Sharing your collections and content comes at the last step on the road towards open access, but it is the one that will prove the value of the decision of releasing collections and content. Engaging with the public takes time and work, and it is important that users understand how they can engage with collections…

Among CHIs’ competing priorities, copyright may not be at the top. But copyright is a fundamental part of everyday activities at these institutions, particularly when it comes to digitization and open access projects. Here is a basic overview of some of the important considerations about copyright and digital collections. Big Question / Why It Matters…

Open Culture presents both opportunities and challenges. Understanding them is crucial to making an informed decision on opening collections. This understanding will allow you to take advantage of the positive outcomes and work around the negative ones. Being able to explain the opportunities and plan for the challenges will help you build a strong argument…

The concept of “open” has served different purposes in a variety of fields, from software to scholarly communications, to research and education, to science and culture. Generally speaking, the notion of “open” in these fields often refers to “making something accessible” without financial, technological, or legal restrictions that limit reuse. The cultural heritage sector currently…

We live in a visual and vibrant culture that requires educators to provide relevant learning resources in the classroom, though finding and reusing others’ great works is not always simple. Librarians play an important role in discovery, development, description, licensing, curation, and sharing of Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as in advocating for and…

Open access content is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions on reuse. Open access stands in contrast to the existing “closed” system for communicating scientific and scholarly research. This current approach is slow, expensive, and ill-suited for research collaboration and discovery. And even though scholarly research is largely…

Much of this course focused on how to create openly licensed materials, by sharing the legal perspective and the practical steps needed. In this unit we will explore and practice how to create OER so they can have the biggest impact and be used without any legal or technical barriers. Big Question / Why It…

We live in a visual and vibrant culture that requires educators to provide relevant learning resources in the classroom, though finding and reusing others’ great works is not always simple. This unit will teach you how to find others’ OER and adapt them for use in your own classrooms. Big Question / Why It Matters…

Combining and adapting CC-licensed works is where things can get a little tricky. This lesson will give you the tools you need. “Combination of chilies” by City Foodsters is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Learning Outcomes Describe the basics of what it means to create an adaptation Explain the scope of the ShareAlike clause Explain…

The commons of CC-licensed and public domain works offer troves of resources that are publicly available to all. When you use resources from our shared commons, remember to give credit to the creators and follow the other relevant license terms. Learning Outcomes Search for and discover CC-licensed works Give proper attribution when reusing CC-licensed works…