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Open Access

Guide developed for RMP Elements and OAR Figshare

Why apply a Creative Commons (CC) Licences to your work?

Creative Commons licences give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the re-user’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons licence on a copyrighted work answers the question – “What can I do with this work?” 

Source: Creative Commons (CC) website

Find out more about Creative Commons Australia

What you need to know

  • The University 'encourages copyright owners to apply a Creative Commons (CC) Licence to their research output to specify conditions of use and re-use'OA Procedure

  • To apply a CC licence you must own or control copyright in the work or have express permission from the copyright holder to apply the licence to the work.

  • Creative Commons Licences cannot be revoked.

Find out more at Creative Commons Licences 

Choosing a Creative Commons licence

Find the Creative Commons licence that suits your output needs at  Creative Commons Licence Chooser  

How and where to add the CC licence to your research output

Remember

You can only apply a copyright notice and Creative Commons licence to a research output if you own copyright or, have obtained the appropriate declaration and licence from all other potential copyright owners. Creative Commons licences cannot be revoked.

Add the copyright notice and chosen licence to the research document, not just to the Elements metadata record

The copyright notice and CC licence needs to be added to the research document in an obvious place (footer, title page or inside title page) for people to see.

What to include

1. Copyright notice = symbol © or text 'Copyright'; year of publication; name of the copyright owner/s

2.Creative Commons licence = statement; chosen CC licence licence text as a hyperlink; licence icons. 

 Tip: copy these from the chosen CC licence in CC Licence Chooser

Example of a copyright notice and CC licence added to a research output's footer

Copyright 2023 the authors. 

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International