- What are Open Educational Resources (OER) and Creative Commons (CC) licenses?
- Which advantages and risks do you have when using OER?
- What are atingis recommendations regarding the use and creation of OER material?
- Where can you find OER and how can you respect the author’s rights when using them?
1. OER definition and background
The term Open Educational Resources (OER) was first used at the 2002 UNESCO conference. According to UNESCO, OER are defined as follows:
“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. OER form part of ‘Open Solutions’, alongside Free and Open Source software (FOSS), Open Access (OA), Open Data (OD) and crowdsourcing platforms” (Unesco, 2019).
In a nutshell, the three letters of OER represent the following aspects:
- O = open > open license & public domain: free-of-charge use, adaptation and redistribution of the material is possible
- E = educational > any teaching, learning and research material
- R = resources > material in any analog or digital media format
The aspect of openness goes along with the following 5R permissions that are granted to the users of OER material (certain restrictions can be applied depending on the OER license of the material – see next chapter):[1]
- Retain - make, own, and control a copy of the material (e.g. download and keep your own copy)
- Revise - edit, adapt and modify your copy of the material (e.g. translate into another language)
- Remix - combine your original or revised copy of the material with other existing material to create something new (e.g. combine pictures and texts from different sources)
- Reuse - use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the material publicly (e.g. on a website, in a public course on atingi)
- Redistribute - share copies of your original, revised or remixed copy of the material with others (e.g. post a copy online or give one to partners)
2. OER licenses
OER material is recognizable by a free license label - the most common in use are Creative Commons (CC) licenses that have established themselves internationally as the standard for open licenses and particularly for OER.
By integrating learning material labeled with a CC license into your online course for atingi, make sure you always mention the CC license of the material (see chapter 6).
2.1 Special case: Public Domain (CC0)
In contrast to CC licenses that allow copyright holders to choose from a range of permissions while retaining their copyright (see next chapter 3.2), CC0 empowers yet another choice altogether – the choice to opt out of copyright and database protection along with the exclusive rights automatically granted to creators – the “no rights reserved” alternative (Creative Commons Corporation, 2020). By using this license, you only need to mention the license (CC0) – naming the author or further information on the material are not necessary.
2.2 Most frequently used Creative Commons licenses
Six sample Creative Commons licences
The following section illustrates the different CC licenses and gives an overview of their respective use scenarios.
Figure 1: Creative Commons licenses and corresponding permissions (Foter, 2015)
Creative Commons Licenses
The most frequently used licensing model worldwide is that of the creative commons (CC). Creators and users of works that are intended for open reuse thus have a particularly practical instrument at their disposal in the spirit of development cooperation.
The four license elements of Creative Commons
Each CC license consists of a combination of four optional license elements. These elements allow authors to mark the different ways in which their works can be used publicly. Licensees may use CC materials as long as they comply with the terms of the license.
Each license element consists of a pictogram and an abbreviation.
Attribution/ name (BY)
Authors, the title of the work and its CC license must be stated on publication
No commercial use/ NonCommercial (NC)
The work may not be used for commercial purposes.
No Editing/ NoDerivatives (ND)
Only unaltered copies of the work may be used. Changes are only permitted with the
express permission of the author.
Sharing under equal conditions/ ShareAlike (SA)
Any use of the material in a new work must be under the same CC license as the original work.
