University of Edinburgh OER Policy update – Copyright, AI and OER

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The relationship between Gen AI and the Commons is thorny to say the least, with copyright legislation in many jurisdictions struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of change and to address fundamental questions about the nature of creativity. What is it that distinguishes human creativity? What happens when Gen AI is used to help create a resource? Can it still be shared under open licence as an OER?

In order to provide advice and guidance for our staff and students, the University of Edinburgh has recently reviewed its OER Policy and included these recommendations about copyright, AI and OER:

UK legislation relating to copyright of AI-generated and AI-assisted works is ambiguous and evolving, and so for the present we recommend the following.

a. We encourage the use of CC0 for works that are AI-generated and do not involve a significant degree of human creativity. This means that no copyright applies.

b. AI-assisted works, which express the intellectual creation and creative choices of their authors, may be shared under Creative Commons licence as an OER.

For further information about copyright and Creative Commons licences, visit the Open.Ed website.

c. We recommend that AI tools are attributed whenever they are used. The University Library provides advice and guidance on Using Generative AI Tools in Academic Work, including citing and acknowledging the use of AI.

There remains a lot of concern about how Gen AI models are trained, and whether their outputs might infringe other creators’ intellectual property rights if they reproduce copyright works too closely. In addition, it’s not always easy to distinguish between AI-generated and AI-assisted works. How much human creative input is required before an AI created resource can be copyright?

To help address some of these issues, the University’s OER Service is also working on new advice and guidance about copyright, AI and OER to accompany the updated OER Policy, which we hope to share shortly.

Like all our open learning and teaching policies, the new OER Policy has been shared under CC BY-NC-SA licence and added to our award-winning collection of Open Policies for Learning and Teaching.

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Hi Lorna, I’m excited to see the new University of Edinburgh policy on AI, it adds already to that tremendous collection.

Calling the situation “thorny” puts it mildly. Creating policies looks like roping jello (likely a misplaced metaphor), but as you are saying, it seems to undermine so many foundation layers of openness.

I’d like to think someone out there is collecting/ curating AI policies at the institution level, but my first searches were thin. There was an effort here in Canada but the links go to a page not displaying its intended WordPress content

I recommend often Lance Eatons collection of course level policies

He did have another collection for institutions but it has not been updated since 2024

I hope someone who might be reading this has better links, but I would love to some effort on a global collection.

Cheers Lorna!

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I asked Lance if there was a sizable collection of campus AI policies. He shared this from Campus AI Exchange which can be searched or explored by map

A few other interesting campus AI resources don the site

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Hello Lorna,

Thank you so much for sharing this. It’s really useful to read and it’s something I’m going to consider carefully. I wondered whether you would also share your news on the UK and Ireland OER Community of Practice mailing list? I’m sure you’ll get a lot of interest there too.

Kind regards,

Helen