It's important to check the licensing of any OER you select. Some are specifically designated for educational use only, while others allow for unlimited remixing and adaptation as long as the original author is credited. If you are interested in editing your OER, make sure to double check.
Source: ASCCC OERI — OER Basics, Rachel Arteaga & Suzanne Wakim, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY) .
Below are the 6 types of CC licenses. Before picking which one to use, keep in mind:
Use the Creative Commons License Chooser if you are unsure which CC license to use.
Creative Commons licenses and CC0 are irrevocable (cannot be canceled). These licenses do not affect parts of the work that are already unrestricted by copyright or similar rights. This aspect of CC licensing is appealing to re-users because they know the creator cannot arbitrarily pull back the rights granted under the CC license.
CC BY enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator.
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
CC BY-SA enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you modify it, you must share the modified work back under the same license.
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
CC BY-NC enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
CC BY-NC-SA enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes, as long as attribution is given to the creator and the material is shared back with the same license.
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
CC BY-ND enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
CC BY-NC-ND This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
Creative Commons offers training courses and certificates for educators, librarians, and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums).
Educators will develop comprehensive knowledge of open education including open educational resources (OER) and open pedagogy. They will also gain access to a global community of educators working toward similar open education goals.
Academic librarians will develop comprehensive knowledge in open education and open access. They will also gain access to a global community of librarians working on similar open access goals.
In the CC Certificate for Open Culture/GLAM, community members will develop capacity in opening access to cultural heritage. They will develop a deeper understanding of open licensing and copyright considerations with digitization projects, Rights Statements, Traditional Knowledge Labels, working with the public domain, and more.
CC Certificate for Open Culture/ GLAM participants will also gain access to a global community of professionals and activists working toward similar cultural and policy changes in their own cultural heritage institutions.
When you reuse Creative Commons licensed works, you can either combine parts of different works (adapting, also known as remixing), or compile a series of complete, unmodified works into a single publication (collecting, also known as curating). Slightly different rules apply to each method. Choose the method that works best for your purposes/discipline. For example, creating a brand new textbook with excerpts from multiple sources is likely an adaptation. On the other hand, if you create a course reader of complete essays, poems, or articles, this would qualify as a collection. See more about the differences between adapting and collecting in the infographic below.
