Our educational resources are freely available under open licenses that allow reuse, adaptation, and distribution.
Resources are typically released under these open licenses:
Most books, courses, and lesson plans use CC-BY (Attribution) or CC-BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike).
CC-BY 4.0 ·
CC-BY-SA 4.0
Technical documentation and software guides use the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).
GFDL v1.3
Open source software resources and tools are typically released under the permissive MIT License.
MIT License
Historical resources and older educational materials are in the public domain.
Public Domain
When you contribute to Open Education Commons, your resources can be released under these open licenses. This allows your work to be freely used, adapted, and shared by educators worldwide.
🤝 Become a Contributor| License | Commercial Use | Modifications | Distribution | Derivative Works |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CC-BY 4.0 | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| CC-BY-SA 4.0 | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ Same license |
| MIT | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Public Domain | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Yes, the CC-BY license permits commercial use. However, you must properly attribute the original authors.
CC-BY-SA requires derivative works to be distributed under the identical license - you must apply the ShareAlike clause for modified content.
Yes! Most open education licenses allow translations and adaptations as long as you follow the attribution requirements.
You can, but the combination must comply with the most restrictive license. Check the specific requirements for each content type.