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COMM 345 Creative Commons for Students

A guide for COMM 345 students on Creative Commons licensing, open access, open educational resources, and more.

What You Need to Know

1. Everything is copyrighted.

  • Legally, you must ask the creator/owner to use their works in most cases (aside from linking).
  • Learn more in the Copyright & Fair Use guide.

2. Creative Commons licenses allow you to use works without requesting permission.

3. The type of license determines what you can and cannot do with a work.

4. There are many, many places to look for licensed works. This guide to Finding Licensed Materials from Eastern Michigan University is an excellent start.

5. You can include a Creative Commons license on the works you create to promote sharing of ideas.

Q&A

What are open educational resources?

Certain types of Creative Commons licensed works are called open educational resources or OERs. Visit my OER guide for more information.

What is Open Access?

Sometimes people will use the term open access to say that a work is freely available (viewable) on the web. Open Access (OA) is also a movement to make more scholarly or peer-reviewed materials -- ones that are typically very expensive for you or your university library to obtain -- freely available online.

Where can I find scholarly or peer-reviewed books and articles after I graduate?

Contact Me

Profile Photo
D'Arcy Hutchings
Contact:
Instructional Design Librarian,
Associate Professor
dlhutchings@alaska.edu
907.786.1982

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License

This work by D'Arcy Hutchings is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Note that linked content is covered by its own licenses.

We encourage you to license your derivative works under Creative Commons as well to encourage sharing and reuse of educational materials.