Copyright Permission Template Email/Letter

Dear Sirs, We write to you in connection with:  (Insert the details of what you want to use.  It could just be a url or it could be figure details from a book for example.) We are seeking confirmation that you are the owner of the copyright in this image.  If you are not the owner or the exclusive licensee, we would be extremely grateful for further details identifying the correct contact. At present, the Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre is involved in an Open Education Resources (OER) pilot project, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).  We will be releasing a selection of teaching materials under Creative Commons licences for reuse and adaptation by the general public. 

OER's have been defined by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation as ‘teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge'.

The goal of the programme is to make a wide range of learning resources created by academics freely available, easily discovered and routinely re-used by both educators and learners.  Projects are expected to make a significant amount of existing learning resources freely available online, licensed in such away to enable them to be used and repurposed worldwide.  As a result of this project first class educational resources will become available to those who would not ordinarily have access to.  Similar projects across the world include OpenCourseWare (OWC) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, and Open Learn from the Open University in the UK.  

(Please see http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/opencontent for information on the project as a whole and http://www.engsc.ac.uk/an/oer-project/oer-project.asp for the Engineering Subject Centre's project.) The image mentioned above has been identified as a key illustration to be included in a PowerPoint presentation that accompanies a 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXX' lecture being provided by XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX as a part of a XXX (Hons/BSc/ BEng etc) in XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. The resource will be formatted and released using a variety of differing media but focusing specifically on Web2.0 technologies such as YouTube, Slideshare and will also be deposited in JorumOPEN (see http://www.jorum.ac.uk/deposit/ for details).

All resources included within this project will be released under a 'Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK; England & Wales' licence (see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/) as this licence is the most suitable for the project.

We would therefore be extremely grateful for your permission to release the materials described above, along with the rest of the learning resource, under a 'Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK; England & Wales' licence.  The source of the image will be fully identified and accredited under the terms of the Creative Commons licence.  Please indicate how you would like this acknowledgement to appear.

Of course if you have any concerns over the use of the image or any questions relating to OER in general we will be more than happy to assist you.   We hope you will embrace this project with open arms and provide an important valued contribution to this project. Kindest regards,

CreditsThis resource was created by the Engineering Subject Centre and released as an open educational resource through the Open Engineering Resources project of the HE Academy Engineering Subject Centre. The Open Engineering Resources project was funded by HEFCE and part of the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme.

© Loughborough University 2009

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

The name of Loughborough University and the logo are the name and registered marks of Loughborough University. To the fullest extent permitted by law Loughborough University reserves all its rights in its name and marks which may not be used except with its written permission.

The JISC logo is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.  All reproductions must comply with the terms of that licence.

The HEA logo is owned by the Higher Education Academy Limited may be freely distributed and copied for educational purposes only, provided that appropriate acknowledgement is given to the Higher Education Academy as the copyright holder and original publisher.