The 5 Rs of Openness

• Retain: the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
• Reuse: the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
• Revise: the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
• Remix: the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
• Redistribute: the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

OER Myth busting

Examples of attribution statements

Note:

• The statement is clear, simple, and contains all elements required for a complete attribution: title of the work used, author(s), and license type. A link is provided to the original work, the home page of the website (this is optional), and the license type.
• There is no need to name the adapting author in this statement. This information should either be included on the Book Info page as a main author OR if you want to indicate which author wrote/adapted which chapter, you can use the Chapter Author option at the bottom of each chapter/web page in Pressbooks.
• If the book is to be CC BY licensed, then you will need to address the conditions dictated by the license for each resource you are using in your adaptation.  At the bottom of the Chapter page in Pressbooks, there is an option to set the license type for that page which will override, for this page only, the overarching license chosen for the book on the Book Info page.
• If the chapter contains some original material AND some material from another source, then rather than saying "This chapter is an adaptation of....", say "This chapter contains material taken from....".

Note:

• The statement is clear, simple and contains all elements required for a complete attribution: title of the image, photographer, and license type, as well as a note of the changes made. A link is provided to the original work, the home page of the photographer (if available), and the license type.

Adaptation

Reasons to adapt an open textbook

1. Address a particular teaching style or learning style
2. Adjust for a different grade or course level
3. Address diversity needs
4. Meet a cultural, regional, or national preference
5. Make the material more accessible for people with disabilities
6. Add material contributed by students or material suggested by students
7. Translate the material into another language
8. Correct errors or inaccuracies
9. Update the book with current information
10. Add more media or links to other resources

• SOL*R (Shareable Online Learning Resources): This is BCcampus' OER respository.
• Creative Commons Search: A repository of various types of media, including images, music, and videos.
• OER Commons: A large collection of a variety of types of OER, including textbooks, courses, and ancillary materials.
• MERLOT: "a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community."
• OER Handbook for Educators: "a guide for those who are just getting started in the creation of open educational resources (OER)."

Textbooks

• BCcampus's BC OpenEd Resources page is a good place to start to find both general information about OER and a collection of textbooks that have been "created … or … re-created from existing [OER] by B.C. post-secondary faculty, reviewed by B.C. faculty and made available under a Creative Commons license."
• OpenStax: Supported by Rice University, OpenStax has a huge collection of open, peer-reviewed textbooks on a large variety of subjects.
• Project Gutenberg: A collection of tens of thousands of digitized books available for download; audiobooks are also available.
• AU Press: Athabasca University's AU Press publishes open access journals and books with a focus on Canada, the North American West, and the Circumpolar North.

Courses

• Khan Academy: A collection of instructional videos and practice exercises on topics including math, science, programming, history, English, economics, and standardized test prep.
• MIT OpenCourseWare: offers free access to almost all MIT course content
• Saylor Academy: a non-profit organization committed to providing free and open online courses
• Coursera: an educational platform partnered with dozens of prestigious universities and institutions (including MoMA, Stanford, Yale, the University of Toronto, and the University of London)

Multimedia

• Creative Commons Search: A repository of various types of media, including images, music, and videos
• Vimeo: Videos with a CC license can be found through Advanced Search options
• Flickr: Creative Commons: Flickr is an "online photo management and sharing application" and many photos are available under CC licenses; Flickr allows searching by type of license.

Supplemental materials

• PhET: Interactive math and science simulations with lesson plans and activities
• OER Commons: A large collection of a variety of types of OER, including textbooks, courses, and ancillary materials

Other OER lists

• Simon Fraser University guide called "Finding and evaluating OER: Open Educational Resources"
• University of British Columbia research guide to open education
• Kwantlen Polytechnic University research guide to open educational resources
• British Columbia Institute of Technology guide to open education
• University of Victoria open educational resources site
• University of Northern British Columbia guide to open access in scholarly communication

More resources

Attribution: CC BY

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Attribution-ShareAlike: CC BY-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

Attribution-NoDerivs: CC BY-ND

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial: CC BY-NC 

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Copyright and Creative Commons

GNU

Copyleft

Public Domain

Acknowledgments

Why Open Education matters

Faculty Perspectives on Open Textbooks

Adopt an open textbook

Using an open textbook for your class

1. Find the right textbook. Search the B.C. Open Collection.
2. Review and evaluate to see if it matches your criteria and based on content, presentation, online accessibility, production options, platform compatibility, delivery options, interactivity, consistency between online and printed versions, and available ancillary material (test banks, PowerPoints, etc.). A suggested source for evaluating an OER is the Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources [PDF].
3. Decide if you want to use as is or modify it. One of the benefits of open textbooks is flexibility to modify and customize them for specific course designs as much or as little as you desire. If you want to make edits or append content, make sure the Creative Commons license allows for that (every CC license except the non-derivative license allows for modifications). If you are interested in modifying an open textbook, check out our section on how to modify an open textbook.
4. Distribute to your students. There are a number of ways in which you can do this.
   • If you’re using a textbook from this site, provide the link to the textbook to your students. They will have the option to select which file type they would like to download, or they can purchase a low cost printed version from the BCcampus print on demand service.
   • Alternatively, you can download copies of the book and put them on another site. Some examples of where you could put your own copies of the book files are:
     • Your institutional LMS (Learning Management System). Load the book files into your Moodle, Desire2Learn, Blackboard or Canvas site and make the books available to your students via the LMS.
     • Use an online file sharing service like Dropbox or Google Docs. Upload a copy of the book files to Dropbox or Google Docs and send your student the link to that copy.
     • If you have a faculty website, put copies of the files on that website and send students to your website to download your copy of the textbook.
   • Approach your local institutional bookstore or print shop to see if they can make printed copies of the books available for your students. Many institutional print shops can create low cost printed versions of textbooks and make them available to students. Keep in mind that textbooks that have a specific non-commercial clause (CC BY-NC) cannot be sold with a markup or at a profit. However, charging a modest cost-recovery fee for physical textbooks is considered reasonable.
5. Let us know. If you adopt an open textbook from this site, tell us about it by filling out an open textbook adoption form. Faculty adoption information is important to the long-term viability of the open textbook project. Plus we will add you to a mailing list to inform you of when the textbook is being modified or additional resources are available for it.

Keep a record of all changes and additions

• Can be included as part of the Copyright Notice
• Can be accurately attributed to you, the author

Provenance document examples