Skip to Main Content
NCI WEBSITE COURSES STUDENTS STAFF
NCI WEBSITE
LIBRARY LOGIN
National College of Ireland

NCI LIBRARY

Open Access and OERs: Open Access for staff

Creative Commons provides Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools that give every person and organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works.

Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright laws but work within them to make work more open and shareable. 

Take a look at Creative Commons License Chooser tool to find the license that best suits your work. 

Graph taken from The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Strengths

  • The CC BY license is the most popular and open license provided by Creative Commons.
  • By requiring attribution and nothing else, your CC BY work will be easy for others to adapt and build upon.
  • CC BY is often the default choice for open publications. Youtube uses the CC BY 3.0 license as their single “Creative Commons” option.

Weaknesses

  • Because CC BY allows for easier sharing and adaptation, it also leaves the creator with less power over their work. When you use a CC BY license, you cannot be certain that your work will remain open or that your work will be reused for projects you support.

Above adapted from The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Strengths

  • The CC BY SA combines the openness of CC BY license with the caveat that an item remains open under the same license when adapted.
  • The CC BY SA license is the second most popular license, and the license used by Wikipedia for their articles.

Weaknesses

  • Because the CC BY SA license requires that adapted content be shared under the same license, it can be difficult to adapt or to remix works licensed CC BY SA

Above adapted from The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Strengths

  • The CC BY NC license gives the creator of a work complete control over any commercial reuse of their work.
  • As a user, you can adapt and remix CC BY NC works so long as your new works provide attribution to the original author and do not turn a profit.

Weaknesses

  • Some users may be concerned about what they are allowed to do with your CC BY NC work and where the commercial “line” is drawn.

Above adapted from The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Strengths

  • CC BY NC SA is the most restrictive license that can be used for OER and gives you the most control over its adaptations.
  • Some creators apply this license out of concern for their works being “scooped” by commercial publishers.

Weaknesses

  • Because of its requirements, the CC BY NC SA license is the hardest to adapt, remix, or build upon.
  • If you hope to leverage the open community to promote and share your content, this license may be a deterrent for potential partners.

Above adapted from The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Green Open Access refers to “self-archiving” your publications in an open access repository, i.e. in addition to publication in traditional subscription journals, authors also deposit a copy of their articles into an institutional repository such as NORMA.

  • The author deposits their postprint/author's accepted-manuscript/final version of the article after all post-peer review revisions have been made (but before copy-editing, branding and layout etc. have been applied by the publisher) into NORMA.
  • It is free for authors to upload to NORMA and for users to download from NORMA.
  • The library ensures that sharing the article complies with the publisher’s copyright policy - in some cases an embargo may apply. Specific publisher policies in relation to self-archiving can be checked at Sherpa Romeo.
  • A link is provided from the open access repository version to the published version
  • Please Note: If you would like your research to appear as green open access on NORMA the library would love to hear from you. Using Norma complements, and does not replace, existing publishing processes

Adapted from UCD Library LibGuide Open Access: Routes to OA  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Gold Open Access: There are now many open access journals and platforms where researchers can make their articles openly accessible at the point of publication. 

  • A researcher submits an article to a publisher, which then undergoes the traditional peer review process.
  • Upon acceptance of the article, the publisher makes the article freely available at the point of publication
  • The cost of publication is usually covered by a one-off fee (article processing charge / APC) paid by the author. The average cost of an APC is approx. €2,000 per paper. 
  • Some gold open access journals do not levy a fee directly on authors, but instead publishing costs are sourced through other means e.g. funding agencies, institutions and professional associations (e.g. Open Library of Humanities). This is sometimes called platinum or diamond open access.
  • Some journals are fully open access, others are hybrid i.e. traditional subscription journals with an optional OA article processing charge for individual articles. 

Source: UCD Library LibGuide Open Access: Routes to OA  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Communications from the library

Keep up to date on any library news and resources by following @NCILibrary on Facebook Twitter Instagram
Communications from the Library: Please note all communications from the library, concerning renewal of books, overdue books and reservations will be sent to your NCI student email account.