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Open educational resources

How to publish open educational resources

Publishing your educational resources

  • Publish your educational resources in the national Library of Open Educational Resources - aoe.fi.
  • Log in with your Haka user ID.
  • Click on "My open educational resources" in the top row, and then on "Upload a new resource" on the right side.
  • Add information about your teaching materials and select a suitable license for it. Follow the instructions there and fill in the form.

 

What to consider when publishing educational resources

When publishing educational resources, ensure that you have the necessary rights to publish the resources (e.g., copyright). Everyone who has made a significant contribution to the educational resource, including the students, shall be properly acknowledged. You need to ask the co-authors and students for permission and consent for the use and publication of the materials they created.

 

It is recommended to publish educational resources using a Creative Commons licence CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-SA 4.0. The recommended format for a licence is: © [Author Name], Arcada University of Applied Sciences, 2023. CC BY 4.0/CC BY-SA 4.0.

 

Educational resources and other digital content shall comply with accessibility requirements. Note that video and audio materials have to be transcribed to a level that makes the content of the material understandable.

Recommendation on copyright issues in the open publication of educational resources

Plan the opening

Plan the opening of the educational resources in advance:

  • where,
  • how and
  • on what terms of use the educational resource or part of it will be opened.

Take these matters into account, among others:

  • You can only open material for which you are an author or which you have received for your use with a license that allows use to the extent equalling the license you select for the material to be opened. For example, if you plan to open your material with a CC BY license and use the other material as an illustration, the images of your material must be licensed with a CC BY license.
  • The author decides on the opening of the educational resource with a license. The author is also entitled to transfer the copyright to their employer organisation, unless the rights have been separately agreed on before the educational resource is drafted.
  • If the educational resource has more than one author, consent from all authors is required to open the educational resource.
  • Submit the author and source information that are the prerequisite for the permit of use. For example, it is a good idea to indicate in each CC BY licensed image how the author and source information of the image should be disclosed.
  • You must ask the students for a permission to use the materials they have created, such as texts or images.
    • Ask if the student wants to be mentioned as the author of their text or images. If a student does not want to be mentioned as an author but you are authorised to use the material anonymously, remove the names and any other personal data of the student.
    • If photos have been taken of a student, note that the student’s photo, video or sound recording is the student’s personal data and in order to process it you need a basis for processing it, such as the student’s consent.

Minimise the processing of personal data. Avoid using personal data if it is possible to implement the educational resource without personal data. If you are processing personal data, ensure that the data subject is informed and that you have the legal basis for processing it. If the processing is based on consent, you can provide the information required by Article 12 of the GDPR on the consent form, such as:

  • purpose of processing the personal data;
  • period for which the data are stored;
  • potential subsequent use of the data;
  • where the data may be disclosed;
  • who is the controller.

Collaborative educational resources

If the educational resource has more than one author, consent from all authors is required to open the educational resource.
Agreement between teachers: At the very beginning of the work, it is a good idea to consider how to agree on the rights in such a way that they are as appropriate as possible for each party involved in drawing up the material. One option is to agree on parallel copyrights – agreeing on the rights as a whole may better support individual use by everyone involved. If no right to modify has been agreed upon, there is no right but to modify and use one’s own contribution separately from the output of the others. If teachers agree on open licensing of the material with a CC BY-SA licence, for example, they will also gain the right to modify the entire material.


Creating materials in cooperation with students: As with other authors of educational resources, the ownership of the educational resources must also be agreed with the student if, with regard to the content created by the student, the threshold of originality is exceeded.
A student may transfer the ownership to the higher education institution. It is best to make an agreement at the planning stage and no later than at the beginning of the course or study project. The students must be made aware of the nature of the course and the contractual basis for intellectual property rights already when they register for the course. In any case, it is important that the contract be concluded before the material is drawn up, as the student also has the right to prevent the use and opening of the material compiled by them.
If several students have prepared material together, an agreement on the use of the material is needed from each student. It is also worth noting that a student’s participation in a course where they prepare material must not require the transfer of copyright.

 

Source: Recommendation on copyright issues to be taken consideration in the open publication of educational resources (Annex 1) in Open Science Coordination in Finland, the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) (2020). Open education and educational resources. National policy and executive plan by the higher education and research community for 2021-2025. Policy component 1 – Open access to educational resources. CC BY 4.0.

Instructions and useful links

Instructions on how to use the Library of Open Educational Resources:

Instructions on how to use the aoe.fi services for storing educational materials in the service, editing information about the already saved materials, and evaluating education materials. With the help of the embed function, you can also embed instructions on the pages of your own educational institution.

Quality criteria:

Accessibility directives:

Site provided by the Regional State Administrative Agency/Regionförvaltningsverket, the authority supervising the implementation of accessibility requirements in Finland.

Saavutettavasti.fi, produced by Celia, aims at public sector communicators and others who make or plan the content of online services, and contains comprehensive practical guidelines on how to easily improve the accessibility of online content.

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