6.2 Opening up your institution
Institutional policies
With permission you could use the OER Policy Development Tool [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] to build an open policy for your institution. You can find examples of open policies others have created at the OER Policy Registry (global) and North American OER policies and projects. You can also explore the OER World Map to find information on national, regional and institutional OER policies.
A Creative Commons policy in New Zealand gives teachers advance permission to disseminate their resources online for sharing and reuse. The policy also ensures that both the school and the teacher – as well as teachers from around the country and around the world – can continue to use and adapt resources produced by New Zealand teachers in the course of their employment. Creative Commons NZ has developed an annotated policy template for schools to adapt.
Library websites, library subject guides, cataloguing and Creative Commons
Librarians who find themselves in the role of content creator may wonder how to license their work. More than 5000 institutions in the United States use LibGuides as their preferred subject guide content management system, with more than 120,000 licence holders around the world. Licensing your resources under Creative Commons can be as simple as using the Licence Chooser to create a machine-readable button for your site or LibGuide.
There are hundreds of LibGuides on library websites about Creative Commons alone. Take a look at these search results and flip through the resources found by subject librarians on the issues of Creative Commons and copyright.
Additional resources