| LICENSE AND LOGO | INTENTION | USE |
| Attribution (BY) |
Commercial and non-commercial | • Copy • Adaptation and change • Dissemination (publication, presentation, public performance or exhibition) • License for third parties |
| Attribution, non-commercial/ Attribution: NonCommercial (BY-NC) |
Exclusively non-commercial | • Copy • Adaptation and change • Distribution • License for third parties |
| Attribution, transfer under the same conditions / Attribution: ShareAlike (BY-SA) |
Commercial and non-commercial | • Copy • Adaptation and change • Distribution for third parties under the same CC License |
| Attribution, no editing /Attribution: NoDerivatives (BY-ND) |
Commercial and non-commercial |
• Copy • Exclusively distribution of unmodified copies • License for third parties |
| Attribution, non-commercial, distribution under the same conditions /Attribution: NonCommercial, ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA) |
Exclusively non-commercial | • Copy • Adaptation and change • Distribution for third parties under the same CC License |
| Attribution, non-commercial, no editing / Attribution: NonCommercial, NoDerivatives (BY-NC-ND) |
Exclusively non-commercial | • Copy • Distribution of unmodified copies • License for third parties |
Source: www.toolkit-digitalisierung.de
Further Information: ”Which license fits to my work“: www.creativecommons.org/choose
In addition to Creative Commons, there are other licensing models with similar conditions such as copyleft.org, konomark.org and gnu.org.
In addition to the above-presented license elements, you will often see that a license version is added, e. g. CC-BY-SA 4.0 International. The background is that Creative Commons is permanently improving its licenses and released its latest version of the CC licenses in November 2013, the 4.0 international licenses. For further reading, please have a look here: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/License_Versions.
3. Advantages and risks of using OER
The following section will shed light on the advantages and risks that you should consider when using OER material or making your course available as OER material (GIZ, 2019 & 2020a):
| Advantages | Risks |
| · Greater reach and ownership through better usability of your digital learning material (e. g. course) by partners, stakeholders and third parties. Learning content can be easily updated and adapted to different purposes (e. g. translation into other languages, adaptation to different target groups and local contexts) and therefore can be made more sustainable. | · Reduced ownership of material and its use. This can be problematic if future versions of the learning material were to be utilized differently than originally intended. Including a disclaimer can prove useful in addressing this issue. |
| · Better visibility of your name and development of a reputation when applying the CC-BY license to your material (given that your name as an author will always be mentioned). | |
| · Contribution to other third-party sources of freely available resources (for example, Wikipedia) and to the universal right to education for everybody. | · The quality standards for open content may be significantly higher, which requires additional time and effort. |
| · Free third-party input on your material, which also supports the further development of the material, e.g. enables you to adapt materials to your specific learning context. | |
| · Less risk of distorting competition because all parties have equal access to the information. | |
| · No license costs and no or reduced production costs for the material | · Increased effort for research, quality control and, if necessary, adaptations of the material |
4. OER and quality criteria
OER characteristics are part of the quality criteria for learning content on atingi. The quality criteria “Adaptability and Reusability” in particular are linked to OER principles. Adaptability and reusability refer to the degree of suitability and readiness of e-learning elements for use in a learning context other than the one it was originally designed for (Chiappe & Arias, 2015).
To ensure that the learning resources can be customized, repurposed or remixed with a minor amount of amendments, the following technical as well as didactical / instructional / usability requirements should be met:
- self-contained and portable, so the learning resources can be used both as stand-alone resources and in combination with other resources
- compatible with different delivery methods and formats, so they can be used in different learning contexts (e. g. diverse media formats)
- adaptable for localization: adapted to the socio-cultural context, e. g. via different language versions or modified visual design
All e-learning resources should also be described with a set of standardized and structured metadata about their learning context, content, activity and outcome (Piedra et al., 2016) to allow for reuse. This applies not only to e-learning but also to blended learning formats and content. To create a meaningful integration of online and offline modules as part of blended learning, it is of utmost importance to create adaptable formats and objects and ensure transferability (GIZ, 2020b; GIZ, 2019).
5. CC licensing of courses on atingi
5.1 Course types
By creating a course for atingi, you have two options to make it available for the users:
First option: You create a course in the “non-public library” on atingi to which only a limited number of users have access. The course and its integrated learning materials (e. g. images, video) that are uploaded into this “closed classroom” do not necessarily have to be OER material. You can also use “protected” learning content for which reuse and editing are not permitted, as the material will not be made publicly available and visible to all atingi users but just a specific target group that you can invite via e-mail.
