{"id":4909,"date":"2026-05-29T12:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/?p=4909"},"modified":"2026-05-29T12:53:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:53:39","slug":"creativecommons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/2026\/05\/29\/creativecommons\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAs Open as Possible, as Closed as Necessary\u201d: Choosing the \u2018right\u2019 Creative Commons Licence in Open Access Publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open access (OA), the movement to publish and distribute scholarly works without too many restrictions, for better visibility and research impact, is often advocated as one of the most critical pathways toward achieving information access parity, where both the \u201cinformation-poor\u201d and \u201cinformation-rich\u201d have access to similar knowledge resources. Suber (2012) explained that OA is concerned with the \u201cremoval of price barriers\u201d and the \u201cremoval of permission barriers.\u201d However, OA is more nuanced that it is often assumed. Different OA models and paths exist, varying in their degree of openness and in the extent to which scholarly works may be shared and reused. These models include Diamond OA, Green OA, Gold OA, Hybrid OA, Bronze OA, and even Black OA. The distinctions between these models have been discussed on another blog article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Suber (2008) further referred to the degrees of openness in OA publishing as gratis<\/em> OA and libre<\/em> OA. Gratis<\/em> OA refers to scholarly publications that are free to read but carry limited reuse rights, while libre <\/em>OA refers to works that are both free to read and accompanied by additional reuse permissions.<\/p>\n

The Creative Commons Licences<\/strong><\/p>\n

To govern the degree of openness of their works, authors often sign Creative Commons (CC) licences, which are standardised legal tools that creators use to indicate how others may reuse their work. In OA publishing, CC licences clarify whether users may legally share a publication and define the extent to which it may be reused for educational, research, policy, and commercial purposes.<\/p>\n

Researchers are frequently confronted with several types of CC licences during the publication process. These are reflected in the visual depiction below (Figure 1):<\/p>\n

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Figure 1: University of Edinburg (n.d.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Confronted with these options at the publication stage, many researchers sign licences without fully considering their implications. In doing so, they may unintentionally transfer significant distribution rights back to publishers and restrict access to their own scholarly works, an outcome that defeats the very purpose of OA (Schneider, 2025). Certain licences may also affect the visibility, dissemination, and potential impact of scholarly outputs.<\/p>\n

Which CC Licence Should Researchers Choose?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is often difficult to advise researchers on which CC licence they should select when signing authorship agreements as these may differ between publications. The National Research Foundation (NRF) Open Access Statement<\/a> (NRF, 2019) outlines several principles regarding publications arising from publicly funded research, including the facilitation of:<\/p>\n