In Unit 2: What the "open" in OER means, and why it matters, [new window] we talked about creators needing to take an affirmative step to make their work OER, usually through a Creative Commons license. A simple tool from Creative Commons generates an open license that you can copy and paste onto, or embed in, your work. Just like with attributions, where precisely you put it depends on the platform and format you use. Youtube and Pressbooks have special fields for licenses and copyright information. If you're using Google Docs or Word, you might put the license on the copyright page or in the footer of the document.

The default license to choose, under the terms of this grant, is CC BY (Attribution). In Unit 3: Attributions [new window] we talked about complexities that sometimes arise when remixing content with different licenses. Hopefully, before reaching this point, you will have already been tracking your sources and consulting with the OER librarian. You may decide together that another license is more appropriate because of your specific circumstances or the content you're remixing.  Follow the steps below to create a CC BY 4.0 license for your work:

1. Go to the Creative Commons License Chooser

2. In the first box, leave the default "Yes" buttons selected

licenses feature box with radio buttons set to yes

3. Scroll down past the next two boxes, and in the fourth box either copy and paste the logo and license text (Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.) or copy the embed code (if you're working on a blog or web site).

Have a web page header followed by CC Attribution statement, logo, and embed code

That's it! Continue on to the next section to learn how to share your newly-minted OER with the world.

Last modified: Friday, June 21, 2019, 10:36 AM