Second option: Make your course available in atingi’s public “Course Library”, which every atingi user has access to. By default, these courses are OER content and must be labeled with a CC license. Courses in the “Course Library” can be seen and taken by every atingi user, who furthermore have the right to apply all or some 5R permissions to the material (depending on the CC license, see chapter 3).
5.2 Recommendations on CC licenses
With atingi, GIZ seeks to provide as many openly licensed courses as possible. Hence, we recommend the following CC licenses that should be used to label your digital learning material(s):
- public domain (CC0)
- attribution alone (CC-BY) or
- attribution and ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA)
In addition to these license elements, we recommend adding the 4.0 international supplement (as explained in chapter 3.2, p. 9) to a license, e. g. CC-BY-SA 4.0 international.
Please note:
- The NoDerivates (ND) limitation should only be used for learning content that is already contextualised. It isn’t recommended even in such cases, since it does not support the development of further localizations.
- The same applies for copyrighted material. The terms of use must be clearly specified; any license that does not support the alteration of content should only be accepted if the content is contextualised (and this is not recommended, see above)
In order to facilitate your decision about which CC license to choose, go back to the license’s attributes on page 5-7 of this document or use the questionnaire on https://creativecommons.org/choose/.
5.3 Labeling courses and learning material with a CC license
We recommend that you choose one CC license that is valid for the whole course. This means that the user has the same permissions for reusing, editing, etc. (see 5R permissions in chapter 2.) for all the material included in the course (e. g. pictures, videos, graphs). When researching OER material that you want to integrate into your course, you should therefore ensure that it complies with the chosen license for the overall course.
The CC license is to be mentioned in the course description and must contain the link to the respective license description on the Creative Commons website (https://creativecommons.org/) and the course author(s):
Access your atingi course via the “Admin view”, click on “Edit Settings” and then enter the license, the link as well as the author(s) at the end of the “Description” field in the form of an html code:
<strong>License</strong>
<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC-BY-SA 4.0 International</a> GIZ & Siemens-Stiftung
An additional option is to mention the CC license at the end of your course in the imprint or terms of use – see example here below:
- you specify the CC license (here: CC-BY-SA 4.0 International)
- you link the license to the respective description on the Creative Commons website (here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
- you add the author(s) of the course (here: GIZ & Siemens-Stiftung)
- you integrate the CC license logo if applicable (not necessary if you already mentioned the license in text) (here:
)
As already stated in chapter 3.1, when using a CC0 license for your course, you do not need to mention the author’s name, just the license and the link to the respective CC website.
6. OER tools and links
In the last section, we will provide you with practical tools and links that will facilitate the research for and work with OER material.
6.1 General information on OER
- An Introduction to Open Education Resources - Abbey Elder (eng)
- Good reasons to support the UNESCO recommendation on OER - Creative Commons (eng)
- Open Education: Content - Educause (eng)
- Open Educational Resources (OER) - UNESCO (eng) / Ressources Educatives Libres (REL) - UNESCO (fr)
- Pour débuter – Ressources Educatives Libres (REL) - Université de Montréal (fr)
- Qu’est-ce qu’une REL ? – fabriqueREL (fr)
- Trouver des Ressources Educatives Libres (REL) - Université de Montréal (fr)
- Understanding OER (eng) – OER Africa (eng)
- Using Creative Commons Content (eng) – GCFLearnFree.org
6.2 Licensing
- OER Copyright and Licensing Toolkit (pdf) - OER Africa (eng)
Practical guidelines for designing (p. 11) and applying (p. 14-18) CC licenses to your work.
6.3 Search engines
6.4 Images & pictures
Online repository of free-use images, audio and other media files. Almost all content may be freely reused subject to certain restrictions and terms of use. Check the license of individual sources for reuse.
Millions of photographs uploaded by users. To search for reusable images, go to ”Advanced Search”, choose the type of license needed from the pull-down menu (e.g. "Any license", "Creative Common license", etc.)
