Written by: Connie Blomgren, Athabasca University, Canada
Abstract: Aspects of copyright literacy and attributing open licenses as scholarly practice inform this commentary. Because citation practices have a much longer history than attribution, an overview of the study of citation and its relationship to the developing practice of attributing open licenses provides a model and trajectory to follow. Copyright literacy as part of attribution knowledge and skills bifurcates from citation scholarship, yet it is part of reconsidering and affirming knowledge connections. Decolonizing perspectives of epistemology and what counts as knowledge, ownership, and sharing are part of this bifurcation that involves attribution, Indigenous ways of knowing, and Traditional Knowledge Labels. There are also tensions involved with properly attributing Creative Commons licenses and the title, author, source, and license process offers an imperfect and sometimes complicated pathway forward. Through this process, accurate and effective license acknowledgement occurs for newly created, reused, revised, remixed, or reshared artifacts. It is suggested to use the online attribution builder and best practices for attribution placement are provided for written documents, presentations, blog posts, videos, and other formats. As part of open education practices, attribution signals contributions to the knowledge commons and are part of copyright literacy and professional digital competence.
Keywords: attribution, Creative Commons, open licenses, copyright literacy, citation practices, Traditional Knowledge Labels, professional digital competence