Creative Commons — State of the Commons 2015 — Data

Creative Commons — State of the Commons 2015 — Data
Data, Notes and Acknowledgments
Measuring CC’s slice of the Commons
This is the second year that Creative Commons has published a State of the Commons report. CC doesn’t host or control the content in the commons, which is hosted on a myriad of platforms and is made up of every type of media and data. We see this as an iterative process, where each year we improve our process and get better results. As with any large-scale global movement, it is impossible to quantify the full impact of our work. For example, how do we capture content that is insufficiently marked, or content that is in the public domain in some jurisdictions and not in others? When CC licensed work is remixed, how do we know when one work ends and another begins?
That said, we do have a handful of valuable tools that we’ve put to good use to tell the story of the CC licensed Commons and its massive growth. Building on the baseline we established with the
2014 State of the Commons reporting format
, we continue to track size, scope, content, and diversity of the Commons. We added new stats from our servers, including
widespread use
of our CC license buttons and
views
of license deeds in different languages. We also added
new usage data from more platforms
hosting the majority of CC licensed content on the web. We aimed for variety in representation, both by media type and domain of content, and we focused on highly trafficked platforms with CC integrations up to the technical standard that would allow us to track this data over time. We also added sections on CC’s broader impact as a steward of our global Commons. We dug a bit deeper into open education, policy, and our shared cultural heritage in an aim to measure not just the quantity of the Commons, but the incredible impact that a robust Commons can have on different regions of world.
Still, given the breadth and reach of CC’s global diversity, this year’s report can’t fully capture the true scope of CC’s international impact. Our aim is to continue to refine our process each year, including a more in-depth, collaborative process that reflects the geographical breadth of CC content in different languages (see
CC license use on the Polish web
, for example). We also hope to collaborate with domain experts and content partners in
open data
and cultural heritage (what we like to call the
GLAM
sector) to include those stats, and eventually track commons growth in those fields over time. With regard to the open policy landscape, we are already collaborating with our partners in the
Open Policy Network
who are leading a State of Open Policy report for publication in early 2016.
Another huge undertaking on our wish list would be an effort to measure the public domain, not just the portion marked with our tools, but the entire public domain as it exists and as it is defined differently across jurisdictions. We may find that the topic merits a separate academic study and report, and look forward to outlining a best process for achieving and sharing comprehensive public domain data.
Ultimately, we want to be able to measure not just growth, but usability and vibrancy of the commons. The size of the Commons and its continued growth is most interesting when shared next to incredible stories of how the content is used by creators around the world to achieve CC’s
vision and mission
. This is why we have begun to ask for new metrics from platforms on how CC works are used, including data points like number of downloads, users, and site trends.
“More than 1 billion CC licensed works in the Commons as of 2015”
Google provided us with the raw data, counting all of the gweb pages in its cache that link to Creative Commons license deeds, which we used to make the estimates in this report. While pages may link to Creative Commons license deeds for reasons other than to license or attribute works under them, we reason that those are vastly outnumbered by pages that indicate a CC license choice without linking to the deed. We’ve supplemented Google’s data with that of several websites that each have over a million CC-licensed works but aren’t reflected in Google’s data.
Google data
Total web pages that link to current CC tools: 306,870,000
Total web pages that link to retired CC tools: 10,030,000
Grand total: 316,900,000
Source: Google query, available at
Github
Platforms not included in Google’s data
Total works across platforms listed below: 802 million
Platform name
Number of works (rounded down by millions)
Number by license
Source
Flickr
356 million
CC BY: 67,354,310
CC BY-ND: 19,215,096
CC BY-NC-ND: 90,361,041
CC BY-NC: 45,793,028
CC BY-NC-SA: 99,330,609
CC BY-SA: 32,756,937
CC0: 372,095
PDM: 1,220,335
(6 November 2015)
Wikipedia (all pages in all languages)
140 million
all CC BY-SA
Scribd
50 million
unknown
Source at Scribd (same as 2014)
MusicBrainz
43 million
unknown combination of CC0, CC BY-NC-SA
Freebase
39 million
all CC BY
(same as 2014)
DeviantArt
18 million
CC BY: 1,128,465
CC BY-SA: 840,407
CC BY-ND: 1,417,293
CC BY-NC: 619,170
CC BY-NC-SA: 1,817,106
CC BY-NC-ND: 12,270,444
Note: Due to late submission of data, these numbers are not included in the license breakdown bar graph.
