Open Educational Resources

This 6-minute introduction to the ins and outs of open licensing was created by Open Oregon.  The other video tutorials mentioned in the presentation are available from Open Oregon's YouTube page.

 University of Minnesota Libraries “Decision Map” © 2011 CC-BY-NC 3.0

In general, Copyright Law prohibits reproducing and distributing copyrighted works.  A simple way to provide access to copyright-protected materials is to link to them, rather than reproduce the content.  This works well for materials available in the library databases, as well as works available for free (but not freely licensed) on legitimate websites.

When linking is not possible, the "Fair Use Doctrine" (Section 107) allows a limited amount of copying for purposes such as teaching and scholarship. In determining whether the use made of a work in a particular case is a Fair Use, the factors to be considered include:

• The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes;
• The nature of the copyrighted work;
• The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright work as a whole; and
• The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.