Open Educational Resources: Basics Of Open Licensing

Brief Abstract

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the Open Education Movement, which seeks to make high-quality research, teaching, and learning materials available to classrooms across the world (UNESCO, 2012). Promotion of Open Educational Resources (OER) to address inequities in education is increasing internationally and at the state and local level, according to the 2017 National Education Technology Plan (Department of Education, 2017). Openly licensed online courses have further helped to fill a void during the virtual pivot in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the legal facets of Open licensing are easy to gloss over when materials can be published in the click of a button. This session aims to clarify misconceptions regarding the licensing and sharing of digital and offline materials by exploring tools to identify, adapt, create, and distribute OER. Participants will distinguish between Open and Closed copyright and identify the range of permissions expressed through various Open licenses.

The presenters will begin with an overview of Open and Closed copyright and take participants through steps to identify license types. They will then guide participants through exploration of the range of permissions expressed through various Open licenses, as demonstrated by the five “Rs”: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute (Creative Commons, 2017), using authentic lesson plans, videos, articles, and course materials as examples. Participants will walk away with user-friendly OER guidelines and templates and increased confidence in creating, reusing, and adapting OER.

Extended Abstract