Source at DeviantArt
Geonames
10 million
all CC BY
(same as 2014)
13 million
all CC BY
Source at YouTube
Libre.fm
133 million
all CC BY-SA
Google grand total 316,900,000 + total works across platforms (802 million) = 1,118,900,000 works (1.1 billion)
We cross-referenced data with sample size data from Bing which also put the total CC licensed or public domain works at just over 1 billion. This is still a low bound estimate, as we can’t know the total universe of platforms not included in Google’s data.
“More people are choosing to share openly!”
The bar graph showing breakdown by CC license and PD tool correspond to the following numbers which include Google data (web pages linking to current tools plus retired PD tool) and data from platforms not cached by Google (where we know the breakdown of works by license).
Total # of works reflected in bar graph: 1,008,283,451 (minus ~111 million works where the license was unspecified)
Breakdown by license: Google +
Platforms not cached by Google
= Total estimated works under that license
CC BY: 114,660,000 +
129,354,310
= 244,014,310
CC BY-SA: 67,800,000 +
305,756,937
= 373,556,937
CC BY-ND: 5,350,000 +
19,215,096
= 24,565,096
CC BY-NC: 11,130,000 +
45,793,028
= 56,923,028
CC BY-NC-SA: 37,230,000 +
99,330,609
= 136,560,609
CC BY-NC-ND: 47,340,000 +
90,361,041
= 137,701,041
Public domain total: 33,370,000 +
1,592,430
= 34,962,430
CC0: 21,950,000 +
372,095
= 22,322,095
PDM: 1,410,000 +
1,220,335
= 2,630,335
Retired PD tool: 10,010,000
Total Free Culture works (CC BY + CC BY-SA + Public domain): 652,533,677. CC uses the definition of free cultural works at Freedom Defined to categorize the CC licenses. “Free Culture” licenses allow for both commercial use and adaptations. Learn more at http://creativecommons.org/freeworks.
“The public domain is growing!”
The bar graph reflects the following data by year:
Total public domain works marked with CC tools in 2006: 3,276,000 (no breakdown by tool)
Total public domain works marked with CC tools in 2014: 17,557,500
CC0: 10,310,000
PDM: 1,510,000
Retired PD tool: 5,737,500
Total public domain works marked with CC tools in 2015: 34,962,430
CC0: 22,322,095
PDM: 2,630,335
Retired PD tool: 10,010,000
Sources:
2006: 2.34% of 140 million from http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5936; marked under now
retired PD tool
2014:
Google data files
2015:
Google data files
+ Flickr (above)
Just as in 2014, we did not include PD totals from platforms other than Flickr, which we were able to confirm were not included in Google’s data. As such, the total public domain works marked by our tools is a low estimate. For example, Europeana alone reports over 10 million works under PDM or CC0.
“In 2015, CC licensed works were viewed online 136 billion times”
Views of CC works were calculated by combining two sets of data: the number of times CC license buttons were downloaded by a browser as part of viewing a web page, and the number of Wikipedia page views.
CC license buttons
are hosted by the CC server; web pages that display our machine-readable code, as that from our
CC license chooser
, reference the CC license buttons hosted by our servers, which allow us to track each time a browser downloads the button image as part of someone viewing that page. In September 2015, CC license buttons were downloaded 552,015,520 times. We multiplied this number by 11.5 to achieve the approximate number of 6 billion views in 2015. We combined 6 billion with the total number of page views of Wikipedia in 2015 (
130 billion
) to reach 136 billion views. Wikipedia pages do not use the machine-readable code referencing the CC license buttons and therefore are not included in our server data. Since we have not accounted for the many CC licensed works that do not reference the CC license buttons hosted on our servers and that are not Wikipedia, 136 billion is a low bound estimate.
