The Creative Commons Licence relates to content. Creative Commons is an organisation that is working to provide an alternative to the traditional copyright protection which has ‘all rights reserved’ by maintaining the copyright of the author whilst granting some rights for users to copy, distribute and remix the content. So while Creative Commons does not relate to software, it is based upon similar principles to open source and can also be beneficial for education.
You may have noticed that this site has the following graphic on it:
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This graphic is conveying information about how the content within the site is made available for use by others. It shows that content is: |
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Using a Creative Commons License… |
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…that allows people to copy, distribute and remix the content as long as they give credit to the creator… |
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…content is available as ‘Share Alike’ – people can create remixes and derivative works based on the content as long as they in turn make the content they create available under the same Creative Commons License. |
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Other options that can be incorporated in a Creative Commons license include: |
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Non – commercial – the content may not be used for commercial purposes (ie. sold) without the permission of the content creator |
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No derivative works – people can only copy and redistribute verbatim copies of the content and not make any derivative works based on it without the content creator’s permission |
You can use a Creative Commons licence for content you create, and can also use content created by others under the Creative Commons licence system (subject to the terms of each licence). An important consideration for teachers is to understand who owns the copyright – whether it is the teacher or the school (or the students). It is necessary to clarify this with your school before you release any content.
Creative Commons licenses are used in education to share learning resources for example:
The Blog run by José Picardo to support Modern Language teaching http://www.asisehace.net/blog/
SEN teacher http://www.senteacher.org/Home/
The Open University has developed the Open Learn website on which its learning materials are available free and under a Creative Commons licence. These include a variety of resources for education professionals based on the education courses offered by Open University http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php
If you are interested in finding out more about using Creative Commons approaches and licences for sharing learning resources, there is a dedicated part of Creative Commons - ccLearn which is a portal for creators and users of Open Educational Resources. This provides information on how educational users can create, share and use resources using CC licensing http://learn.creativecommons.org/
Useful links
Introduction to Creative Commons license PDF http://wiki.creativecommons.org/images/6/62/Creativecommons-informational-flyer_eng.pdf
QIA information on Creative Commons http://excellence.qia.org.uk/page.aspx?o=ferl.aclearn.resource.id43075
