Creative Commons Certificate for Librarians

June 1 – August 9, 2020

Summer 2020, the summer that many people worked from home to try to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, all of the summer events, workshops, and conferences that I normally participate in were canceled, so I took advantage of my summer with no travel to enroll in the Creative Commons Certificate course for librarians. The course consisted of 5 units, each of which had a required assignment. I’ve shared some of my assignments here.

• Unit 1: What is Creative Commons?
• Unit 2: Copyright Law
• Unit 3: Anatomy of a CC License
• Unit 4: Creative Commons Collections & Adaptations
  • Collections
    • Example of a collection: Critical Readings on Archiving Endangered Languages
  • Adaptations
• Unit 5: Open Access & Open Educational Resources

Unit 1: What is Creative Commons?

This video was submitted by Susan Kung for Assignment 1 (Unit 1: What Is Creative Commons?) for the June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course,

Creative Commons: What Is It Anyway? is a derivative of the June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course by Creative Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0 International. Susan Kung adapted the information from Unit 1: What Is Creative Commons? to create this animated video using Vyond licensed software, which grants the subscriber non-exclusive, royalty-free and perpetual license to use, reproduce, display, perform and distribute the videos created by the subscriber. Some images and information herein came from other sources, all attributed below. This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International.

Unit 2: Copyright Law

This video was submitted by Susan Kung for Assignment 2 (Unit 2: Copyright Law) for the June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course.

Copyright Basics is an adaptation of the June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course by Creative Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0 International. Susan Kung adapted information from Unit 2: Copyright Law to create this presentation using the pro version of Canva software, which owns the rights to or licenses for all graphics and music used herein. All other content of this work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International.

Unit 3: Anatomy of a CC License

This video was submitted by Susan Kung for Assignment 3 (Unit 3: Anatomy of a CC License) for the June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course.

“The Anatomy & Workings of the Creative Commons Licenses” is an adaptation of the June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course by Creative Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0 International. Susan Kung adapted the information from “Unit 3: Anatomy of a CC License” to create this animated video using Vyond licensed software, which grants the subscriber a non-exclusive, royalty-free and perpetual license to use, reproduce, display, perform and distribute the videos created by the subscriber. This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International.

Unit 4:
Creative Commons:
Collections & Adaptations

Collections

In the Creative Commons, what is a collection?

A collection is an assemblage or compilation of separate and independent creative works, copied in their entirety without any modifications, and organized together in some way. Examples include an encyclopedia, a compilation of poems by various authors, and an online exhibition of photographs by different photographers.

Since works in a collection are not modified in any way, any CC-licensed work can be included in a collection, even works licensed with the ND element.

Attribution is required for all works that appear in the collection.

What licensing considerations are relevant to collections?

While the compiler (a.k.a., the collector) may pick a license for the collection, that license does not apply to the individual and separately licensed works contained in the collection. Rather, each work contained in the collection retains its original Creative Commons license.

The license that the compiler applies to the collection applies only to the new arrangement of works, as well as to any additions created by the compiler, such as a cover and/or introduction.

If any of the original works in the collection is licensed under one of the NonCommercial CC licenses (BY-NC, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND), then the compiler must choose an NC license for the collection.

Even if some of the original works contained in the collection are licensed under a ShareAlike CC license, the collection itself does not have to be licensed with an SA license since it does not contain adaptive work.

Example of a collection

Critical Readings on Archiving Endangered Languages is a collection of academic articles compiled by Susan Smythe Kung. Clicking on the link will open the collection in a new browser tab.

Adaptations

In the Creative Commons, what is an adaptation?

N.B. In the Creative Commons world, the terms remix, adaptation, and derivative work are used interchangeably. Here, I will use the term adaptation.

An adaptation is a work that is based on another work or on multiple other works. The adaptation will be protected by copyright only if it represents some original expression on the part of the adapter; however, the required definition of “originality” varies between jurisdictions. All modifications made to the original works must be indicated in the adaptation.

Some examples of adaptations based on just one work include a translation of the work from one language to another and a screenplay based on a novel. Some examples of adaptations based on multiple works include a photographic collage, a musical mashup and an Open Educational Resource.

