Need a video or image for your class presentation? Search for open media using Creative Commons search:
Need to brush up on topics for a class? Resources like Khan Academy provide free access to study materials. Did you know that the Excelsior OWL's resources are also openly licensed?
Open Access Journals publish scholarly articles of the same quality as paid subscription journals, for free. Many also publish under open licenses, which allow the content to be reused, revised, remixed, redistributed, and retained by any user.
You can find open access journals in OneSearch. You can also explore the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to find more on the web.
A short quote or paraphrase from an OER in your research paper requires citation, but not attribution. Citation is necessary whenever you reference information, other than your own original ideas or common knowledge, that came from a source.
Attribution, on the other hand, is for re-using or adapting work created by someone else, such as reproducing an OER infographic, or a revision of it, in your paper. Attribution is necessary whenever you reuse, remix, revise, or redistribute openly licensed content, unless the content is in the public domain (not protected by copyright).
Generally then, the difference lies in how much of the work you are using. Referencing information requires citation while re-using work requires attribution. Depending on how you use the material and the citation style used, you may need both.
