Emerson College Library: Open Education: Home

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Open Education Overview

Open education encompasses more than just freely available and adaptable research and learning materials. On the whole, its practitioners, advocates, resources, and practices seek to reimagine education as a fundamental right, accessible to all, and encouraging of the co-creation of knowledge between experts and non-experts. While open education’s long-term aims are often radical and nebulous in nature, it also addresses more urgent, practical issues. Most of these practical issues deal directly with the existing landscape of course materials – those materials required by instructors for student course completion and subject understanding, to include textbooks, trade books, courseware, software, and supplies – and the ability of learners to freely access these materials.

Open Licensing

Copyright and Fair Use

In the United States, copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression. this can include paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, blog posts, movies, architectural works, plays, choreography, and more. Works are original when they are independently created by a human author and have a minimal degree of creativity. Independent creation simply means that you create it yourself, without copying. A work is fixed when it is captured (either by or under the authority of an author) in a sufficiently permanent medium such that the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time. (U.S. Copyright Office, What Is Copyright)

Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. For more information about copyright and fair use, see the Iwasaki Library's Fair Use guide. Fair use is one powerful tool for individuals interested in using copyrighted materials in their own creations.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges. Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?”
Before you apply a Creative Commons (CC) license to your work, there are some important things to consider:

The licenses cannot be revoked. This means once you apply a CC license to your material, anyone who receives it may rely on that license for as long as the material is protected by copyright, even if you later stop distributing it.
You must own or control copyright in the work. Only the copyright holder or someone with express permission from the copyright holder can apply a license to a copyrighted work. If you created a work in the scope of your job, you may not be the holder of the copyright.

For help in selecting a license that best fits your needs, refer to the CC License Chooser tool from Creative Commons.

Creative Commons License Options

There are six different license types, listed in order from most to least permissive for reuse:

CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

Additionally, creators may assign their works to the public domain. CC0 (aka CC Zero) is a public dedication tool, which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions.

Background and Research

Changing Our (Dis)Course: A Distinctive Social Justice Aligned Definition of Open Education
This paper investigates the degree to which recent digital Open Education literature is aligned to social justice principles, starting with the first UNESCO definition of Open Educational Resources (OER). A critical analysis of 19 texts was undertaken to track dominant and alternative ideas shaping the development of Open Education since 2002 as it broadened and developed from OER to Open Educational Practices (OEP).
Inclusive Design for Learning: Creating Flexible and Adaptable Content with Learners
Through the individualisation and adaptation of learning materials enabled by open education practices and the flexibility of digital resources, excluded or struggling learners can be included, to the benefit of all learners. This Knowledge Series paper introduces the dimensions of inclusive design as it applies to learning and focuses on the design of diverse learning experiences to help optimise learning opportunities for all learners.
It’s Not (Just) About the Cost: Academic Libraries and Intentionally Engaged OER for Social Justice
How can librarians seize the radical affordances of OER to complicate standard narratives with the stories of those historically and systemically marginalized? Using work created through the University of Idaho’s Think Open Fellows 2019–20 Cohort as a starting point, the author explores how these projects created OER content that demonstrates Lambert’s three principles of OER and social justice.
The Review Project
This review page from the Open Education Group provides a summary of all known empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption. It will be periodically updated with new articles as the reviewers become aware of them.
SPARC Resources
SPARC is a non-profit advocacy organization that supports systems for research and education that are open by default and equitable by design. SPARC is known by its acronym, which stands for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.

Attribution

Open Licensing has been adapted from Creative Commons, About CC Licenses webpage. Creative Commons, About CC Licenses webpage is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.