TOPIC 2: Intellectual Property

2.3.1 Intellectual Property and Open Educational Resources

There are two important issues when discussing Intellectual Property (IP) and the Open Educational Resources (OER). One is about the restrictiveness whereas the other is about openness. This calls for a discussion on the need of IP and OER. The question then might be at what point we have the IP and how this works in the OER environment (McGill, n.d). While learning about OER, it is important to start by differentiating OER and non OER platforms. Below are examples of OER platforms as accessed from http://roer.cemca.org.in/open-educational-resources/oer-platforms on 09.09.2016:

  • CK-12: Read online, print a copy, or use it on any device. Our content can be used with the Kindle, iPad, NOOK, and more.
  • Connexions: Educational content repository and a content management system developed and maintained by Rice University.
  • Curriki: A nonprofit K-12 global community to create, share and find free learning resources that enable truly personalized learning.
  • Khan Academy: An online collection of thousands of video tutorials on various subjects.
  • MERLOT: A free and open online community of resources for higher education, online learning materials.
  • NPTEL - E-learning through online Web and Video courses in Engineering, Science and humanities streams funded by MHRD, Government of India.
  • NROER: The platform created by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), India for school level OER.
  • OER Commons: Project created by ISKME.
  • Open Courseware Consortium: A high quality educational materials of hundreds of higher education institutions.
  • OpenLearn: Open University programme where one can browse the topic to discover articles, videos, games, join the debates & enroll in free courses. 
  • Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU): Helps in course design, content sleuthing, course marketing, and, in some cases, help with technical development.
  • Saylor.org: Over 270 free, self-paced, online undergraduate college level courses and course materials.
  • WikiEducator: Focuses on building capacity in the use of Mediawiki and related free software technologies for mass-collaboration in the authoring of free content. 

Visit at least three of these sites and then try to visit any three commercial sites of your choice. What difference have you noticed. OER are free educational materials that are free to use and reuse without being charged (Butcher, 2015). These materials can be used for learning, teaching and researching and have been released under an intellectual property license that permit the free use and re-reuse by others. OER may include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, videos, tests, experiments, software and other tools, materials or techniques to support access to knowledge. As far as these materials are obtained freely, a number of legal aspects should be considered. Normally the persons who release these materials are the ones who own them. Since the materials also includes substantial extracts from other sources like quotations from books and journals, images, interviews with academic and experts and so on, these extracts are made available under license. 

The inclusion of other third material on OER content, data protection, liability for inaccuracy or illegal content, and accessibility of information are the most important aspects to be considered when releasing materials on public. Creative Commons (CC) is among the organizations which provides license, which permit free publication. See more information from www.creativecommons.org

Any materials seem to infringe the right of others are promptly removed from the platform.  Most of the materials are available for use under the Creative Common (CC) license known as ‘Attribution-Non Commercial-Share-Alike’. That means a user is allowed to use the material if the use is non-commercial, citation and retention of the name of the original author is practiced, and make of original or derivative of works is made available under the same term of the original license. Users are granted permission to use materials as they are or in a modified form. Materials can be translated, modified, printed, reformatted, networked, or changed in any way, provided that the terms of the license are met.

Most of OERs do not allow the direct contribution of materials from outside as this will lead to difficulty for host institutions to guarantee the accuracy and originality of materials received from outside sources. You will learn more about OERs and Creative Commons licensing from module four of this course.