OER Licensing Checklist
Are you ready to add an open license to your work?
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash | CC0A person making a checklist in a notebook.
A person making a checklist in a notebook.
Use this checklist to make sure that all the requirements for open licensing are met. Please note that it is very helpful to review this checklist BEFORE you begin development work so that you are designing your resource with open licensing requirements in mind from the beginning.
The pdf version is downloadable and the content is displayed in an editable version below.
Open Licensing Checklist
- All graphics (charts, pictures, clip art) are openly licensed or in the public domain.
- All written content is original, openly licensed, or in the public domain.
- An attribution statement for each element from a different source has been included. This attribution includes the title (if known), author, license and associated links to those items.
Example: CK-12 Biology for High School byCK-12 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License.
Shortened version: CK-12 Biology for High School byCK-12 | CC BY NC
- Work is available as both a PDF and editable format.
- If your district holds copyright on staff-created work (most common), you have permission to apply an open license.
- Choose the most flexible open license that does not conflict with the licenses that govern work you are including. Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) preferred
- Open license text, icon, and associated links have been added to the document.
Example for Original Work: Resource by Copyright Holder is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Example for Adapted Work: Example Resource is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This is a derivative work by Jane Doe adapted from Original Resource Name by Original Creator.
- Link to unit or course has been submitted or resource has been uploaded to or created in OER Commons.
Resources
Quickstart Guide to Openly Licensed Images and Attribution | OSPI
OER Development - Resource Tracking Template | OSPI
Copyright and Open Licensing Guide | OSPI
Permissions Guide for Educators | OER Commons
Best Practices in Attribution | Creative Commons
Open Attribution Builder | Open Washington - State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
Download Creative Commons License Logos | Creative Commons
Important Terms
Copyright - the legal protection that gives the copyright owner the right to reproduce, adapt, distribute, display, and perform the work. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works. Works do not need to be registered.
Copyright licenses - outline the specific permissions and restrictions that a copyright holder grants to someone else.
Open License (e.g. Creative Commons) – a license that grants permission to access, re-use and redistribute a work with few or no restrictions
Attribution –giving credit to a particular person or organization as the creator or copyright holder of a work. All open licenses have an attribution requirement.
Citation - allows authors to provide the source of any quotations, ideas, and information that they include in their own work based on the copyrighted works of other authors.