When you use someone else's creative or scholarly work, it is essential to give the creator credit. This is true regardless of format or medium. Scholarly article? give credit. Photograph you find online? Give credit. Slide deck your colleague created? Give credit.
Giving credit not only serves the important function of acknowledging the work and originality that went into its creation, but also establishes your own credibility. As you credit the work of others, you are participating in a system of knowledge creation and information sharing that encourages new ideas and participants. Crediting is fundamental building block in scholarly conversations, public conversations, and creative expression.
With Creative Commons-licensed materials, giving credit is also a legal requirement. All CC licenses include "BY," and you must respect these terms when you use or adapt CC content.
Be sure to include the following elements in all Creative Commons credits:
For adaptations of whole works, specify your own CC license first (see Add a CC License to Your Work), then add the following elements. Remember that an "adaptation" Is a new work based on another work but adapted with enough originality that it can be considered a new work and can itself be copyrighted:
Giving credit for CC-licensed content is straightforward, and Creative Commons has recommendations for how to do this. The following examples and more are available on the Best Practices for Attribution wiki.
Giving credit and citation practices can be an opportunity to contribute to diversity in scholarly conversations and creative work, and to elevate marginalized or under-represented voices. When you credit or cite someone else's work, you amplify their voice and contribute to their impact. Choose your sources and inspiration carefully, as you will be boosting the creator when you reuse and credit their work.
Giving credit and citation are also opportunities to align yourself with particular creators or conversations. You can do this by taking an extra moment to learn more about who you are crediting and the other works they have created. If you are choosing between two similar photographs, for instance, does one photographer's portfolio and profile more closely align with topics, styles, or perspectives you want to associate yourself with? Everything is contextual, and it is important to understand contexts as you use, share, and credit others' works.
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Land Acknowledgment: The University of Washington Bothell & Cascadia College Campus Library occupies Land that has been inhabited by Indigenous Peoples since time immemorial. Specifically, this campus is located on Sammamish Land from which settler colonists forcibly removed Coast Salish Peoples to reservations in the mid-19th century. Today, descendants of the Sammamish are members of several Coast Salish communities.