Concord Consortium Licensing

Encouraging wide use and adoption of our resources and code is central to our mission—we want you to use our work. To encourage this, we freely distribute our software and educational resources under open licenses.

That means you can use, distribute, and modify them for free—you don’t even need to ask our permission!—as long as you attribute them to us and include the proper license information.

If you have questions about licensing of our materials, please contact us at help@concord.org.

Get Sample Attribution Text & License Code

Our licenses

Unless otherwise noted, our educational activities and other resources are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license and our software code is released under the MIT license.

These licenses allow you to use and modify software and resources created by the Concord Consortium and distributed to you, as long as you attribute the material to “The Concord Consortium,” link to the URL https://concord.org and include the appropriate license information or link(s). In some cases attribution of project work should be made to a specific project or set of project partners. When attributing the work of projects, please consult the project web page to ensure correct attribution.

If you are distributing copies of our resource content, you must include a link to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. If you modify or distribute copies of our software, you must include our copyright statement and the text of the MIT license.

License quick guides

We have deliberately chosen licenses that invite barrier-free use in as many situations as possible, whether commercial or non-commercial. We also believe they are simple and easy to understand.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0) – Quick guide

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, you are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

for any purpose, even commercially.

If you share material received under this license, you must give appropriate credit to the Concord Consortium, provide a link to the full license, and indicate if any changes were made.

MIT License – Quick guide

The MIT license is one of the least restrictive open-source software licenses available. Under the MIT license, you may use, copy, and modify software however you want, as many times you want, and in whatever format you like.

You may also share software received under this license for free or sell it, with no restrictions on distribution, as long as the software you distribute is attributed to the Concord Consortium and accompanied by the text of the MIT license.

You can find more information and full text of these licenses on the Creative Commons or MIT license pages.

Exceptions

A few of our resources are provided under other licenses based on agreements with our collaborators or funders, or for other reasons. These include resources created by the following projects:

Building Models
High-Adventure Science
Interactions
Next Generation Science Assessments

Please be sure to review the license of each resource, which is usually listed on a resource’s web page or in the footer of an activity. If you have any questions, please email help@concord.org.

CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Some resources — including those produced by the High-Adventure Science project, for example — are provided under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. If redistributing the materials you must include a link to the full license and give appropriate credit and you must not make any changes. You may give credit in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the Concord Consortium endorses you or your use. You may not use the materials for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute your contributions. As noted within the materials, some images, videos, and simulations may have different licensing, either more restrictive or more open than the CC-BY-NC-ND license.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Some resources — those produced by Building Models, Interactions, and Next Generation Science Assessments — are provided under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. If redistributing the materials you must include a link to the full license and give appropriate credit and indicate if any changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the Concord Consortium endorses you or your use. You may not use the materials for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. As noted within the materials, some images, videos, and simulations may have different licensing, either more restrictive or more open than the CC-BY-NC-SA license.

What we mean by non-commercial use

Some of our resources are covered by a license that limits them to non-commercial use. Non-commercial use means “not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”

A non-commercial license restricts material from being sold or commercialized for more than a cost-recovery basis. Below are some guidelines to help determine if your use is non-commercial. Note that there may be additional requirements in the licenses not covered by these guidelines.

You may not sell or profit from Concord Consortium materials governed by a non-commercial license or from works derived from Concord Consortium materials governed by a non-commercial license.
Concord Consortium resources governed by a non-commercial license may be used by for-profit or non-profit organizations so long as the use itself is not intended to generate sales or profit.
Charges for cost recovery may be permitted as long as there is no profit motive and the intended use of materials is in compliance with all license terms.
You may not display advertisements or market to users, including collecting email addresses or other contact information for any purpose, on web pages that include Concord Consortium content.

As noted above, encouraging wide use and adoption of our resources and code is central to our mission. If you have any questions about licensing of our resources, we are happy to assist you. Please feel free to contact us at help@concord.org and let us know how we can help support your efforts towards this goal.