Notes about OER and Creative Commons Licensing

Many college students across the country struggle to balance work and family with their education. One of the biggest road-blocks to many students is the cost of textbooks. At our college, a significant percentage of students cannot afford the cost of textbooks and chose to attend classes without purchasing a book or materials needed for the class. It goes without saying that this is a major impediment to passing their classes, but the students have no choice. They simply cannot afford $150-$200 textbooks. For this reason, I believe strongly in open educational resources (OER). Open source materials like this book are available and are virtually free for students.

This textbook is licensed through Creative Commons as “Attribution CC-BY”. Creative Commons describes this license as follows: “This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon (the author’s) work, even commercially, as long as they (give) credit (to the author) for the original creation.” This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.” If you need to see the license deed or legal code, please go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ and look under the “CC-By” section.

Adapted from Preparing for Algebra and Statistics, Third Edition, by Matt Teachout. License: CC BY 4.0. Copyright and sources.