15.7: Why Creative Commons Attribution License?

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16 years ago, I was co‐author for a Business Statistics textbook that was published by a boutique publisher. The textbook was expensive for students and I received little compensation for the work put into this text. Then Chancellor Martha Kanter of the Foothill‐De Anza Community College District initiated a movement to bring free Online Education Resources, including textbooks, to our students. Following the lead of two of my colleagues, Barbara Illowsky and Susan Dean, I decided that any material I create will be provided to students free of charge. Whenever possible, I try to use online resources to help students who are suffering financial hardship from the cost of college.

In order to protect this material from being marketed without my permission, I publish all material using a Creative Commons Attribution‐ShareAlike 4.0 International License.⁸ What this means is:

Anyone can download and use this material without permission.
Anyone can remix, modify or add to this material for non‐commercial use, as long as proper attribution is given to this source.
None of this material can ever be copyrighted, I retain all rights for the material.

So please feel free to download and modify the material and share it with the world. If all of us could spend our energy sharing and being creative instead of being fearful and protectionist, imagine how rich the library of open resource material would be.