VCCS's "Pathways" Course provides faculty with an introduction to the laws that influence the use, re-use, and distribution of content they may want to use in a course. Activities include finding openly licensed content for use in a class and publishing openly licensed works created by faculty. At the end of the course, students will have openly licensed content that will be ready for use in a course.

Did you realize these course modules are an OER? Do you want to reuse the content, modify it for your students or colleagues? Guess what … you can, with attribution of course!

You’ll learn more about reusing open content and explicit open license permissions, such as attribution, in Module 7. However, understanding what makes it possible for you to reuse, modify, and reshare this work is the first step. These activities are legal because when it was created the author released it with an open license. When discussing open licensing it also is necessary to review definitions of important terms and legal requirements of laws and principles applied to a creator’s work and how it can be used or reused. In addition to introducing and defining open licenses, this module will review and define copyright, fair use, and public domain.

Brief video describing licensing and permissions associated with Open Educational Resources (OER), including various Creative Commons licenses. These licenses give content creators a standardized way to share their resources with other educators around the world.

A brief video where OER experts give their reasons for working in the field of Open Educational Resources. Primary reasons include empowering teachers, equalizing access to education, reducing teachers' worries about copyright, reducing educational costs, and facilitating the open flow of information.