Open Educational Resources (OER)

What is Creative Commons? - (from the Creative Commons website, which is licensed as CC-BY)

"Creative Commons helps you legally share your knowledge and creativity to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world. We unlock the full potential of the internet to drive a new era of development, growth and productivity.

With a network of staff, board, and affiliates around the world, Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work–on conditions of your choice."

Creative Commons licenses are applied by the copyright owner to their own works.

These are the most prominently used licenses of their type in the world.

There are four components to the licenses that are arranged in six configurations:

• BY - attribution required. 
• NC - no commercial use. 
• ND - no derivative works. 
• SA - Share Alike - the license must be the same on any derivative works. 

The ND and SA components cannot be combined, as SA only applies to derivative works. 

The six licenses (excluding CC-0 which is an equivalent to the Public Domain) are:

• CC-BY
• CC-BY-SA
• CC-BY-ND
• CC-BY-NC
• CC-BY-NC-SA
• CC-BY-NC-ND

The following chart illustrates the permissions allowed by each license: 

Content from "Copyright and Intellectual Property Toolkit: Creative Commons, Copyleft, and other Licenses" originally created by John Barnett, revised and updated by Lauren B. Collister, University of Pittsburgh Library System. CC BY 4.0

Image from "Creative Commons: The Ultimate Guide" infographic by foter.com CC BY SA 3.0

How do you share your work?

What is an Attribution?

A common requirement of all CC Licenses is attribution. This means you give credit to the author and give the original source information.

Attribution is required when using materials produced by others. If found with a Creative Commons license, the following tools will assist with determining and adding the appropriate attribution to materials.