Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching resources, digital or otherwise, which are free for third parties to use and reuse. Addition of an open licence clearly indicates which resources can be used and for what purpose.
A common, although certainly not the only, open licence is the Creative Commons-license. With this licence you automatically give permission to third parties who want to use your work.
There are six different CC-licences. When creating OER, you should only use resources that allow open use and reuse. This means that only resources licensed under open licences can be considered for use, or resources under CC BY or CC BY-SA licences.
Dutch experts have compiled a handy guide about the use of CC licences in educational resources.
It is important to pay attention to licence information when you use photos, videos (from YouTube or elsewhere), models and texts by other people. You can use these works if they have open licenses, once you meet the licensing requirements. If they are not open, you can only use them once you have received explicit permission from the creator. This means getting it in text, unambiguously. This can also be done with an email, for example.
Any questions about copyright?
The Radboud Copyright Information Point provides advice and information about copyright in academic higher education and publishing scientific texts. You can submit your question to the Copyright Information Point (CIP). Your question will be forwarded directly to the CIP. Staff members will reply promptly.
