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Learn how to find and recognize open content on the web.

This challenge will help you learn how to find and recognize open content, such as public domain and Creative Commons licensed video, images, and websites, in the wild. You'll get acquainted with good collections of open content and ways to find them.

Start Challenge View Tasks

Go find your resources

Round up some web content that'll help you get your point across

Exercise

Go find your resources. Gather as many or as few as you need to fully address your question. Make a note of where you find them, and how they can be shared and used (based on the license or copyright status).

You have three choices for how to conduct your search. You can look in collections and repositories of open content, such as Flickr or OER Commons, you can search the open web, or you can ask your friends.

Some good places to find open content are...

If you want to try exploring a wider range of resources, watch this screencast on how to use Google to search for open content across the whole web: http://youtu.be/wJI9RShrxr4.

The CC search portal aggregates access to CC-enabled search platforms and engines listed above at http://search.creativecommons.org.

You can also ask your friends, colleagues, and the rest of the world! Tap into existing communities that share information or resources about the topic you are interested in and ask them. Some communications tools communities use include mailing lists (Google groups, ibiblio), social media (Twitter, Facebook), and discussion forums on the web. Pose your question with the appropriate tags, and don't hesitate to ask the same questions on your personal, social network.

Discussion

Share links to the results of your search in the discussion. How could you tell something was open? Was there a symbol? Text? What did the text say? Could you tell what the origins of the work were?

Hint

This page will help you spot licensed work out in the world: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Recognizing_licensed_work.

Task Discussion

Sharon Kaziunas said:

Hi everyone,

I was finding resources to teach somone about User Experience Design (UXD). It is what I am studying and I often get asked to explain what it is. Below are the links I discoverd:

Wikipedia article on UXD:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience_design

Interaction Design Diagram explaining UXD (Wikipedia):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Interaction-Design-Disciplines.png

MIT User Interface Design and Implementation Course (OER)

https://www.oercommons.org/courses/6-831-user-interface-design-and-implementation-fall-2004

I was going to use an article from Smashing Magazine about UXD, but I could not see a CC liscense on it so I assumed it was not open content.

on April 20, 2015, 1:13 p.m.
Laura said:
Hi everyone!

I have selected the topic about "GreenHouse" or "Invernadero" in my native language. I have selected it because in my school some teachers, students and me want to design and make one, so this is one good way to share with them.

Some of the resources I have been found I found in OER Resources, and I didn't want to look at any place more, because there are many resources that I can use, so here some of them:

http://www.oercommons.org/courses/make-a-terrarium/view

http://www.oercommons.org/courses/energy-choices-and-climate-change/view

http://www.oercommons.org/courses/energy-efficient-housing/view (this page is very completed, and I have found so much resources)

I am very excited with the results, there is a lot of material to know!

I reviewed the terms of use and the second and third re open, but the first I have not found the license, but suposed yes because the main page.
on March 24, 2014, 2:57 p.m.
Lena said:

Here are some of the open resources I found on the economy of Washington, D.C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Economy_of_Washington,_D.C.

- explicitly says there is a CC- attribution-share alike licence

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seiu/3368624414/

- explicitly lists licenses at bottom of page

http://www.cepr.net/

- CC Some rights reserved label

on Oct. 24, 2013, 3:48 p.m.
Sabrina said:

Some resources I found with open content about Australia are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia

http://australia.gov.au/copyright

http://www.immi.gov.au/functional/copyright.htm

I could tell that these had open content because of the CC symbol under the website's copyright disclaimer.

on Oct. 22, 2013, 10:04 a.m.
Nicole Southgate said:

Compfight : on the left, choose "Creative commons" . Compfight uses a Flickr api in order to sift through all the images and only returns CC-licenced images

Gray's Anatomy: very cool!

www.fotopedia.com

www.openclipart.org

http://www.tineye.com /

www.gutenberg.org

http://sangrea.net/free-cartoons/medical-cartoons.html

on Sept. 4, 2013, 4:16 a.m.

