Creative Commons (CC) licences provide a simple standardised way for individual creators, companies and institutions to share their work with others on flexible terms without infringing copyright. The licences allow users to reuse, remix and share the content legally.

Offering your work under a Creative Commons licence does not mean giving up your copyright. It means permitting users to make use of your material in various ways, but only on certain conditions.

The Creative Commons License Chooser helps you choose the best licence for your content.

Creative Commons offers the following types of licences:

 Attribution (CC BY): Allows copying; adaptation; modification; and sharing, as long as the original creators are credited.

 Attribution-Share Alike (CC BY-SA): All rights as the Attribution (BY) license. New creations must be licensed under same terms as the original work. 

 Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC BY-ND): Others can reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially with attribution, but the adaptation cannot be shared with others.​

 Attribution-Non-commercial (CC BY-NC):  Allows copying; adaptation; modification; and sharing, but for non-commercial purposes only.

 Attribution-Non-commercial-Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA): All rights as the Attribution-Share Alike (CC BY-SA) license, but for non-commercial purposes only.

 Attribution-Non-commercial-No Derivatives CC BY-NC-ND): Others can download and share works, with attribution, but they cannot change them or use them commercially.

You can find more information on the Creative Commons website and Creative Commons Australia website.

When you are attributing resources you should include:

• name of the creator
• title of the work
• source (e.g. the URL)
• type of licence that the work is available under, and a link to the licence.

Not all OERs use the same licencing restrictions, so it is important to check the permissions of the OER before using them to ensure compliance.