DGB 2: Licence Models – Creative Commons, OER and Open Source

← Digital Literacy – Year 2

Digital content can be copied and shared very easily. Whether this is permitted, however, is determined not by technical possibility but by the relevant licence and copyright rules. Creative Commons, Open Educational Resources and Open Source show how rights holders can explicitly permit certain forms of use.

Curriculum reference

Area	Classification
Competence area	Production
Perspectives	Societal and interaction perspectives (G, I)
Focus	Licence models, Creative Commons, Open Educational Resources and Open Source
Competence	Distinguish open and closed licence models in basic terms, read usage conditions and use third-party content in school projects with traceable source and licence information.

Learning objectives

Students can:

distinguish copyright from a licence in basic terms;
explain that publicly available does not automatically mean freely reusable;
understand Creative Commons licences as standardised permissions for use;
explain the basic meaning of the CC elements BY, SA, NC and ND;
understand CC0 as a very broad release where legally possible;
describe Open Educational Resources as openly licensed educational resources;
relate Open Source to software and source code;
distinguish free/open-source software from software that is merely free of charge;
record source, creator/author, title and licence for reused material;
check whether modification or redistribution is compatible with a licence;
choose a suitable licence for their own work and justify the choice;
use their own or clearly licensed material if the licence is unclear.

Learning content

Copyright and licence

Copyright protects creative works. A licence describes which uses the rights holder permits. A freely accessible website or an image found through a search engine is therefore not automatically free for every project. A useful classroom rule is: check origin, read the licence, give the source, and if in doubt choose material with clear permission.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons licences combine standard elements. BY requires attribution, SA requires adaptations to be shared under the same licence, NC limits use to non-commercial contexts, and ND does not permit distribution of adapted versions. The exact combination matters.

CC0 and open content

CC0 is designed to allow very broad reuse where legally possible. Open content provides clearly stated permissions that make reuse easier. Even when attribution is not required, recording the source can still be useful for transparency.

Open Educational Resources

OER are teaching and learning materials made available under open licences that permit forms of reuse. Their openness makes adapting and sharing educational material easier, but the specific licence conditions still need to be followed.

Open Source and free software

Open Source concerns software whose source code is available under a licence that permits defined forms of use, study, modification and distribution. ‘Free of charge’ describes price, not necessarily rights. Proprietary software can be free to download while still restricting modification or redistribution.

Giving sources and licences

For reused material, record at least title or description, creator or project, source and licence. If the material was modified, note the change where appropriate. This information can be placed in a source list, project description or credits section.

Licensing your own work

Creators can also decide how others may use their work. Choosing a licence means thinking about attribution, commercial use, adaptations and sharing conditions. A licence should match the intended purpose of the work.

Classroom activities

Classify licence models

Sort examples into proprietary/closed, Creative Commons, CC0, OER and Open Source.

Expected outcome: A clear classification.

Evaluate usage situations

Decide whether simplified use cases are clearly permitted, permitted under conditions or unclear and need checking.

Expected outcome: Licence-based reasoning.

Decode Creative Commons licences

Explain the meaning of BY, SA, NC and ND in example licence combinations.

Expected outcome: Correct interpretation of CC symbols.

Search for open material

Find suitable openly licensed material for a school task and record its licence.

Expected outcome: A documented selection.

Give sources and licences correctly

Create complete source entries for images, text or media used in a project.

Expected outcome: Traceable attribution.

Compare open and closed models

Compare reuse, modification, redistribution, cost and source availability.

Expected outcome: A reasoned comparison.

Choose a licence for your own media product

Select a licence for a self-created work and justify what others may do with it.

Expected outcome: A conscious licensing decision.

Correct problematic uses

Repair examples with missing attribution, incompatible licence conditions or unclear material.

Expected outcome: A corrected source/licence record.

Place OER and Open Source in school life

Identify where open resources or open-source software could support learning and collaboration.

Expected outcome: Practical examples.

Create a licence checklist

Write a short checklist to use before copying, adapting or publishing third-party material.

Expected outcome: A reusable checking routine.

Self-check

I can distinguish copyright from a licence.
I know that online availability does not automatically permit reuse.
I can explain BY, SA, NC and ND in basic terms.
I can describe OER and Open Source.
I can record source and licence information.
I can make a cautious decision when permissions are unclear.