Under the Creative Commons, synching music to a moving image always results in an adaptation, regardless of whether it would be under the applicable copyright law.

Changing a CC-licensed work from one format to another is not an adaptation under the Creative Commons, though it might be under applicable copyright law. Correcting typos in a CC-licensed work does not create an adaptation either.

Existing works that are licensed with the CC ND (NoDerivatives) element may not be used to create an adaptation, unless that adaptation is for the private use of the adapter only.

All CC licenses except for ND allow remixing or adapting, but certain licenses impose limitations or restrictions on the adaptation. See below for more information on licensing adaptations.

What licensing considerations are relevant for adaptations?

The original CC-license will continue to apply to an adapted work, even after it has been adapted.

All CC licenses except for ND (NoDerivatives) allow remixing, but certain licenses impose limitations or restrictions on the adaptation, such as

• NonCommercial: The license on an adaptation that includes a remix of an NC-licensed work should also be licensed with the NC element to make downstream reuse easier.
• ShareAlike: If any of the adapted works are licensed with the SA element, the license on the adaptation must also include the SA element.

Before combining any CC-licensed works, it is a good idea to first check the Creative Commons License Compatibility Chart, below, to confirm that the licenses on the works are compatible for remixing. To use the compatibility chart:

• Find a license in the leftmost column and a license in the top row.
• Find the cell at the intersection of that row and column.
• If there is a check mark in that cell, then the licenses are compatible and can be remixed.
• If there is an X in that cell, then the licenses are not compatible and should not be remixed (except under a limitation or exception to copyright).

When deciding which CC license to apply to an adaptation, the adapter should consult the Creative Commons Adapter’s License Chart, below. To use the chart:

• Find the license of the original work in the column on the left.
• Pick an adaptor’s license that you want to use on the top row.
• Find the cell at the intersection of the row and column and note the color. 
• Green = Good to Go!
• Yellow = Caution!
  • (Though the combo is technically allowed, it is not recommended because its use requires marking the adaptation as involving multiple copyrights under different terms to alert downstream users of the license requirements.)
• Gray = No!
  • (The combination is not allowed; pick another adapter’s license.)

Attribution for Unit 4: Creative Commons Collections and Adaptations

Susan Kung created this adaptation, Creative Commons: Collections & Adaptations, by remixing information from the Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions and from “Unit 4: Using CC Licenses and CC-Licensed Works” of the June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course, both by Creative Commons and both licensed under CC BY 4.0 International. This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International.

Unit 5: Open Access & Open Educational Resources

The final unit of the Creative Commons Certificate course deals with Open Access (OA) and Open Education Resources (OER), two fundamentally related aspects of the open movement that promote open knowledge for all. Read on to learn more …

Open Access

“Open Access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” (Suber 2004). The focus of this definition of OA is on peer-reviewed research articles and their preprints.

There are 2 venues that allow researchers to provide OA to their research:

• Gold OA refers to journal publications that are Open Access; the original declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative called this “open-access journals.”
• Green OA refers to preprints and other literature that are available in an institutional repository or some other archive; the original declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative called this “self-archiving.”

Below is a contrast between the traditional, “closed” model of scholarly communication and the Open Access Model, specifically the gold OA model. Italicized text on the OA side indicates innovations in and benefits of the OA model.

Though the Gold/Green distinction is helpful for researchers who want to make their scholarly research accessible, this distinction is not that helpful for people who want to understand how they can reuse OA literature. Thus, Suber (2008) lays out a distinction between gratis OA and libre OA.

• Gratis OA is OA literature that is free of charge to the consumer/reader.
• Libre OA is OA literature that is both free of charge and free of some or all permission barriers.

Open Access is important for faculty, students, and librarians because it is aligned with the goal of increasing access to knowledge, as well as with the original purpose of conducting science and sharing results openly through the scholarly publishing process. Under the OA model, the following are possible:

1. Authors keep their copyrights.
2. There is a zero embargo period for open sharing of the results of research (articles).
3. The research data can be shared along with the article.
4. Authors can add a Creative Commons license to their research articles to allow them be be used for text and data mining (TDM). N.B. The NoDerivatives (ND) license prevents TDM, which creates a derivative product.

