Who owns the
intellectual property published on the MIT OpenCourseWare Web
site?
What are the
requirements of use for MIT OpenCourseWare?
How does MIT define
non-commercial use?
How do I properly
cite my reuse of MIT OpenCourseWare materials?
How can I contribute
my own educational materials to MIT OpenCourseWare?
Who owns the intellectual property published on
the MIT OpenCourseWare Web site?
The intellectual property policies
created for MIT OpenCourseWare are clear and consistent with other policies for
scholarly materials used in education. Faculty retain ownership of most
materials prepared for MIT OpenCourseWare, following the MIT policy on textbook
authorship. MIT retains ownership only when significant use has been made of the
Institute's resources. If student course work is placed on the MIT
OpenCourseWare site, then copyright in the work remains with the student. Prior
to making any course materials publicly available, the MIT OpenCourseWare team
has reviewed all material extensively to determine the correct ownership of the
material and obtain the appropriate licenses to make the material openly
available on the Web. We will promptly remove any material that is determined to
be infringing on the rights of others. If you believe that a portion of MIT
OpenCourseWare materials infringes another's copyright, please notify MIT
OpenCourseWare.
What are the requirements of use for MIT
OpenCourseWare?
The underlying premise and purpose of MIT
OpenCourseWare is to make course materials used in MIT courses freely and openly
available to others for non-commercial educational purposes. Through MIT
OpenCourseWare, MIT grants the right to anyone to use the materials, either "as
is," or in a modified form. There is no restriction on how a user can modify the
materials for the user's purpose. Materials may be edited, translated, combined
with someone else's materials, reformatted, or changed in any other way.
However, there are three requirements that an MIT OpenCourseWare user must meet
to use the materials:
- Non-commercial: Use of MIT OpenCourseWare materials is
open to all except for profit-making entities who charge a fee for access to
educational materials.
- Attribution: Any and all use or reuse of the material,
including use of derivative works (new materials that incorporate or draw on
the original materials), must be attributed to MIT and, if a faculty member's
name is associated with the material, to that person as well.
- Share alike (aka "copyleft"): Any publication or
distribution of original or derivative works, including production of
electronic or printed class materials or placement of materials on a Web site,
must offer the works freely and openly to others under the same terms that MIT
OpenCourseWare first made the works available to the user.
Please refer to the MIT OpenCourseWare
Privacy and Terms of Use page for our specific licensing terms and
conditions. If you would like to use MIT OpenCourseWare course materials, but
you are unsure whether your intended use qualifies as non-commercial use, please
contact MIT
OpenCourseWare.
How does MIT define non-commercial
use?
Non-commercial use means that users may not sell, profit from,
or commercialize OpenCourseWare materials or works derived from them. That said,
we have found that there are certain "gray areas" in interpreting the
non-commercial provision of OCW's Creative Commons license. The guidelines below
are intended to help users determine whether or not their use of OCW materials
would be permitted under the "non-commercial" restriction. Note that there are
additional requirements (attribution and share alike) spelled out in our
license.
- Commercialization is prohibited. Users may not directly sell or profit
from OCW materials or from works derived from OCW materials.
Example: A
commercial education or training business may not offer courses based on OCW
materials if students pay a fee for those courses and the business intends to
profit as a result.
- Determination of commercial vs. non-commercial purpose is based on the
use, not the user. Materials may be used by individuals, institutions,
governments, corporations, or other business whether for-profit or non-profit
so long as the use itself is not a commercialization of the materials or a use
that is directly intended to generate sales or profit.
Example: A
corporation may use MIT OpenCourseWare materials for internal professional
development and training purposes.
- Incidental charges to recover reasonable reproduction costs may be
permitted. Recovery of nominal actual costs for copying small amounts (under
1000 copies) of MIT OpenCourseWare content on paper or CDs is allowed for
educational purposes so long as there is no profit motive and so long as the
intended use of the copies is in compliance with all license terms. Students
must be informed that the materials are freely available on the MIT
OpenCourseWare site and that their purchase of copied materials is
optional.
Example: An institution in a remote area has limited Internet
access and limited network infrastructure on campus, and a professor offers to
create CDs of MIT OpenCourseWare materials relevant to her course. The
professor may recover the costs of creating the CDs.
How do I properly cite my reuse of MIT
OpenCourseWare materials?
If you choose to reuse or repost MIT
OpenCourseWare materials you must give proper attribution to the original MIT
faculty author(s). Please utilize the following citation "This material was
created by or adapted from material created by MIT faculty member, (Name),
(Title), (Year). Copyright © (Year) (Faculty Member's Name)."
As an example, the citation for "Course 18.06 Linear Algebra, Spring 2005"
taught by MIT Professor Gilbert Strang would read, "This material was created or
adapted from material created by MIT faculty member Gilbert Strang, Professor.
Copyright © 2005 Gilbert Strang."
If you want to use the materials on your Web site, you must also include a
copy of the MIT
OpenCourseWare Creative Commons license, or clear and reasonable link to its
URL with every copy of the MIT materials or the derivative work you create from
it.
How can I contribute my own educational materials
to MIT OpenCourseWare?
The intent of MIT OpenCourseWare is that our
site should reflect the materials used in courses taught at MIT. The reason for
this policy is that the materials presented on the MIT OpenCourseWare site are
authored by members of the MIT Faculty, and thus, our faculty will take final
responsibility for these materials. It would be difficult for MIT OpenCourseWare
to guarantee the accuracy and originality of materials we received from outside
sources. However, we encourage other universities to create their own
"opencourseware" in which materials from their courses would be posted online
and openly shared with the world. MIT OpenCourseWare is eager to link to other
universities or institutions that have similar goals. For more information about
how your institution can openly publish its course materials in an
OpenCourseWare environment, please visit the OpenCourseWare Consortium
site.