Building on the work of others is awesome. And recognizing those you're building on is a great practice for encouraging sharing of more resources. All Creative Commons licenses have an "attribution" requirement, which says that if you want to use a licensed work you must provide credit to the original creator. Even if you are using something from the public domain, which does not require you to provide attribution, telling people where you found a resource and who created it is just good practice. [WHY?]

 

 

"Citation" and "Attribution" are often used as synonyms, but they mean two different things. Citation is a scholarly practice for tracking the ideological underpinnings of a work, usually referencing sources like published books, articles, government documents, primary sources, etc. Citation is a norm, not a legal requirement. Attribution is about crediting a copyright holder according to the terms of a copyright license, usually crediting artistic works like music, fiction, video, and photography. Attribution is a legal condition of using a licensed work. 

 

1) Read http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#How_do_I_properly_attribute_a_work_offered_under_a_Creative_Commons_license.3F and the CC wiki http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Marking/Users for best practices on providing attribution. If you edited or changed a resource, you need to make note of that in your attribution.

 

2) What challenges did you run into while providing attributions? Do you think the CC wiki best practices for attribution can be improved? Suggest changes at the wiki's Talk page: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php?title=Talk:Marking/Users&action=edit&redlink=1