Open Pedagogy

This page is for students who are working in courses that use open pedagogy. It explains what it means to be an author of your own work, how Creative Commons licenses function, and how open or “renewable” assignments can amplify your voice and help others learn from what you create.

Open pedagogy supports student empowerment by involving students in decisions about:

• The topics they explore.
• The format and medium of their work (text, audio, video, web, infographic, etc.).
• Whether and how their work will be shared publicly.
• How criteria for “good work” are defined (e.g., co-created rubrics).

This moves students from “doing assignments for a grade” toward participating in meaningful scholarly and creative work that reflects their identities, interests, and goals.

Students are authors of their own work. Even when assignments are done for a course, they retain copyright unless they explicitly sign it away. Open pedagogy offers a chance to discuss authorship and rights with students: who owns their work, how it can be shared, and how they can protect or open it.

What is Creative Commons?

A nonprofit organization that helps creators share their work freely and legally.

• Offers free, standardized licenses to let others reuse, remix, and share work.
• Supports the idea that “some rights reserved” can promote access and innovation.

Why Creative Commons Matters in Open Access

• Enables authors to decide how their work can be used.
• Supports open sharing while protecting creator rights.
• Common in open access journals, OER, and institutional repositories.

Common License Options

Creative Commons (CC) licenses are standardized tools that allow creators to grant permission in advance for how their work may be used. Common options include:

• CC BY – others can use, adapt, and share the work, as long as they give attribution.
• CC BY-SA – as above, but adaptations must use the same license.
• CC BY-NC – others can use and adapt non-commercially with attribution.
• CC BY-ND – others can share the work unchanged with attribution.

How to Use Creative Commons in Your Work

• Use CC-licensed materials in teaching, research, and outreach.
• Apply a license to your own work through creativecommons.org/choose.
• Always provide attribution and check the license terms.
• Great for building Open Educational Resources (OER).
• Faculty can use CC-licensed materials in their teaching and can invite students to choose a license for any work they decide to share.