^{Last Revised by ESS on 10/2/2018.}

Overview:

The purpose of this article is to share some best practices for how to properly attribute CC and Public Domain materials in your courses.

“Nearly everything online is copyrighted” (Hobbs, 2010, p. 2)

As university instructors, it is important to present content to students using various forms of multimedia such as websites, images, audio and video recordings, journal articles, etc. Many materials available on the Internet are free resources that are in the Creative Commons (CC) and/or Public Domain. However, using these free materials requires that we give credit the creators of those works. As a result, it is important that we model good digital citizenship to our students when we find and use learning materials on the Internet.

How do I find Materials in the Creative Commons (CC) and Public Domain?

The table below provides a guide for finding free materials in the CC and Public Domain:

Attribution Examples

Creative Commons Example:

Image: “School of Fine Arts, Music Buildings” by BartokFan is licensed under CC By 2.0

For any work in the creative commons domain, please include the following elements when giving credit to the creator of the work:

1. Title of the work (provide the web link to where you found the image)
2. The Author of the work (provide the web link to the author’s site)
3. CC license (provide web link to the CC license)

Here is an example for finding these 3 elements:

_{“School of Fine Arts, Music Buildings” by BartokFan is licensed under CC By 2.0}

Public Domain Example:

For any work in the public domain, please include the following elements when giving credit to the creator of the work:

1. Title of the work (provide the web link to where you found the image)
2. The Author of the work (provide the web link to the author’s site)
3. State: “Licensed under Public Domain” (provide web link to public domain license)

If you use an image in your HuskyCT course site, see an example below for citing an image in the public domain.

Conclusion

Overall, attributing original works that you provided in your learning materials is a lot of work but it is worth it in the end. The creators of those works will appreciate your due diligence and you will be a great model for your students on how to be good digital citizens.

References

Best practices for attribution (n.d.) retrieved from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Best_practices_for_attribution

Hobbs, R. (2010). Copyright clarity: How fair use supports digital learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

UConn Library’s LibGuides Standards and Best Practices – Creative Commons (CC):  https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/standards_best_practices/creativecommons/

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