Jane Park said:

Thanks Nicole! I had not seen TinEye before..

on Sept. 4, 2013, 1:06 p.m. in reply to Nicole Southgate

Nicole Southgate said:

Glad to have contributed to your knowledge base, Jane. :-) It's great to find like-minded people.

on Sept. 6, 2013, 2:07 a.m. in reply to Jane Park
Sérgio Leal said:
For research about my challenge (Make my own PLE (Personal Learning Environment)) I used:

http://search.creativecommons.org/

http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/and http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

https://sites.google.com/a/raroa.school.nz/book-trailers/book-trailers/copyright-creative-commons(http://www.mobygratis.com/home- http://archive.org/- http://freemusicarchive.org/- http://www.openculture.com/)

http://open4us.org/find-oer/

http://vimeo.com/creativecommons

http://www.youtube.com/ with Creative Commons filter

http://www.goorulearning.org/#discover

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.casadasciencias.org/

http://www.kplaces.com/

http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/academic

I can tell that the resource was open because or they have a CC symbol or has a descriptive with the license that the resource has.

When I have more time I will also use:

http://ulisses.sibul.ul.pt/sdul/html/comoencontrarartigos.htm and http://ulisses.sibul.ul.pt/ulisses/portal/html/documentacaoacademica.htm

http://noticias.universia.com.br/destaque/noticia/2012/07/10/949121/10-ferramentas-especiais-pesquisar-livros-e-artigos.html

http://www.bu.ufsc.br/consultasAcessos/SABERBasesAcessoGratuito.html

http://www.webofknowledge.com/

http://www.b-on.pt/ and http://www.b-on.pt/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=405%3Amotores-de-pesquisa&catid=75%3Afontes-de-informacao&Itemid=8&lang=pt

http://www.redalyc.org/

http://scholar.google.pt/

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/

http://www.mendeley.com/

http://www.refseek.com/

http://www.bib.uevora.pt/motores-de-busca/

http://uda.uma.pt/index.php?option=com_weblinks&view=category&id=39&Itemid=91&lang=pt
on Aug. 25, 2013, 4:17 p.m.
Malena F. Alzu said:

What do you use as a platform? Moodle? Pb-works? There is a space In beta named kune. Malena F. Alzu artimagos.com El 25/08/2013, a las 22:17, sergioleal <

on Aug. 25, 2013, 4:25 p.m. in reply to Sérgio Leal

Sérgio Leal said:

Hello Malena,

Thanks for the question. Right now I am testing several platforms.

Thanks for the tips about Kune and PB-works. I didn't know about them but I am already registered to test both platforms.

Do you have a favourite free LMS? I only work with free software.

on Aug. 25, 2013, 5:08 p.m. in reply to Malena F. Alzu
Clare Forrest said:
For making book trailers we need mostly images and video so we try to use these sites.

For images:

http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/ (making sure we scroll down the page and tick one of the Creative Commons boxes)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search (also making sure we scroll down the page and tuck the free to use option)

For music and video

http://www.mobygratis.com/home

http://archive.org/

http://freemusicarchive.org/

http://www.openculture.com/

By using "Free to Use' sites students are much more likely to be finding stuff they can legally use. Students need to choose their pictures etc and check they are allowed to reuse them and under which cc licence so they can use them correctly.
on Aug. 25, 2013, 1:47 a.m.
Maria Teresa said:

I gathered the resources selected by me in this Pearltrees http://maestramariateresa.blogspot.it/2013/08/oer-open-educational-resources-vs.html

Many resources are indicated by the presence of a Creative Commons license,

in other modes of use are specified in the Information page, terms of use and Privacy.

on Aug. 23, 2013, 6:30 a.m.
Maria Teresa said:

About Open resources often for the work I do in the classroom with the students I need to find and download music to use as a sound basis. Download music from youtube is not legal, many times youtube blocks the video due to copyright issues. I would like to ask if anyone knows of sites where you can find music open to pupils of primary school divided by topics, such as peace, friendship, celebrations, nature, etc..

on Aug. 20, 2013, 6:28 a.m.

Jane Park said:

Hi Maria Teresa,

Have you tried the ccMixter and SoundCloud search filters at http://search.creativecommons.org/ ?

Also this page lists many more music communities where creators share their CC licensed music: https://creativecommons.org/music-communities

on Aug. 28, 2013, 5:40 p.m. in reply to Maria Teresa
Chilebean said:

I checked out Vimeo and was pretty impressed with the selection of videos available under creative commons licenses. I got a Login but it turns out you don't need one to download a video which is great too. The creative commons license it right underneath each video so it is easy to find out what type of license it is. Leave your mouse cursor over the creative commons image and you will find out which license it is if you forget what the pictures mean.

on April 1, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
Aimee said:

I have been looking for content on Creative Commons. I hope to use it to teach my class as well as the staff at my school. Here is a link to my blog where I posted the resources I found:

http://agale.global2.vic.edu.au/2013/03/31/teach-someone-something-with-open-content/

I made sure that I looked for the Creative Commons licensing. Each site I found had a license and I highlighted that license using Diigo annotator so that I could refer back to it.

on March 31, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
Cathryn said:

I conducted searches on Google, OER Commons, and Gooru. Some resources clearly state they are OER or CC. On other resources, I check the terms and conditions or determine if my use is "fair use."

