Open Educational Resources

Open educational resources are teaching, learning, and research materials that are free for people everywhere to use and repurpose. It’s an efficient, public way to share and revise information.

Licensors, or the creators of online content, get to choose the type of license they want and how their work will be distributed. Considerations such as commercial use and it it’s derivative work plays a factor in the decision. There are various Creative Commons licenses one may encounter when searching for resources:

Attribution: This license lets others distribute or modify existing work, even commercially, as long as they credit the original creation.
Noncommercial: This license lets others distribute or modify existing work non-commercially. The new works must also be non-commercial but don’t have to license derivative works on the same terms.
Share Alike: This license lets others modify and build upon work even for commercial purposes, as long as it’s credited. Following that the new work is licensed under the identical terms.
No Derivatives: This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, giving credit to the author or source.