Some benefits for everyone–faculty, students, alumni, people outside the academy and all over the world–of open access to research include (in no particular order):

• There are no paywalls that prevent people from accessing research.
• Researchers are compliant with the OA requirements of their grants.
• Students will still have access to research even after they graduate.
• The public can access the results of the research, as well as (in some cases) the data that support the results.
• Taxpayers get access to results of research that they paid for.
• Researchers in developing countries (where libraries and institutions are less likely to be able to afford traditional journal subscriptions) can get access to the research.
• The research results get more exposure.
• More exposure leads to higher citation metrics.
• More exposure and higher citation metrics lead to more researchers reusing the research.
• The research can influence policy.
• OA research leads to more OA research.

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

The Creative Commons Certificate course module 5.2 provides the following definition of Open Educational Resources (OER), which is adapted from UNESCO’s definition of OER:

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others.

A primary goal of OER is to take advantage of the internet and digital technology in order to make educational materials, and especially textbooks, affordable for, accessible to, and reusable by anyone anywhere in the world.

However, monetary savings are not the only benefit of OER. Because OER are either in the public domain or licensed with open licenses (CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA), they are both free to access (gratis OA) and free to use (libre OA) for the 5R Activities (Wiley, no date).

5R Activities:

1. Retain – make, own, and control a copy of the resource (e.g., download and keep your own copy)
2. Revise – edit, adapt, and modify your copy of the resource (e.g., translate into another language)
3. Remix – combine your original or revised copy of the resource with other existing material to create something new (e.g., make a mashup)
4. Reuse – use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly (e.g., on a website, in a presentation, in a class)
5. Redistribute – share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource with others (e.g., post a copy online or give one to a friend)

Note that OER differ from “free” (i.e., not-free) library resources and MOOCs. Libraries must subscribe to or purchase many of the resources that the faculty and students use for free, and those services are not available to people who are not affiliated with that institution. Though a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) might be free to access and use, MOOCS are not licensed with open licenses, so they cannot be used for the 5R activities.

The Relationship between OA & OER

Education is about sharing. Both OA and OER are important parts of the Open Education Movement because they both allow knowledge to be shareable and accessible through the removal of cost and permission barriers that otherwise keep knowledge locked away.

OA and OER create a mutually beneficial educational ecosystem in which open access to research helps to provide content that can be used in open educational resources, which in turn facilitates teaching and learning, which in turn facilitate more research, which in turn leads to OA research publications, and so on, and so on.

References for Unit 5

All image credits appear under the associated image. Literature credits are listed here.

Budapest Open Access Initiative. 2002. Read the Budapest Open Access Initiative declaration. https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read. CC BY 3.0 Unported.

Creative Commons. 2020. June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course, Unit 5.2: OER, Open Textbooks, and Open Courses. https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/. CC BY 4.0 International.  

Suber, Peter. 2004. Open Access Overview: Focusing on open access to peer-reviewed research articles and their preprints. http://bit.ly/oa-overview. CC BY 3.0 US.

Suber, Peter. 2008. Gratis and libre open access, SPARC Open Access Newsletter. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4322580. CC BY 3.0 US.

UNESCO. 2019. Open Educational Resources. https://en.unesco.org/themes/building-knowledge-societies/oer. All Rights Reserved.

Wiley, David. No date. Defining the “Open” in Open Content and Open Educational Resources. http://opencontent.org/definition/. CC BY 4.0 International.

Attribution for Unit 5: Open Access & Open Educational Resources

Unit 5: Open Access & Open Educational Resources is a derivative of the  June 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course by Creative Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0. Susan Kung adapted (revised) content from the Creative Commons Certificate Course Unit 5: CC for Librarians, then remixed it with other works (all attributed herein), reused & redistributed it here on this website. All CC BY-SA licensed images were copied in their entirety and were not modified in any way. This work, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International.

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