Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)

Is the work in the Public Domain?

• Works in the public domain may be copied and distributed without permission of the creator/owner.

• Most works older than 1923 are in the public domain, and some later works as well. See Public Domain Sherpa or Digital Copyright Slider for help determining if a work is in the public domain.

• Most works produced by the U.S. government are in the public domain. Assume a government document to be in the public domain unless it contains a copyright notice.

• The Public Domain Review: Guide to finding interesting Public Domain works online. 

Is the work open licensed? 

• Works with a Creative Commons or other open license will be labeled with the specifics of what type of use is allowed. The most common, "CC-BY", means that the work can be copied, edited, and distributed without permission of the creator/owner, requiring only that you attribute the original author.

• Guide to Creative Commons licensing

• To search: Creative Commons search

Is the work online?

• If a work is online, you may link to it instead of copying it without permission of the copyright holder (unless it is a rare case where the work specifically states this isn't allowed). This applies to works on free websites (for example, a YouTube video or a blog post), as well as works already licensed to the college through Library subscription databases, such as journal articles or ebooks.

Does your intended use of the work fall under "fair use"?

• Fair use is a doctrine of U.S. copyright law which gives exceptions to certain uses of copyrighted materials, which would otherwise be copyright infringement. To determine if fair use applies to your use, the four fair use factors must be applied.

  • 1. Purpose & Character of the Use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes;  

  • 2. Nature of the Work;

  • 3. Amount and Substantiality of Portion Used in relation to the copyright work as a whole,

  • 4. Effect on the Market for Original (The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work)

• See Kirkwood Library's guide to fair use for more information on how to apply fair use to your situation.

Asking for permission

• If it's not possible to link to a licensed or free copy of the work, and if fair use doesn't apply, you can contact the copyright holder for permission. The University System of Georgia has an excellent guide on requesting permissions and identifying the copyright owner of a work, with sample permission letters.

Paying copyright holder for use

• If it's not possible to link to a license or free copy of the work, and if fair use doesn't apply, you can also purchase the right to copy, distribute, display, or perform a work. This is usually done through a licensing agent. The University System of Georgia has an excellent guide to identifying a licensing agent according to the format of the work you want to use (print, music, video, etc.).