Open School BC

Intellectual Property

Who owns the intellectual property?

The intellectual property policies created for OSBC Open Educational Resources are clear and consistent with other policies for materials used in educational publishing. OSBC retains ownership of most materials prepared for OSBC Open Educational Resources (unless otherwise indicated). Prior to making any course materials publicly available, OSBC has reviewed all material extensively to determine the correct ownership of the material, and has obtained the appropriate licenses to make the material openly available on the Web. We will promptly remove any material that is determined to be infringing on the rights of others. If you believe that a portion of OSBC’s Open Educational Resources infringes another's copyright, please notify OSBC Customer Support.

What are the requirements of use for OSBC’s Open Educational Resources?

The underlying premise and purpose of OSBC’s Open Educational Resources is to make course resources used in OSBC courses freely and openly available to others for non-commercial educational purposes. OSBC grants the right to anyone to use the materials, either "as is," or in a modified form. There is no restriction on how a user can modify the materials for the user's purpose. Materials may be edited, translated, combined with someone else's materials, reformatted, or changed in any other way. However, there are three requirements that an OSBC Open Educational Resource user must meet to use the materials:

1. Non-commercial: Use of OSBC Open Educational Resource materials is open to all except for profit-making entities who charge a fee for access to educational materials.

2. Attribution: Any and all use or reuse of the material, including use of derivative works (new materials that incorporate or draw on the original materials), must be attributed to OSBC.

3. Share alike (aka "copyleft"): Any publication or distribution of original or derivative works, including production of electronic or printed materials or placement of materials on a website, must offer the works freely and openly to others under the same terms that OSBC first made the works available to the user.

Please refer to the OSBC Open Educational Resources Privacy and Terms of Use page [insert link] for our specific licensing terms and conditions, including use of the OSBC name. If you would like to use OSBC Open Educational Resources, but you are unsure whether your intended use qualifies as non-commercial use, please consult OSBC Customer Support.

How does OSBC define non-commercial use?

Non-commercial use means that users may not sell, profit from, or commercialize OSBC’s Open Educational Resources or works derived from them. The guidelines below are intended to help users determine whether or not their use of OSBC’s Open Educational Resources would be permitted under the "non-commercial" restriction. Note that there are additional requirements (attribution and share alike) spelled out in our license.

1. Commercialization is prohibited. Users may not directly sell or profit from OSBC’s Open Educational Resources or from works derived from OSBC’s Open Educational Resources.
   Example: A commercial education or tutoring business may not offer courses based on OSBC’s Open Educational Resources if students pay a fee for those courses and the business intends to profit as a result.
   
   
2. Determination of commercial vs. non-commercial purpose is based on the use, not the user. Individuals, institutions, governments, corporations, or other businesses may use materials whether for-profit or non-profit, so long as the use itself is not a commercialization of the materials or a use that is directly intended to generate sales or profit.
   Example: A corporation may use OSBC Open Educational Resources for internal professional development and training purposes.
   
   
3. Incidental charges to recover reasonable reproduction costs may be permitted. Recovery of nominal actual costs for copying small amounts (fewer than 100 copies) of OSBC Open Educational Resource content on paper or CDs is allowed for educational purposes, so long as there is no profit motive and so long as the intended use of the copies is in compliance with all license terms. Students must be informed that the materials are freely available on the OSBC Moodle site, and that their purchase of copied materials is optional.
   Example: An institution in a remote area has limited Internet access and limited network infrastructure, so a teacher offers to create CDs of OSBC’s Open Educational Resources relevant to her course. The instructor may recover the costs of creating the CDs.

How do I properly cite my reuse of OSBC’s Open Educational Resources?

If you choose to reuse or repost OSBC’s Open Educational Resources, you must give proper attribution to OSBC. Please utilize the following citation:

“Excerpt/Page Title.” [Resource Title]. (Open Educational Resource: OSBC, Ministry of Education, Province of British Columbia), [URL] (Accessed [Date]). License: Creative commons BY-NC-SA

Example: “Invention of Photography.” Visual Media Arts 11.
(Open Educational Resource: OSBC, Ministry of Education, Province of British Columbia), http://moodle2.openschool.bc.ca/mod/resource/view.php?id=128249 (Accessed August 8, 2012). License: Creative commons BY-NC-SA

If you want to use the materials on your Website, you must also include a copy of the

OSBC Open Educational Creative Commons license, or a clear and reasonable link to its URL with every copy of the OSBC Open Educational Resources or the derivative work you create from it.

Open Course Resources by Open School BC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License