A photo community with thousands of Creative Commons licensed photos in various categories.
From the Google Image Advanced Search page, limit your search by "usage rights" (e.g. "Free to use and share, even commercially").
Contains over 170,000 medical, biomedical, and social history images, both historical and contemporary. All images are available for use under a Creative Commons license.
Provides 1,000s of free stock photos, vector graphics and illustrations. All images and videos are released free of copyrights under public domain CC0.
Contains images in the public domain CC0. All pictures are free to download, edit, share, copy and distribute.
Contains clip art and photos released under a Creative Commons license.
“Free high-quality photos for your projects”. Photo database with recommended CC-BY labeling when using the pictures.
A single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitized throughout Europe. Most resources are public domain. Check the license of individual items for reuse.
A platform to access various digital media search services such as Google Images, Flickr, Europeana and Wikimedia Commons. Verify whether an individual work is available under a Creative Commons license before reuse.
6.5 Videos & films
Provides access to videos from expert speakers on a wide range of topics. TED talks are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivative license. The TED-ED portion of TED aims at educators and students. Note that TED-ED videos on YouTube are available under YouTube policy. For more, refer to TED talk usage policy.
An online video community that allows users to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube allows users to mark their videos with a Creative Commons Attribution license. To find YouTube videos with such a license, after typing your search query in the search box, click the “Filters” drop-down menu and select “Creative Commons”.
A social platform for sharing videos. Vimeo permits uploads of videos licensed with Creative Commons. To limit search results to only show items with Creative Commons licenses, on the main search results page, look for “+ more filters” on the left. Then under “License”, select “CC0” or another desired license.
Provides video lessons mostly in mathematics and science topics. Also offers lessons in the humanities and economics. Khan Academy videos are licensed under the MIT license: http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php. Most videos are under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Users need to set up a personal login and password.
A comprehensive source of Open Educational Resources for K-12 and college level programs under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license. Includes videos, lesson guides, sound files and online tutorials from around the world.
Contains feature films, shorts, silent films and trailers. Select those with a Creative Commons license for reuse (Tips to search for different license types).
6.6 Audio & music
Online repository of free-use images, audio and other media files. Almost all content may be freely reused subject to certain restrictions and terms of use. Check the license of individual source for reuse.
A collection of audio, including animal sounds, old time radio shows, sound effects and music. For reuse, select those with a Creative Commons license (Tips to search for different license types).
Offers more than 350,000 free music tracks licensed under Creative Commons, all available for streaming and unlimited download. Check the Creative Commons license of individual work for reuse.
A community music site featuring remixes under Creative Commons licenses. For reuse, check the license applied to individual songs.
Offers free download of openly licensed music. For reuse, visit the track page to check the type of license.
A social sound platform for creating and sharing music and sounds. Many SoundCloud songs and sounds are licensed with Creative Commons. To search for items that allow reuse, after a search, filter the search results by "To share", "To modify", etc.
A platform to access various digital media search services such as Jamendo, Wikimedia Commons, ccMixter and SoundCloud. Verify whether an individual work is available under a Creative Commons license before reuse.
A cross-browser extension, which lets you search for and filter content that is under Creative Commons licenses.
A platform that wants to expand free access to music and therefore offers public domain music or music under free licenses. Titles can be searched by composers, instruments, epochs, etc. The exact license is indicated in the right column of the website after selecting a title/artist. MusOpen is currently working on specific materials for music education.
6.7 Other large OER repositories
A large user-friendly OER search engine that allows users to search by subject or by course material type (e.g. textbooks, simulations, audio).
OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources. Explore, create, and collaborate with educators around the world to improve curriculums.
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
The OER World Map is the place on the web where anyone involved in Open Education can share information, experiences and ideas related to their work.
SkillsCommons’ mission is to accelerate the democratization of education for all through open educational services and resources enabling individuals, communities, educational institutions, organizations, and businesses to prepare people for successful employment in the 21st Century.
