OER - Open Educational Resources: Licenses & Attribution

This guide is designed to help PCC faculty find, create and incorporate open educational resources for classes.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons licensing is at the heart of the OER movement. CC allows creators to specify more flexible forms of copyright that allows "others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work."

Look for copyright information (often at the bottom of webpages). Creative Commons licensed material sometimes display clickable icons that indicate the specifics of licensing. Examples:

Creative Commons License CC BY  Creative Commons License CC BY-SA

Creative Commons License CC BY-NC  Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-SA

See the Creative Commons website for more info and to acquire license icons.

Open Licenses Step by Step, from Open Oregon

Creative Commons for PCC Materials

Have you created works while working at the College that you would like to license with a Creative Commons license?  The first thing you must do is consult your contract to determine if you or the College owns the copyright to your work.  If the College owns the copyright, there is a simple form you can fill out that will notify the College of your intent to do so.  This will allow the College to keep track of the license status of the copyrighted material it owns.  You must fill out this form before you may license material created by you but owned by the College.

Learn more on PCC's Copyright Guide.

What About Fair Use?

Crafting Attribution Statements: Resources

Attributing the sources you've used in your OER is just like citing sources: giving credit where it is due! And, like crafting citations, there are resources to help. Here are some resources for how to write attribution statements:


Examples of attribution statements:

Attributing a text that has been borrowed and modified with edits and additional content, from Chapter 11 of BC Campus's Adaptation Guide :
This chapter is an adaptation of Physical Geography and Natural Disasters by R. Adam Dastrup and is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Changes include rewriting some of the passages and adding original material.

Attributing a text that has been adopted without changes, from Chapter 11 of BC Campus's Adaptation Guide: 
This chapter is composed of text taken from Chapter 2.2 of Physical Geography and Natural Disasters by R. Adam Dastrup and is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. No changes have been made nor original material added.

Attributing a photo that has been altered, from from Chapter 11 of BC Campus's Adaptation Guide:
Dog by David Locke is used under a CC BY 2.0 license. Modifications to this photo include cropping.

Attributing an unaltered photo using a caption, from Chapter 9 of a textbook by PCC authors titled Understanding New Media Arts:
Mark Rothko, No 1. (Royal Red and Blue), 1954, oil on canvas, 288.9 cm × 171.5 cm (113¾ in × 67½ in), Private collection. Source: Wikipedia, License: Fair use.

Attribution Statements for Adaptations

If you are adapting an existing OER resource/textbook but editing to add your own content, there are different ways to craft the attribution as well as different choices for where in your text the attribution goes. Below are some attribution resources and examples of different ways attribution statements have been used in OER adaptations: 

  • BC Campus's Adaptation Guide ebook has a chapter about Adaptation Statements. It is clear and helpful and a fantastic resource and includes examples for both adapting a chapter AND making a blanket attribution at the beginning of the text. Check it out! https://opentextbc.ca/adaptopentextbook/chapter/adaptation-statement/
     
  • MHCC faculty Gay Monteverde has a great example of a thorough attribution statement for an adapted OER text. https://mhcc.pressbooks.pub/monteverde2/front-matter/attribution-oer-revision-statement/
     
  • In this example, which shows up at the end of a chapter, PCC and COCC faculty adapted material from a text written by David McMurrey, with permission, as stated in the acknowledgements for their textbook, Technical Writing. "This chapter was derived by Annemarie Hamlin, Chris Rubio, and Michele DeSilva, Central Oregon Community College, from Online Technical Writing by David McMurrey – CC: BY 4.0"
     
  • If you have many sources that you've used in the creation of your OER, the attribution statement could be quite detailed. Here is an example from chapter 4 of Technical Writing, a textbook created by PCC and COCC faculty.: This chapter was derived by Annemarie Hamlin, Chris Rubio, and Michele DeSilva, Central Oregon Community College, from the following sources: Information Formats derived from The Information Literacy User’s Guide edited by Greg Bobish and Trudi Jacobson, CC: BY-NC-SA 3.0 US

  1. Information Formats: Primary and Secondary Information Sources derived from Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Sources by Virginia Tech Libraries, CC: BY 4.0

  2. Information Formats: Popular, Professional, and Scholarly Information derived from Magazines, Trade Journals, and Scholarly Journals by Virginia Tech Libraries, CC: BY-NC-SA 4.0

  3. The Information Timeline derived from Information Timeline by Virginia Tech Libraries, CC: BY-NC-SA 4.0

  4. The Research Cycle derived from A Cycle of Revolving Research by UC Libraries, CC: BY-NC-SA 3.0

  5. Research Tools derived from The Information Literacy User’s Guide edited by Greg Bobish and Trudi Jacobson, CC: BY-NC-SA 3.0 US

  6. Search Strategies: Develop Effective Keywords derived from The Information Literacy User’s Guide edited by Greg Bobish and Trudi Jacobson, CC: BY-NC-SA 3.0 US

  7. Search Strategies: Advanced Search Techniques derived from Database Search Tips: Boolean Operators by MIT Libraries, CC: BY-NC 2.0

  8. Evaluate Sources derived from Evaluating Information by Virginia Tech Libraries, CC: BY-NC-SA 4.0"

     

Still need some help? Contact Rachel Bridgewater.