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FAQs
- What is an Open Educational Resource?
- Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are free and openly licensed for teachers and students.
- While there are a variety of OER resources and formats, we are specifically exploring OER textbooks that other colleges have created, and materials from the LIB Guides that we can adopt for our courses.
- I am using an Open Educational Resource Textbook. Do I still need to cite the textbook, and if so, how do I do this?
- Even if you are using an Open Educational Resource textbook, you still need to cite your source and provide attribution for the source. For instance, consider the following scenario: I plan to use the OER textbook A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in Frist Year Writing by Melanie Gagich and Emilie Zickel. Here is a sample attribution to include in the course syllabus and D2L course shell: Attribution: In Practice: A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing by Melanie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution: CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 except where otherwise noted. https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/csu-fyw-rhetoric/
- Where do I go to know how to cite/give attribution for OER materials?
- How old does a reading need to be until it is considered public domain?
- When a work is noted as being in the Public Domain, it is not covered by copyright, or any other intellectual property rights. Works generally enter the Public Domain three different ways:
- Works created by the United States government are automatically in the Public Domain. As taxpayers, we have already paid for the creation of works by the US government, and therefore own the rights to any work created by its employees. PLEASE NOTE: works by state and local governments are likely protected by copyright.
- Works whose copyright has expired. Copyright terms vary depending on the type of work and the publication status. Generally, any item published before January 1, 1923 is in the Public Domain. For more specific terms, please see Peter Hirtle's "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States."
- Works released into the Public Domain by the author. Some authors choose to relinquish their intellectual property rights and publish their works in the Public Domain
- What is the creative commons and is it okay to use the different creative commons licensed materials?
- Creative Commons is an American non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses, free of charge to the public. There are six main licenses and some allow the user to repackage the material commercially while others allow them only to be downloaded.
- How do I know if FRCC has a specific reading in the library database?
- To see if the library owns a specific digital item, search EBSCO Discovery Service database. This database searches all the digital items that the library owns. If you are off campus, you’ll have to log in using your S#.
- If FRCC has a reading in a database, how do I cite it on D2L and make it available for students?
- The database has a Cite feature built in. It will give you the citation in MLA, APA, and Chicago along with a link back to the item in the database that your students can use.
- Can I email articles I found online to students?
- Persistent Links allow users to retrieve database articles by clicking on a link embedded in a web site. This feature permits professors, teachers and librarians to include links to articles within the database on web pages and D2L.
- Can I scan articles or readings I found online and post them in my D2L?
- Materials provided via the open web should be linked to that website.
- Do not copy and paste online readings into word documents or save .pdfs that are then uploaded into the classroom.
- Linking to the material on the open web is almost always acceptable. Link to the material whenever possible.
- What is considered Fair Use?
- Fair use is a doctrine in the law of the United States that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. The distinction between Fair Use and infringement is never actually defined in the Fair Use sections (107-118) of copyright law. If you are EVER in doubt about whether or not Fair Use applies to a specific situation, it is best to obtain permission to use the materials. The information below is not intended to be legal advice:
