JISC

The Common Information Environment (CIE) today published the results of a study into the applicability of the international Creative Commons licenses to a range of UK public sector resources. 

The study, undertaken for the CIE by Intrallect and the AHRC Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property & Technology Law at the University of Edinburgh, was commissioned to investigate the potential for Creative Commons licenses to clarify and simplify the process of making digital resources available for re-use. 

Creative Commons is a licensing system under which authors or producers of a work offer some of their rights to others to re-use their work, but only under certain specified conditions. Creative Commons is seen to have various advantages, including ease of use, widespread adoption, choice and flexibility, human-readable, machine-readable and symbolic representations of the licences, and a direct link between the resource and its licencse. However, there have been questions asked about its suitability for widespread adoption by the UK public sector. 

Dr Paul Miller, outgoing Director of the Common Information Environment, a grouping of UK public sector information organisations, including JISC, said: “People have talked for a number of years about the potential role of Creative Commons licences in our space, and these discussions tend to become both partisan and heated. With this work, the team have succeeded in offering a balanced and informed view of the pros and cons of such an approach, and they clearly demonstrate that there are a number of situations in which such a licensing model would improve the experience of the end user, which must be a good thing." 

The report is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution licence to encourage dissemination and reuse of the findings, and is available for download, along with a comprehensive set of appendices. 

The CIE members are currently considering the report's recommendations. 

For more information on the Common Information Environment