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Business OER & Fair Use

Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials that are in the public domain or that have been introduced with an open license. An open license means that anyone can use, copy and re-share the materials.

About this Guide

This guide serves to inform College of Business faculty about Open Education Resources in general; direct them to specific open textbooks, courses, and courseware for business classes; and explain Creative Commons licensing, public domain, and Fair Use.

 

The 5 R's of OERs 

1. Retain - make, own, and control a copy of the resource (e.g., download 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(s) to create something new (e.g., make a mashup)

4. Reuse - use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly (e.g., 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 to share with class)

 

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons licenses are standardized tools that provide a range of options for creators who are interested in sharing their works with the public rather than reserving all rights under copyright.

The four license elements — Attribution (BY), ShareAlike (SA), NonCommercial (NC), and NoDerivatives (ND) — combine to make up six different license options. 

All of the licenses include the BY condition. In other words, all of the licenses require that the creator be attributed in connection with their work. Beyond that commonality, the licenses vary whether (1) commercial use of the work is permitted; and (2) whether the work can be adapted, and if so, on what terms.

 

Attribution

This guide has been created with the Open Education Resources Guide from the University of Maryland Global Campus which has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, the BRASS Business Open Educational Resources Guide from RUSA a division of ALA licensed under a CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license and the Open Education Resources (OER) Toolkit created by Sophie Forrester at Daniel A. Reed Library, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License.