Ready to Learn More?
The previous chapters were intended to serve as a micro-text introducing the very basics of Creative Commons licenses. You may find you have more questions about copyright, intellectual property, public domain, and CC0 — especially if you followed along in the Hypothes.is annotation layer! Fortunately, there are many ways to deepen your understanding of Creative Commons Licenses, the story of how they came to be, and continued stories of how they are used.
Perhaps the most robust opportunity is available through the Creative Commons Organization, itself. Creative Commons has a certificate program through which participants can join a cohort of educators and librarians to work through in-depth facilitated exploration of the Creative Commons Licenses. Learn more about the Creative Commons Certificate at this website.
Creative Commons has released their certificate materials for those who want to work through them independently. Many of the links in the previous chapters have taken readers to the online coursebook at this site. The American Library Association in partnership with Creative Commons has published a print copy available for purchase at the ALA bookstore here or for free PDF download here.
Creative Commons Certificate Facilitator Jonathan Poritz has remixed the certificate materials as an audio book. The files are available for download at this site. Additional resources and remixes of the certificate materials are noted by Creative Commons on their website.
Many institutions with outstanding OER programs have published resources about Creative Commons licenses, as well. Billy Meinke with the University of Hawaii has included several chapters (which include discussion of public domain) in the UH OER Training textbook. BC Campus includes discussion of Creative Commons licenses in their Faculty OER Toolkit, and the Rebus Community has included a succinct explanation in Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know.
I hope you found this very basic introduction to Creative Commons Licenses useful, and that you were able to share some of the resources you found on the collaborative doc linked throughout the section. In many ways, Creative Commons licenses help us work together to celebrate our world. Thank you for joining in! ~Kathy