Collection of tools on OER as well as information material, training opportunities on the topic, but also a reservoir of educational material on various topics at different levels.
6.8 Tools & Software
LearningApps.org is a Web 2.0 application, to support learning and teaching processes with small interactive modules. Those modules can be used directly in learning materials, but also for independent studying. The aim is to collect reusable building blocks and make them available to everyone.
This tool allows you to choose the right CC license for your learning content.
This is simply a place to build wiki-based websites. Use it to publish content, share your documents, collaborate with friends or coworkers, create a place for your community!
Audacity stands for free audio editing software. Self-created audio files can be recorded and edited using Audacity. It includes standard functions like cutting and copying and more advanced options, like inserting so-called "echoes".
An etherpad is a web-based editor that allows multiple people to collaboratively edit text 'in real time'. All changes are immediately visible to all participants. Google Inc. has been the owner of the (open source) software since 2009.
Apache OpenOffice (AOO), usually just called Open Office, is a free (open source) office package with programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation and drawing. The programs are compatible with all operating systems.
LibreOffice is a free open source office software (office package), which is fully compatible with programs of other office software providers. It is available free of charge and is free in use and distribution. LibreOffice contains programs for word processing, spreadsheet analysis, presentation and creation of drawings.
Sigil is an open source editor, which was first developed in 2009. The goal is
to develop a user-friendly editor for EPUB documents. Sigil includes the WYSIWYG function as well as direct editing of HTML source code.
With the free software word2cleanHTML, users can insert their Word documents into a text field and then have them converted to HTML without having to program themselves.
Wordpress is a freely accessible software (open source software), which is used to create and structure the text and image content of a website. The software is especially suitable for weblogs due to its easy handling.
7. References
Chiappe, A., & Arias, V. (2015). Understanding reusability as a key factor for open education: A review. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(1). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v16i1.2042
Creative Commons Cooperation (2020). CC0 “No Rights Reserved”. Retrieved August 27, 2020, from https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/
Foter (2015). How To Attribute Creative Commons Photos. Retrieved 2019 from https://foter.com/blog/how-to-attribute-creative-commons-photos/
GIZ, Africa Cloud global programme (2019). Educational Guidelines
GIZ, Competence Center for Digital Societies / Competence Center for Education, TVET and Labour Market / Africa Cloud global programme (2020a). E-Learning Standards and Operational Toolkit. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from https://gizonline.sharepoint.com/sites/Digital-Gateway/SitePages/E-Learning-Standards-and-Operational-Toolkit.aspx
GIZ, Digitalization for Sustainable Development sector programme (2020b, May 05). Practice. Free content. Retrieved August 14, 2020, from https://toolkit-digitalisierung.de/en/practice/implementation-en/free-content/
Kahrs, M. & Rudkowski, T. (2016). OER Open Educational Resources. Akademie für Weiterbildung der Universität Bremen. Retrieved August 20, 2020, from https://www.uni-bremen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/sites/konstruktiv/Materialien/03_OER_Papier.pdf
Piedra, N., et al. (2016). Integrating OER in the design of educational material: Blended learning and linked-open-educational-resources-data approach. In 2016 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON) (pp. 1179-1187). IEEE.
Smith, M. S., & Casserly, C. M. (2006). The Promise of Open Educational Resources.
Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 38(5), 8–17. Retrieved August 20, 2020, from
http://doi.org/10.3200/CHNG.38.5.8-17
UNESCO. (2020, May 13). Open Educational Resources (OER). Retrieved August 14, 2020, from https://en.unesco.org/themes/building-knowledge-societies/oer
Wikipedia (2016). License Version. Retrieved September 14, 2020, from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/License_Versions
Wiley, David (2020). Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources. Retrieved August 31, 2020, from http://opencontent.org/definition/
[1] This material is an adaptation of Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources, which was originally written by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition/.