Copyright:Support Guides/Open Courses & Educational Resources Copyright Guidelines/Applying An Open License To Your Teaching And Learning Materials

Applying an Open License to Your Teaching and Learning Materials

Applying a Creative Commons license to your teaching and learning materials can help facilitate the distribution and reuse of those materials. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization whose mandate is to make it easier for creators to share their work and/or build upon the works of others consistent with the rules of copyright. They have created standard, easy to use and understand copyright licenses that anybody can apply to their work to allow others to share, remix, or use the work without having to contact the copyright owner to ask for permission. Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative or exception to copyright, they are one way for copyright owners to distribute their work within the copyright framework.

To apply a Creative Commons license to work in which you are the sole copyright owner, you can use the “Choose a License” form on the Creative Commons website. This form helps you choose a license based on your preferences and then generates the appropriate text to apply to print works, as well as the HTML code to apply to online works.

For more information, please see UBC’s Guide to Creative Commons.