General information
Authors: A.A.Fuente, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain; A.Texeira, L.Morgado, Universidade Aberta, Portugal.
The general goal of this training material is to help teachers create academic materials while complying with the Intellectual Property (IP) laws, with licenses as the main point of interest. The focus is on Creative Commons (CC) licenses, as this licenses are probably the licenses of choice in the academic field.
Unit 1 introduces the main concepts needed to understand IP, including licenses. In Unit 2 we will learn about CC licenses and how to use them.
Unit 3 introduces additional IP concepts, as differences between countries in IP laws reside in these areas and they must be taken into account by the author of academic materials. These regional particularities are treated in Unit 4.
Creators of materials can use resources from others. In Unit 5 we will learn about the different types of resources that can be used, and a specific process to assure compliance with IP law when using these resources by checking the licenses. Unit 6 shows how to search for these resources considering the resource license.
The last unit is devoted to registration, which is usually the last thing done regarding IP when developing academic materials
Unit 7. Selecting a license and registering material
7.1. Selecting a license
This section assumes the author wants to attach a general license for the work developed, and more particularly, that it is an open content license such as a CC license.
7.1.1. Before licensing
Obviously, before licensing, first the work should be developed. Then the author should decide which the allowed uses he or she wants for the work are. For example, the author may want his work to be inalterable, therefore prohibiting modifications. Although not necessary, it is better to decide the license before publishing the work, and attach the license from the beginning.
It is very important to check possible license implications of third party material (if used). For example, we may have used a resource that mandates that any work using it should maintain the original license for the resource.
7.1.2. Selecting an appropriate license
Once other implications are checked, and the allowed uses set, it is time to select the appropriate license. Usually, it will be a Creative Commons license as it is a general framework and the work will be probably more accessed by users.
Other option is to use another general license, or develop our own license. These could be more specific than CC licenses, with regard to the uses, and the geographical coverage, time span, etc.
7.1.3. Selecting a CC license
If we set on a CC license, selecting one of the 6 licenses available is an easy task. It is a matter of just choosing between:
- (NC) Commercial or not
- (SA) Share Alike or not (viral clause)
- (ND) Derivative work allowed or not
7.1.4. Creative Commons choose a license tool
Creative Commons provides a tool that eases the task of selecting a CC license even more: the Creative Commons Choose a License tool. This tool asks the author to select the license using the NC, SA, and ND options, and asks for information about the work: title, author info, links to the resource, etc.
With this information, the tool generates:
- Credit text with links, to attach to the resource
- Icons with the graphical depiction of the license used
- HTML code to embed in a web page to show license information