ScholarWorks@UMass Boston

Your Work. Your Rights. Your Decision.

An important thing to understand about publishing your work openly (open access or through an open educational resource) is that you as the author retain the copyright to your work. Authors working with paid publishers are often required to sign away their rights to the publisher. Publishing openly provides authors more opportunities to indicate how they want their work shared with the world, while retaining their rights through attribution requirements. Authors can indicate that they don't want their works used for commercial purposes. They can also indicate if they don't want their work adapted or altered in any way. Creative Commons Licenses help authors understand which license to apply to fit exactly what the author wants. Visit our Creative Commons Licenses page to learn more about these licenses.

Watch this short, 2 minute video for a tutorial on using Creative Commons' License Chooser Tool. This tool is an easy, 7-step process where you can choose your attribution, commercial vs. noncommercial, derivative and adaptation preferences and Creative Commons will help you identify the most appropriate license for your use case.

Copyright Checklist for Authors: Publishing Openly

Use this checklist to ensure that you have considered everything about sharing your work with the world, including attribution preferences, how you want your work to be used, and if you want your work to be able to be modified or adapted by other creators. Find the downloadable form below.

Planning Your Open Publication

• Have I determined my primary goals for publishing openly?
  • I want to disseminate my work as openly and as widely as possible
  • I want my work only used in educational settings
  • I want to share my work for purposes of research, science, or collaboration
  • I want my work to be publicly engaged
  • I want my work shared non-commercially
     
• Do I own/control the copyright for all content I plan to share?
  • If no, stop here. You must be the primary rights holder in order to determine next steps for disseminating the work.
  • Do I have permission to publish any third-party content included in my work?
    This includes any images, audio clips, videos, media content or other that are embedded (not just linked) within  your work.
• Do I want to retain copyright for the work while allowing others to interact with it (CC licenses) OR
• Do I feel comfortable releasing ALL rights to my work by placing the work in public domain, free for anyone to use, remix, adapt, without providing credit back to me (CC0)?

Choosing the Right Creative Commons License for Your Work

• Do I want to require attribution when others use my work?

If YES: All CC licenses except CC0 require attribution
If NO: Consider CC0 (public domain dedication)

• Do I want to allow commercial use of my work?

If NO: Consider CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, or CC BY-NC-ND
If YES: Consider CC BY, CC BY-SA, or CC0

• Do I want to allow derivative works (adaptations, modifications)?

If NO: Consider CC BY-ND or CC BY-NC-ND
If YES: Consider other CC license options

• Do I want derivatives to be shared under the same license (ShareAlike)?

If YES: Consider CC BY-SA or CC BY-NC-SA
If NO: Consider CC BY, CC BY-NC, or CC BY-ND

Attribution and Third-Party Content

• Have I properly attributed all third-party content used in my work?
            This includes images, videos, audio clips, embedded content, etc.
• For each third-party element, have I cited:
  • Title of the original work
  • Author/creator name
  • Source URL
  • License type listed for the item you’re sharing
• Have I clearly distinguished which parts or elements of my work are under different licenses
• Have I maintained a detailed record of all third-party content sources?
• Have I removed or replaced content that cannot be legally included in an open publication?

For example, if something is directly copyrighted, you are not allowed to use the material without direct permission from the copyright holder. This is especially important if the resource you are creating is intended to be an open resource.

Applying a License to Your Work

• Have I clearly indicated the license I want to share my work under on the title page or footer of my work?
• Have I included the full license text or link to the license in my materials?
• Have I added appropriate license icons/buttons to make the license easily visible?
• Have I registered my work with the appropriate OER repositories for discovery?
             This is not always required, but useful for dissemination purposes

Technical Considerations

• Is my content in an accessible format that supports reuse?

• Have I provided editable source files where appropriate?

• Have I included alt text for images?

• Have I created a version control system or update plan for my open content?

 Copyright Checklist for Authors: Publishing Openly by Lydia Burrage-Goodwin
and University of Massachusetts Boston’s Healey Library.
Licensed with a CC-BY License, requiring attribution to the original creator.
Permission is not required for resharing or remixing this work.

Levels of "Openness"

Creative Commons Licenses provide a range of "openness" for users to interact with your content. Authors can choose how open they want their work to be, applying a license from the most open, like a public domain indication (if you do not want attribution requirements), or a CC-BY license (to retain attribution yourself), to the least open, like an all-rights reserved.

Creative Commons License Spectrum, by Shaddim. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.