California's Community Colleges Shift to Creative Commons Licenses - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"The board that governs California’s 112 community colleges has started requiring that courses, research, and other work paid for by the system chancellor’s office be made available free to all users under Creative Commons 'attribution' licenses. While the system will retain the copyright on the materials, other users will be able to take advantage of them as long as the originators are properly credited. Board members adopted the new policy this month, saying they believed the move would save taxpayers money by making works the public has already paid for widely available and by avoiding duplication of effort and expense. For the 2012-13 academic year, the chancellor’s office disbursed approximately 560 grants and contracts totaling more than $116-million, a spokeswoman says. Before the change, if a faculty member at a California community college wrote a textbook or created course materials for a class and the work was paid for by the chancellor’s office, the system retained all rights to it. Barry A. Russell, vice chancellor for academic affairs, says there was 'no spark' that led to the decision—it was just something that, over time, board members knew needed to be changed. With community colleges continuing to expand in size and reach, he says, Creative Commons was the logical choice ..."