Ranting & Raving on Instructional Design, Education & Technical Training

Designers and authors of educational materials are constantly in need of quality content for presentations and courses. Given the ease with which media can be “borrowed” and used in courseware, the question of what is acceptable to use in a document or web site comes up frequently among designers and managers. Although it is not acceptable to use copyrighted materials without appropriate licensing from the author, the Creative Commons license does allow creative media to be shared and used in many educational applications. From the Creative Commons About page:

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.We provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

Look for the Creative Commons license. View this introductory video to get a better idea of what Creative Commons is and how to use it as both a consumer and producer of digital media.

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