I haven't had any experience of working with Creative Commons but I can see that would be useful to the artistic community who are creating new art online. It is also has a lot of potential to be useful in more mundane work where it would be useful to share your projects with others but to still be able to maintain a degree of control over your own creations.

Hi Caroline- Yes the artistic community has CC to be useful- here is a link to a youtube video that helps to further understand the artistic perspective with CC: https://www.youtube.com/wat...

As well, you might be interested in this site: http://10.creativecommons.org/

The problem with many people is that the first question they ask about OER is "How can I make money from this". Of course, the answer is "You don't". Some people apparently didn't learn the value of sharing in Kindergarten. When we can get them to understand this, we start to make progress. Or not. Sometimes you just have to move around people who are forming obstacles.

I find that while some are still reluctant to share their work with a CC license, more and more people understand the value of sharing resources and ideas without monetary compensation. I think we have to continue to try to educate the naysayers!

Okay, it is a very annoying question on one hand, but it's not an unreasonable one on the other. There are a few ways to answer it as I understand things:

1. Projects done under many grants including the Gates Foundation & Hewlett Foundation require Creative Commons licenses be placed on the finished project. Getting one of those grants is how you "make money" from it.

2. Just because you do work for hire doesn't mean you can't include the stipulation that the completed project be open. RFQs are our there for folk to create materials for future projects as part of some state's Common Core Curriculum Initiatives, and some of these will be open once they're completed. Look for those types of opportunities to get paid to do an outside project and then insist they let you put a CC By license on it.

3. Many of us work for public institutions, so technically, we have been paid to create materials. We're just not asking folks to pay again to use it. Knowledge isn't a consumable project, so they can't "use it all up."

Creative Commons doesn't necessarily mean you didn't get paid to create a project, but that you are willing to let others use what has already been paid for once it's been completed, and, like the old proverb which tells us to "cast your bread upon the water" good things can come back to us. You could end up with a better resource once someone takes your work, remixes it and puts it back out there. It seems much wiser than filing it away for that book you're going to write "one day."

There's a Volvo commercial that says something like - our company felt strongly enough about the importance of the 5-point seatbelt that we gave the design to our competitors for free. Are we as educators saying that we don't care enough about our fields to do the same?

Love that provocative thought at the end of your post. Neat!

Great post! I wonder if you'd mind if I quote some (or all?) of it in a blog post, attributing you of course? I am continually trying to come up with arguments to help people see why sharing is a good idea--especially faculty in educational institutions. These are great points!

Feel free to use anything I said. This is all about CC, right :)

Thanks so much!

Any license without -NC allows commercial use. A publisher can use CC-BY licensed material, by itself or with "value added", and sell the resulting product for profit. You can also make money off CC-licensed work by providing services based on or related to it.

There are some businesses that are making money with CC licensed materials doing exactly that. I am thinking of Cards Against Humanity http://cardsagainsthumanity... where the game can be downloaded and used for free & people create their own card decks. Or, alternatively, you can spend $25 and buy a set of cards from Cards Against Humanity. It has become a very popular game mostly due to the fact that it is available for free and people can try it and then choose to support the creators if they like it by purchasing the cards.

And writer Cory Doctrow also has a business built around CC licenses where he gives his novels away for free electronically, but charges for the print versions. So, print becomes a premium item that some are still willing to pay for, even though they can get the same book digitally from Cory for free https://wiki.creativecommon...

The open course that I'm teaching through Canvas this term carry's a CC license on it, as do the original resources within the course. In addition, I'm doing the photo 365 project this year and posting my pictures on Flickr. They all have CC licenses on them except for pictures that I've taken of my daughter. I share because it's the right thing to do, especially given the amount of CC licensed resources that others have created and I've made use of.

I try to make it a point to only use materials with a CC license and the same goes for creating resources. Anything I create is always shared

I don't have a lot of experience with Creative Commons, but I do use CC Flickr images in presentations. Because I use others' images I would like others to be able to use my Flickr images. I am using a BY-SA license. I would like other to be able to use my images and adapt them and then make them available in the same way. I haven't yet put a Creative Commons license on my blog postings as every time I think about it I suffer "copyright paralysis" doubts about some of the content. I have seen others adding "unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under" to their CC license statement, so this may be the way to go.

Copyright paralysis! I have that too. And I'm a little regretful about some youtube things I've got out there without any copyright on them.

Forgive me--I'm not sure what copyright paralysis is!