Resources:

OER Commons

Gooru for lessons, resources, and more

Tween Teacher - work is licensed under CC

on March 18, 2013, 5:02 p.m.

Brian said:

I will be away from Monday the 18th of March until the 27th of March 2013. I will be checking my email infrequently. If you have any urgent video requests please contact Steve Di Luzio on x3378. If you have any urgent audio requests please contact Michael Partridge on x3039.

on March 18, 2013, 5:03 p.m. in reply to Cathryn

malicke said:

Thanks for bringing up "fair use" Cathryn. How do you determine if your use is a fair use?

If anyone is interested in diving deeper, here's a nice resource for thinking about fair use in open courseware: Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare

Does anyone else have fair use resources that can be contributed to the conversation?

on March 19, 2013, 9:26 a.m. in reply to Cathryn

Kathleen O said:

There are also documents from the Harvard Berkman Center on Educational Use: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4376, though that is focused on fair use in the classroom more so than fair use for open educational resources, which are different audiences and different guidelines.

on March 20, 2013, 3:58 p.m. in reply to malicke

Jane Park said:

There is also this course on Copyright 4 Educators (US) currently running as part of School of Open. Though sign-up is now closed, the resources are accessible by anyone. Here's the specific section on fair use: https://p2pu.org/en/courses/147/content/316/

on March 20, 2013, 5:56 p.m. in reply to Kathleen O
Anonym said:

This task was somewhat difficult. I had to really do some digging to find open resources for my topic area. I was able to determine whether or not my information was open based on copyright symbols, as well as through text under the terms and conditions tabs of certain sites.

I found the following three links as well as a couple of articles. Here are the links I found:

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/topicalbriefs/BIP.htm

http://cecp.air.org/fba/problembehavior3/main3.htm

http://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/challenging-students/teacher-behavioral-strategies-menu

on Feb. 1, 2013, 3:17 p.m.

malicke said:

Nice work! Not all websites are explicit about their openness. Checking a site's terms and conditions is a great way to find out what permissions and uses the author has granted.

on Feb. 3, 2013, 12:38 p.m. in reply to Anonym
glsteber said:

Here are some resources I found. Simply by linking to them, any copyright issues should be moot:

Bike Commuters Power Through the Winter Cold by Ashley Halsey III, The Washington Post

Four Things I Forgot About Winter Bike Commuting by Ted Johnson, Commute by Bike

Winter Bike Commuting: 10 Tips to Ride Safe by Stephen Regenold, GearJunkie

MPR News: Winter Bike Commuting (video)

Winter Cycling Basics (video)

on Jan. 23, 2013, 6:27 p.m.
Andrea said:

This task gave me new ideas about how to obtain open content because before I have only searched for open content pictures on flikr.

on Jan. 11, 2013, 3:01 p.m.
Anonym said:

I'm currently developing a website to offer my help desk services totally based in open content and free software.

I have used many resources and repositories like morguefile.com a picture repository, oer commons and to do it i'm using free software and open source which are under GPL and its docummentation is under CC

on Nov. 19, 2012, 12:36 a.m.
Bilal Baydoun said:

I wanted to know the current legal status of the Shebaa Farms area in Lebanon, and the latest news about the disputes over it.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shebaa_Farms.jpg

^^Below the map is a clear icon indicating what I can do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebaa_farms

http://english.al-akhbar.com/wikileaks-cables/hamadeh-sees-resolution-shebaa-farms-means-neutralize-hizballah-ideologically

^^This article is interesting because the newspaper itself is licensed under a CC-by-nc-nd license, but it's difficult to tell what the status of the cable is. I assume it's public domain because it leaked, but there is nothing on the site to confirm that.

on June 13, 2012, 4:11 p.m.

Piet said:

great example!

my take on this is that it's a U.S. government document and therefore not protected by copyright. it's from the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon.

on June 13, 2012, 4:20 p.m. in reply to Bilal Baydoun