The National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit

Abstract

THE NATIONAL FORUM COMMITMENT TO OPEN LICENSING Collaboration is one of the core values of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. We foster collaboration across the Irish higher education sector in order to promote shared knowledge, understanding and practice amongst all who are invested in teaching and learning in the sector. In line with this commitment to collaboration and shared knowledge, the National Forum has committed to openly licensing all National Forum resources, as evidenced on our website (www.teachingandlearning.ie). In addition, it is a requirement that resources and materials developed as part of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund projects and Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE) Fund initiatives be openly licensed to facilitate future use and adaptation of resources in different institutional, disciplinary and programme contexts. The adoption of open licensing, such as Creative Commons, clarifies to educators, students, and others how they may access, use, and adapt individual resources. The Open Licensing Toolkit is the first guide in the National Forum OER/OEP Series: Open Educational Resources and Open Educational Practices. The second guide in the series is How to Choose an Open Licence, published in 2020 (see www.teachingandlearning.ie/open). The aim of these guides, and future guides in the series, is to provide practical information for anyone wishing to use open educational resources (OER) and/or open educational practices (OEP) to enhance teaching and learning. CREATIVE COMMONS LICENCES Creative Commons (CC) licences are the global standard for open content licensing, with over 1.4 billion CC licensed works available on the web. In addition to use by the National Forum, CC licences have been adopted globally by governments and public sector bodies, scientific and academic publishers, and cultural heritage institutions such as national museums and libraries. CC licences are the legal standard for collaboration on the web. Creative Commons licences build on and encourage respect for copyright and copyright holders. Put simply, Creative Commons licences permit creators to retain copyright but grant a specific set of permissions to others to use and adapt their work. CC licences typically contain a minimal set of conditions, such as the requirement that a user provide attribution to the author.