Choosing the right license for your Free and Open Resources for Education Prepared by Prof Derek W. Keats The University of the Western Cape Cape Town South Africa [email_address] Copyleft not Copyright

Copyleft not Copyright

The underpinning nature of the license Just like Free and Open Source Software , Free and Open Resources for Education consists of a philosophy , a methodology for creating them, and of course the resources themselves. Underpinning it all is the license that determines and is determined by the other three components. License philosophy resources methodology

Recommending a license The recommendations made here are not universally accepted They are based on years of study, and nearly a decade of using free and open licenses for educational resources These recommendations are based on the assumptions as expressed in the tutorial entitled "Prof Derek and the NonCommercial restriction

The recommendations made here are not universally accepted

They are based on years of study, and nearly a decade of using free and open licenses for educational resources

These recommendations are based on the assumptions as expressed in the tutorial entitled "Prof Derek and the NonCommercial restriction

Where no immediate commercial revenue is expected The default license should be the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (by-sa) license This is the license that most respects freedom, by allowing copying for any purpose and production of derivative works as long as those derivative works are made available to the community under identical terms This copyleft restriction that ensures any derivative works, even if done for commercial purposes, come back to the author and the community.

The default license should be the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (by-sa) license

This is the license that most respects freedom, by allowing

copying for any purpose and

production of derivative works as long as those derivative works are made available to the community under identical terms

This copyleft restriction that ensures any derivative works, even if done for commercial purposes, come back to the author and the community.

Where content is expected to be published commercially The appropriate license is Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike NonCommercial (by-sa-nc) This license allows content to be copied and extended for non-commercial purposes only. It may seem counter-intuitive, but content published in this manner often earns greater revenue from sales than content published under full copyright.

The appropriate license is Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike NonCommercial (by-sa-nc)

This license allows content to be copied and extended for non-commercial purposes only.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but content published in this manner often earns greater revenue from sales than content published under full copyright.

Further recommendations where content is expected to be published commercially You can ask the publisher to include a reversion clause after a period of time after which commercial revenue is unlikely to be gained After this time, which you and the publisher determine, the license will revert to Attribution-ShareAlike At UWC, the recommended time period is 5 years, but the authors are free to alter this to a shorter or longer period depending on circumstances. 5 years

You can ask the publisher to include a reversion clause after a period of time after which commercial revenue is unlikely to be gained

After this time, which you and the publisher determine, the license will revert to Attribution-ShareAlike

At UWC, the recommended time period is 5 years, but the authors are free to alter this to a shorter or longer period depending on circumstances.

Where derivative works are not appropriate, such as when the item is an opinion piece The appropriate license under is Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (by-nd) This is appropriate, for example, when writing an opinion blog, or a magazine article that contains strong elements of opinion It is rarely necessary to include a NoDerivatives restriction for educational content

The appropriate license under is Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (by-nd)

This is appropriate, for example, when writing an opinion blog, or a magazine article that contains strong elements of opinion

It is rarely necessary to include a NoDerivatives restriction for educational content

Considerations under other circumstances There may be rare circumstances where these licenses are not possible, for example, when publishing in a collection where the publisher does not allow these licenses However, in most cases, even die-hard publishers will allow individual articles or chapters to publish under such licenses when asked to do so I have published several articles in commercial magazines under Attribution-ShareAlike license Educational resource authors are therefore encouraged to request that their article to be granted a Atribution-ShareAlike license whenever possible

There may be rare circumstances where these licenses are not possible, for example, when publishing in a collection where the publisher does not allow these licenses

However, in most cases, even die-hard publishers will allow individual articles or chapters to publish under such licenses when asked to do so

I have published several articles in commercial magazines under Attribution-ShareAlike license

Educational resource authors are therefore encouraged to request that their article to be granted a Atribution-ShareAlike license whenever possible

Credits The baldy man image used from the Creative Commons website under Attribution 2.5 license because he looks like me! http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/ Derivatives of this work are welcome BY-SA/GNU FDL

The baldy man image used from the Creative Commons website under Attribution 2.5 license because he looks like me!

http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/