Fair use and Creative Commons licensing represent fundamentally different legal frameworks for accessing and reusing copyrighted materials in open educational resources. Fair use is a defensive legal doctrine […]
How the Code of Best Practices Empowers OER Creators
The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Open Educational Resources, published in February 2021 by American University’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and NC […]
Why Fair Use Matters for Open Educational Resources
Fair use serves as a cornerstone legal doctrine enabling the creation, adaptation, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER). As a provision within U.S. copyright law that permits […]
Building a Personal Copyright Toolkit: Resources, Templates, and Decision Trees for Educators
Copyright compliance should not depend on educator memory, guesswork, or ad-hoc decision-making. Rather, educators who develop systematic, organized personal copyright toolkits make consistent, defensible copyright decisions while dramatically reducing […]
Fair Use in International Collaborations: Cross-Border OER Development
When educators and institutions collaborate across international borders to develop Open Educational Resources, they encounter a critical legal reality: there is no global Fair Use doctrine. While the United […]
From Textbook to OER: A Step-by-Step Guide to Converting Traditional Materials
Converting traditional textbooks and course materials into Open Educational Resources represents both an opportunity and a challenge for educators. The motivation is compelling: faculty frustrated by expensive textbooks that […]
Attribution Done Right: Creative Commons Licensing in Practice
Creative Commons represents a revolutionary framework enabling creators to share their work while retaining important rights and controlling how their work is used. Rather than the binary choice […]
Institutional OER Policies: Building a Copyright-Compliant Framework for Your School
Educational institutions adopting Open Educational Resources face a critical choice: proceed informally with individual faculty initiatives or establish formal institutional policies that signal commitment, create organizational infrastructure, and […]
Quality Assurance in Open Educational Resources: Peer Review and Validation Frameworks
Open Educational Resources have fundamentally disrupted traditional textbook markets by eliminating copyright-based access barriers and enabling educators to customize materials for their specific contexts. However, this democratization of […]
Creating OER from Scratch vs. Adapting Existing Resources: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
Open Educational Resources represent a paradigm shift in educational material development, offering educators three distinct pathways for implementation: adoption (using existing resources without modification), adaptation (customizing existing materials to fit local contexts), […]