JLA changes Creative Commons licence

Starting with its next issue (11:3, December 2024) all papers in the Journal of Learning Analytics will be published using the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence.

This aligns the JLA’s policy with that of major grant-giving bodies. For example, Horizon Europe funding comes with an explicit obligation to publish scientific, peer-reviewed publications “under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public Licence (CC BY) or a licence with equivalent rights”. The European Commission as a whole adopted CC NY 4.0 and CC0 in 2019 and, in the United States, the NSF does not specify a specific licence but does require public access.

The JLA has always had a commitment to open access. Previous issues have been licensed using the more restrictive CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence. Papers in those issues are unaffected by this change and retain their original licence.

CC BY 4.0 states that users are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. They are also able to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. However, when doing so, they must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. This can be done in any reasonable manner, with certain restrictions.

Creative Commons (CC) is an international nonprofit organisation that aims to build and sustain a commons of shared knowledge and culture. Its CC licences are intended to provide a free, simple and standardised way to grant copyright permissions, ensure proper attribution and enable others to make use of those works.

For full details of CC BY 4.0, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en and for details of the policies of other funders see the Registry of Open Access Materials Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP).