Creative Commons for Librarians by DeeAnn Ivie

Open access does not just mean freely available; the openness of open access extends far beyond users' ability to access the content. The other attributes of open access are not be taken lightly. Users have the freedom to:

• Download
• Copy
• Share (including linking)
• Print
• Search
• Use with applications to crawl, index or mine
• Use for any lawful purpose as long as full attribution is given to the original work and the user adheres to the terms applied to the work, which is typically a Creative Commons or other liberal license.

(Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1).

For authors and readers alike there are many benefits of open access:

• Authors keep their copyright
• Users have immediate access
• Any research data is shared with the article when published

(Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1).

Both OER and Open access have similar goals: to make educational materials and research that have not been publicly accessible in the past or that are not currently accessible, accessible to all (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.2).

Essentially both seek to release knowledge from the grips of publishers, who have control of the content and hold copyright to it, into the hands of the researchers that that developed the materials and the public that many times funds it. (Creative Commons, 2020 5.1)

There is a distinct difference between open access and OER: OER are stamped with Creative Commons licenses that provide users greater freedom and afford instructors increased flexibility with re-use for teaching, truly allowing for a tailored learning experience for their students (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.2)

For faculty, open access gives ownership of the copyright and control of the work to the author instead of to publishers (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1). Faculty put all of the work into research articles only to sign their copyright away to publishers for the prestige of publishing in a high impact journal and the ease of distribution provided by the journal's ready-made publishing framework (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1). When researchers publish open access, they can truly change the world!

Other benefits of open access for faculty

Faculty research is available immediately, unlike in some journals where access to the public is only available through a personal subscription or a library; even if a member of the public can get access, that does not guarantee immediate access to journals that have embargoes on newly published articles. Faculty publishing open access can get their research out faster (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1).

Faculty publishing open access also have the added benefit of more citations because their work is accessible to all (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1)

Image Attribution: "Research Advice" by mrsdkrebs is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Students benefit from open access research in many ways:

• With open access research, students won't be turned away from research articles to which they would otherwise have access.
• Even students benefitting from an institutional subscription to a particular journal are not guaranteed that they won't hit paywalls for journals to which their institution does not subscribe or embargoes for which their institution subscribes but does not have access (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1).
• With open access, students everywhere benefit from immediate access.
• Open access research continues to be available to students even if they are no longer affiliated with a university or college (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1).
• Continued access for students also holds true for OER as well (Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1).

(Creative Commons, 2020, 5.1)

Image Attribution: "College student studying in Park" by CollegeDegrees360 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The Many Benefits of OER for Faculty

• Free from copyright restrictions
• Freedom to revise, re-use, remix, redistribution and retain
• Creates and enhances goodwill with students
• Helps student success rates by decreasing drop, fail and withdraw rates
• At institutions where work with OER is recognized, use of OER can garner faculty and instructors additional respect and advancement
• OER can also impact and enhance student engagement with course materials because it has been hand-curated by the instructor

(Creative Commons, 2020, 5.2)

• Free
• Accessible after the course ends
• Enables currency of the material
• Open Pedagogy: Students can actively edit and add to the content, enhancing it and layering with their own voice
• Students can enhance the material and tailor it for future students-providing a platform for the critical student perspective. As authors of OER students can teach future students and share their own unique experience.
• Share out with the world for further enhancement and improvement
• Students that use OER have the opportunity to learn from historically underrepresented and marginalized groups-something they do not often get with commercial learning materials.

(Creative Commons, 2020, 5.2)