Sally, I think that something like the "unless otherwise expressly stated" clause is a good compromise. Otherwise, everything is automatically all rights reserved even if you don't mind some of it being openly licensed.

Guthrie--when you say you don't have copyright on them, do you mean that you gave them an open license? I think there is a kind of irrevocability of CC licenses: https://wiki.creativecommon...

Oh, and don't forget that under an open license you still retain copyright; what you're doing, officially, is providing a license for others to use it even though you have the copyright. That makes some sort of legal difference, but I'm not sure exactly what it is (and it differs between countries, I expect). But it's a common misconception that when you use an open license you're giving up copyright. What you're giving up is certain rights associated with copyright, so if you retain those rights it's "all rights reserved." This is a subtle difference, but I think it's good to note. It's actually why some people think CC doesn't go far enough because it still retains the copyright framework; some want to radically change the copyright and intellectual property ideas entirely!

I do attach a CC BY license to all of my online course materials at this point. I am interested in helping my institution start a repository for scholarly work; we have a small working group and the blessing of our administration and trustees to get something like this off the ground. I am working to find ways to talk with faculty about the benefits of the CC license, and about how sharing their scholarly work more openly can benefit their professional reputations (since the misconception is that open-licenses ultimately cost faculty members money, and security when it comes to p&t...).

I have my students use Creative Commons to find resources for Web projects..graphics, music..sometimes text. However, I require them to have at least 50% of their content be original. I should probably have them CC their own work.

I agree with you on asking them to CC license their own work. I talk to them about using openly licensed works in their own blogs, presentations, etc., but have never asked them to give an open license to what THEY do. I do think, though, that I would leave the decision up to them whether or not to do it. It's their work, after all!

I've used Creative Commons to search for CC licensed images for online courses. I have a couple of projects on the go that will get CC licenses...but they aren't quite ready for public consumption ;)

I have no experience using creative commons license. I have been aware of this organization for a few years but have never really looked deeply into it. I could imagine that I would use this a great deal for images that I use in my presentations in class and trainings I do outside of the college. I think having some sort of license might make it easier for educators to put their work up online as long as they know that they may get some type of credit for their ideas/artwork. I am excited and eager to explore this website!

Hi Cindu: Yes, using CC images for presentations is a great thing to do! I used to just use any images I could find on the web, but then when I learned about CC I started using those images exclusively because then I could post my presentations online and not be violating any copyright. At my university they say that you can use copyrighted images if it's *only* in class and not posted anywhere online, but otherwise you should use openly licensed (or public domain) images.

Hello. My most recent experience with Creative Commons licenses has been compiling the open textbook reviews the California Open Online Library project. I've had to do a little research for each open textbook review to make sure I provide the correct licensing attribution. This process has expanded my knowledge of the many licensing options and how to attribute them correctly.

Hi. My experience with Creative Commons was when I had to search for CC licensed images in order to complete a short class assignment which was about creating a learning object. I'm looking forward to empowering my colleagues about Creative Commons.

I don't have personal experience with using Creative Commons licensing, but as I talk with partner schools in HE and K12, many don't realize the copyright restrictions on materials they are already using. When I present to administrators on options, I make sure to include a few slides on CC, just to make sure.

I love creative commons licensing it makes life so much easier. I was able to find all the images a colleague need to finish his lab manual which he then posted to Merlot.

I plan on sharing this information with my kids teachers in K-12. They are always concerned about budgets and how that limits resources. With OER and CC licensing more possibilities and opportunities are available.

Before taking this course and not knowing much about Creative Commons, I actually stumbled upon a site providing CC license material when I was looking for information for my college study skills course. At this point in my teaching career, I am looking at getting away from using a hardbound textbook and looking more and more to find resources online. This is for two reasons: 1. A less expensive or no cost alternative for my students and 2. To keep my course fresh by exploring different ways to present material in a more creative and interesting manner. This spring semester, I was determined to try something different. I started researching online for materials I could incorporate with the idea of using the flipped classroom model. I was looking for something on note-taking styles and found UBC Learning Commons on the University of British Columbia website. Here, I found additional material I can incorporate within my class. And on the webpage it states: “Except where otherwise stated, the work on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” This is the website: http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/

Hi Vickie:

I work at UBC, and I'm so glad my university has made that information on the learning commons site CC licensed! I know that some people have been working hard to get many resources on UBC sites to be licensed with Creative Commons, and it's fantastic to hear that this is happening, and that it's useful for others. Great impetus to continue the work of making as many of our resources as we can openly licensed!