One of the questions which keeps coming up throughout our project is; “how do we get our document to contain the Creative Commons (CC) license?”  Although trivial for some, it can be a challenge depending on what type of media the person is working with and levels of experience.  We have seen diverse material ranging from documents to sets of webpages to podcasts.

Often we are presented with a PDF version of a file which is intended for a CC license.  We then need to request that the author find the original files which they used to create the PDF, ie. Word Document, Adobe InDesign.  We need the source document to be able to insert the CC logo into the document so it can be shared.

We have set up a companion website which serves as an Introduction to OER for the UCT community.  The site is basically used to host relevant documents which we can direct interested parties towards to.  The resources section of the site is set up as follows.

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Within the licensing folder we have also conveniently included the CC licenses which can be saved and inserted into a document when it is ready for licensing.

As an important aside, it is imperative that we take the time to consider the content and sources used in our document before we simply assign it an open license such as CC.  Despite how exciting it is to be able to share our work openly, one must remember to consider other work which was used within your work.  The OER team is happy to advise on this tricky topic, so please contact us if you have any concerns. 

Since most of our submissions have come in the form of documents, lets walk through the process of getting the CC logo in there!  First you have to choose which license suits you best.

The CC license selector was designed to walk the user through the process of choosing a license and adding the logo and legal blurb to go with your work.  We found that some of users had trouble using this, as it is first and foremost designed for digital content and therefore requires some understanding of HTML and webpage setup.New Picture (1)

After choosing the conditions and jurisdiction of your license (South Africa is listed last in the drop down list for some odd reason) you will be presented with the logo and legal blurb.

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For those of us licensing documents, you need to go one step further to get the accompanying text which needs to be inserted into the document.  See the link highlighted in red below.

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Clicking the link will get you the text you need to add to your document with the accompanying logo.

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I have added the logo and text in my spreadsheet.  Notice that I have added it twice because the flyer is posted in two languages.  Just in case only one part of this document is used it will contain the logo so others know what they can do with it.  If I was licensing a word document, I would go about it much the same way.  We usually put the CC logo on the second page of the document along with the other credits.

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You may need to resize the CC logo image.  To do this simply click on the corner of the image and drag it inwards.

Hope this helps in getting us closer to licensing and sharing our documents.  Happy to take any comments or take this tutorial further if necessary.

 

 

Getting the Creative Commons Logo on our OER
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