Laying the Groundwork: OER for Social Justice
Remixing Openly Licensed Materials
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to
- Evaluate open licenses for remixing
OER Cookbook: Compiling and Remixing
Creating and remixing an OER can be complicated, especially when you start compiling existing copyrighted or openly licensed works. You can think of your OER as a cookbook collection of your favorite camping recipes from your hiking partners. Each recipe would have a list of ingredients, cooking methods, and maybe step-by-step photos. The recipe may be authored by the hiker who builds the best fires, while the photos were taken by your group’s avid bird watcher. You may order each recipe based on your typical camping itinerary and pen some funny stories of the meals shared to complete your layered collaboration. How do you make certain everyone is credited for their work?
Like the camping cookbook, your OER, with its crew of creators, will be your own unique concoction. You may create a compilation, a remix, or a combination of the two:
- A compilation “is a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.”[1] You may write introductions or annotations that tie the original works together, but the original works are distinguishable by unique authors and licenses.
- Ex., You may edit an anthology of short stories written by various authors.
- A remix is when you combine at least two openly licensed items to create one new thing. Within your multi-author OER, each chapter of your OER may contain images/figures, text, and other content assessed in H5P activities. Each element may be authored by multiple authors. In fact, you may weave text together to create a fluid narrative.
- Ex., You may combine two OER chapters into one, blending the text to make the writing smooth for your reader.
- Your OER may be a combination of a compilation and remix.
- Ex., You may remix the text of two original works but compile a number of unaltered images and figures to create your OER.
In this chapter, we will discuss how to identify openly licensed content, verify the compatibility of licenses for remixing, and discuss how you should attribute the many layers of contributing works.
The Main Ingredient: Openly Licensed Content
When considering the elements of your OER compilation or remix, let’s start with openly licensed content, which should constitute most if not all of your content. As you will recall from our discussions about David Wiley’s definition of OER, open licensing is the secret ingredient that makes it possible to engage in Wiley’s 5Rs of OER.[2] When creating a compilation, you are remixing openly licensed content to create something new out of things borrowed.
Select the plus signs (+) to review the functions that are allowable through open licensing.
Step 1: Find License
In our last chapter, we discussed open licensing with Creative Commons (CC) licenses. You will recall that you can identify works openly licensed under CC by an attribution statement with clearly stated CC licensing and/or a CC badge (example at the right). Let’s delve a bit deeper into identifying key licensing elements in an attribution statement as well as locating needed licensing information within a resource.
Flip through the tutorial below for tips for locating licensing information in attribution statements and resources.
Now that we know where to locate the licensing for content we want to compile and remix, let’s make certain that the licenses are compatible for remixing.
Step 2. Check Compatibility
If you are compiling a collection of distinctly licensed content, then you typically retain the original license of the original works because you keep them intact. For instance, in your campfire cookbook, the photos would keep their original license because you are not blending two or more photos together.
When remixing works with CC licenses, you need to consider the compatibility of the CC licenses. Don’t worry about license compatibility if you are simply quoting from a work. But when you are combining two or more OER to create something new, you will need to determine if the terms and conditions of the licenses do not contradict one another. Thankfully, there is a chart for this.
Select the arrow for the CC license compatibility chart
If you are uncertain if your licenses are compatible, navigate the CC license compatibility chart to determine if your materials can be combined and, if so, the appropriate license for your new materials. Simply locate the license of one work on the left and the license of the other work along the top. Trace the licenses to their point of intersection.
For example, if work A is licensed under CC BY-SA and work B is licensed under CC BY, then the new license must be CC BY-SA. As a general rule, the remix license will follow the more restrictive license. If you encounter incompatible licenses, talk to your OER librarian about your options.
Trail Wisdom: NoDerivatives
NoDerivatives (ND) cannot be remixed, so CC BY-ND and CC BY-NC-ND are not compatible with any other license. You may still engage with properly attributed ND works under fair use and other copyright exceptions (see “Using Copyrighted Material Fairly“). For example, use an unaltered photo with proper attribution.
Step 3: Set Your License
The CC organization developed a standardized method for attribution to ensure openly licensed works were properly attributed. Such as the image here: CC licensed content may have a written language, it may have a CC badge, or both. Whichever format you choose to display an attribution, Creative Commons prefers you follow the Title, Author, Source, and License (TASL) attribution format.
Format Attributions
Select the arrow for information, examples, and practice formatting attributions
TASL Example
Your Turn: Identify TASL Components
Select which TASL statements are correct. Assume that the Source is hyperlinked in the Title and the License is hyperlinked to Creative Commons licensing information for each example.
Trail Wisdom: Attribution Experts
Sometimes you will run across unique source types or may need a general refresher. We recommend “Recommended Practices for Attribution,” part of the extensive CC Wiki for general guidance. For attributing complicated source types, see “Attribution Style Guide” by Michaela Willi Hooper for Open Oregon Educational Resources.
TASL Tips
It will feel a bit odd to remix existing work because copyrighted works generally prohibit such practices. But in open education it is common to remix a work and list yourself as the author of an OER. You must, however, include an attribution statement to properly attribute your sources and their licensing information in the TASL format. Depending on how you have remixed sources, you may put this statement in such locations as the front matter of your OER, the end of a chapter, near an object, in the metadata, or a combination of places.
Select the plus signs (+) below for guidance on writing and placing TASL statement.
Your Turn: Consider Your License
Schedule a meeting with your OER librarian or program coordinator to discuss potential licenses of your OER.
Recap: Licensing Compilations and Remixes
That was a lot of information, so let’s recap the different approaches to the differences in licensing when creating a compilation or remixing openly licensed content. Nate Angell from Creative Commons uses the useful analogy of a compilation as a tv dinner with distinct portions and a remix as a blended smoothie of indistinguishable parts. Watch Andrew Cambron’s quick, visual take on Angell’s explanation below.
Image Descriptions
Image 1. Creative Commons license compatibility chart shown as a grid with license icons across the top and down the left side. The licenses compared are Public Domain (CC0/Public Domain mark), CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-SA, and CC BY-NC-ND. Green check marks show combinations that are compatible, and black X marks show combinations that are not. According to the chart: Public Domain is compatible with Public Domain, CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC-SA, but not with CC BY-ND or CC BY-NC-ND. CC BY is compatible with Public Domain, CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC-SA, but not with CC BY-ND or CC BY-NC-ND. CC BY-SA is compatible with Public Domain, CC BY, and CC BY-SA only. It is not compatible with CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-SA, or CC BY-NC-ND. CC BY-NC is compatible with Public Domain, CC BY, CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC-SA, but not with CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND, or CC BY-NC-ND. CC BY-ND is not compatible with any of the licenses shown, including itself. CC BY-NC-SA is compatible with Public Domain, CC BY, CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC-SA, but not with CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND, or CC BY-NC-ND. CC BY-NC-ND is not compatible with any of the licenses shown, including itself. [Return to Image 1]
