Nearly all Creative Commons-licensed resources require attribution, i.e. giving credit to the author/creator of the resource. However, even when you are using OER for which the licence does not require attribution (such as the CC0 Public Domain licence, as in the image above), it is good practice to provide attribution.

CC licences are flexible regarding how an OER can be attributed. A good rule of thumb is to use the acronym TASL (Title, Author, Source, Licence) as a reminder of the specific information to include.

• Title — What is the name of the resource? If a title was provided, it is good practice to include this.

• Author — The most important field to include in the attribution is the author, i.e. who owns the resource? Sometimes, the author/creator may require you to give credit to another entity, like an institution, company or group. This information is generally provided along with the open licence attached to the resource.

• Source — Where can I find this resource? Provide the source of the OER so that others can access it also.

• Licence — How can I use this resource? Name and provide a link to the specific Creative Commons (or other) licence under which the resource was made available.

Sometimes, an OER will include a statement as to how the creator(s) would like the material to be attributed. If this is provided, you can simply use that statement.

Western Sydney University attributions

The following exemplars can be used to build a WSU Creative Commons (CC) Licence attribution statement.

For consistency, and where the resource is copyright of Western Sydney University, add the following to the start of your attribution statement:

© Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed.

Examples:

© Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed. Western Sydney University ‘Essays’ by Academic Literacies is licensed under CC BY 4.0

© 2020 Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed. ‘OER’ created by Western Sydney University Library staff is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)

© Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed. The OER created by _____________  is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)

© Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed. ‘WSU Job Tool’ designed using content from various sources listed ____________________.

Western Sydney University Job Tool by Employability And Graduate Success is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 

© Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed. Adaptation of the OER Toolkit College Libraries Ontario for Western Sydney University OER Toolkit by Western Sydney University Library Staff is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

© Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed. This work, ‘Open Access Checklist’, is a derivative of ‘The new university Open Access checklist’ by European University Association, used under CC BY-NC. ‘Open Access Checklist’ is licensed under CC BY-NC by Lucy Walton.

© Western Sydney University, unless otherwise attributed. This work, ‘Using EndNote 20’, created by Lucy Walton, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)

Refer to these useful sources for further information:

• Best practices for attribution(Creative Commons)

• Best practices for Creative Commons attributions(New Media Rights)