository, create a print on demand option)

The open materials in Tab 1 of your background scan are open educational resources that our Research Consultant determined to be relevant to your curriculum. All of these materials have the permissions listed above. This means that if you find something that’s perfect for your curriculum, you can use it; and if you find something that’s mostly great for your curriculum, you can adapt it. Under the terms of the license you’ll provide attribution to the source, which we show you how to do below.

The reason we prioritize reuse of openly licensed materials, and put open licenses on the work we share in this project, is that future Oregon educators will then have permission to do those 5 R’s for their own courses as well. This is one of the Oregon Context criteria for success for your textbook. So, let’s go into more detail about what open licenses and the public domain are.

Open Licenses

An open license sits on top of the copyright for a document and specifies what can and cannot be done with a work. It grants permissions and states restrictions. Broadly speaking, an open license grants permission to do the “5 R’s” listed above (Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute). Figure Y1 2.2 shows several differences between all-rights-reserved and openly licensed content.

There are many open licenses developed for different areas of knowledge. If you’re new to open licenses, we recommend watching the 6-minute Open Licensing Video [Streaming Video] for an introduction.

When it comes to open educational resources, the most common open licenses used are Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization of educators, technologists, legal scholars, investors, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. In 2001, inspired by the open source license movement for computer software, these experts developed a set of copyright licenses that would allow creators to easily share materials that were not software code, such as websites, photos, films, books, etc. These Creative Commons licenses brought clarity and ease to sharing materials online. If you want to learn more about Creative Commons, you can optionally explore Creative Commons [Website].

When you find content online, assume that it’s under all-rights-reserved copyright unless you see an open license. Sometimes, though, you’ll find a terms of use page that gives you the permissions you need to reuse the material in your openly licensed course.

Public Domain

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright, which means it’s free for you to use without permission. There are also works that automatically enter the public domain – in particular, publications of the federal government.

The chart at Copyright Term and the Public Domain [Website] can help you determine whether a work is still under copyright. The answer can be difficult to determine, so ask a librarian if you need help.

Works that are in the public domain can be used without attribution, but we still ask you to create an attribution for public domain content that you use. It models appropriate use of others’ work for your students, and it helps you track down that source again if you need to.

Examples of Open Educational Resources

To give you an idea of the range of educational materials that are available with an open license, we’ve compiled examples in figure Y1 2.3.

Why/Why Not Share With An Open License

Why would an author share their intellectual property with an open license, giving permission for reuse with attribution; or release their work into the public domain, giving permission for any use without attribution? More to the point, what does it mean for YOU to share your work with an open license as part of this project?

The first reason that many instructors share is affordability. Because open licenses give permission to redistribute the work, openly licensed course materials are available online for free or in print at low cost. This means that sharing with an open license enhances information equity: it makes your knowledge and expertise more available to everyone, including people who don’t have access to funding or libraries.

Second, because all Creative Commons licenses require attribution, they can promote your visibility as an educator, writer, and researcher. Creative Commons license choices allow creators to add some restrictions like disallowing commercial use or derivative works. Meanwhile, the increased readership of open access publishing expands the impact of your scholarship and you may receive credit towards tenure or promotion for your work.

On the other hand, there are valid reasons why you might not want to share your work with an open license.

First, it’s impossible to predict the downstream uses of work that you share openly. For example, an image of your family that you thoughtfully share in a specific context in an open textbook could show up in Google Image searches or even on a billboard. Consider your privacy needs as well as those of other people represented in your work.

Keep in mind, too, that Creative Commons licenses are irrevocable – you can share a future version with a different license, or under all-rights-reserved copyright, but anyone who has a copy of your work with its original license still has the permissions it grants.

A final word here: many authors understandably hesitate to share their work for a variety of reasons that have to do with perfectionism, vulnerability, privacy concerns, and so on. It’s why your curriculum will go through multiple stages of review and revision so that we put out the best possible version of your work. You’ll always find things later that you’ll wish you could change, add, update for currency, etc. That’s what the next edition is for.

We want to acknowledge that the open education movement is not beyond critique. For example, Marco Seiferle-Valencia, Open Education Librarian at the University of Idaho, has done important work demonstrating that the origin story of the open education movement tends to ignore aligned movements led by Black, Indigenous, and other activists of color. To learn more about the connection to Black Feminisms, optionally watch Seiferle-Valencia’s conference presentation Looking Beyond Cost: OER as Intentionally Engaged Social Justice [Website].

The collection Open at the Margins: Critical Perspectives on Open Education [Website], edited by Maha Bali, Catherine Cronin, Laura Czerniewicz, Robin DeRosa, and Rajiv Jhangiani, is a good place to find additional critical perspectives on the open education field.

Licenses and Attributions for Open Education Foundations

Open content, original

“Open Education Foundations” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0. It is adapted from “Understanding the basics of OER” by Amy Hofer for Open Oregon Educational Resources, also licensed under CC BY 4.0.

References