“To date, the 4.0 license suite has been officially translated into 7 languages, with 3 more to be published before the new year.”
Starting with the 4.0 license suite, CC instituted its first
Legal Code Translation Policy
. Official translations of the 4.0 suite and CC0 are tracked at
“People are sharing with CC licenses in as many as 34 languages with more than 90 million views of CC’s deeds in the last ten years”
Prior to CC’s first official translation policy, CC affiliates unofficially translated license deeds for understanding around the world. Since CC launched the first version of its license suite in 2002, CC deed pages have been unofficially translated into at least 34 languages. 90 million views reflects the total number of views of these deed pages from January 1, 2005 through November 3, 2015, with 2005 marking the earliest period where tracking with Google Analytics is available for our servers. For those interested in a specific breakdown of deed pageviews by language, we have included that data here. Language categories with an asterisk may include variations on that language for simplicity, eg. Chinese includes simplified and traditional Chinese.
Views of deed pages grouped by language (unofficial translations):
Arabic: 28,438 views
Belarusian: 7,686 views
Catalan: 12,298 views
Chinese*: 1,070,159 views
Croatian: 331,111 views
Czech: 333,413 views
Danish: 30,735 views
Dutch: 315,019 views
English*: 67,155,975 views
Esperanto: 19,984 views
Finnish: 115,246 views
French*: 2,204,878 views
Galician: 10,760 views
German*: 1,700,918 views
Greek: 201,277 views
Hungarian:170,549 views
Indonesian: 14,604 views
Italian: 1,411,242 views
Japanese: 1,143,936 views
Korean: 6,337,118 views
Latvian: 4,611 views
Lithuanian: 6,918 views
Malay: 67,611 views
Maori: 769 views
Norwegian: 93,737 views
Persian (Farsi): 6,917 views
Polish: 351,859 views
Portuguese: 2,148,746 views
Romanian: 63,000 views
Russian: 42,274 views
Spanish*: 4,163,811 views
Swedish: 129,838 views
Turkish: 5,381 views
Ukrainian: 15,372 views
“From research to cute cat photos, the Commons offers a treasure trove of content.”
Breakdown of works by media type includes data from 16 platforms plus the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Specific totals by platform below.
“Audio tracks: 4 million”
Jamendo: 496,289 / Source: Jamendo staff
Bandcamp: 1,950,000 / Source: Bandcamp staff
Free Music Archive: 86,394 / Source: Free Music Archive staff
Tribe of Noise: 29,000 / Source: Tribe of Noise staff
Internet Archive: 876,539 / Source: Internet Archive staff
“Images (Photos, Artworks): 391 million”
500px: 661,307 / 500px staff
Flickr: 356,403,451 / Source:
verified by Flickr staff and accessed on 11/6/15
Wikimedia Commons: 23,124,319 (bitmaps + drawings) / Source:
verfied by WMF staff
Internet Archive: 42,122 / Source: Internet Archive staff
Europeana: 10,865,086 / Source: Europeana staff
“Videos: 18.4 million”
Vimeo: 5,000,000 / Source: Vimeo API (
YouTube: 13,000,000 / Source: YouTube staff
Wikimedia Commons: 58,599 / Source:
verfied by WMF staff
MIT OpenCourseWare: 83 / Source:
verified by MIT OCW staff
Internet Archive: 320,983 / Source: Internet Archive staff
Europeana: 25,369 / Source: Europeana staff
“Texts (Articles, Stories, Documents): 46.9 million”
Wikimedia Commons: 179,733 / Source:
verifed by WMF staff
Wikipedia: 35,900,000 / Source:
verifed by WMF staff
Internet Archive: 905,388 (texts + web) / Source: Internet Archive staff
Europeana: 9,989,925 / Source: Europeana staff
“Open Educational Resources: 76,000”
Boundless: 49,000 / Source: Boundless staff
Skills Commons: 24,609 / Source: Skills Commons staff
MIT OpenCourseWare: 2,304 / Source:
verified by MIT OCW staff
Internet Archive: 530 / Source: Internet Archive staff
“Research (Journal Articles): 1.4 million”
PLOS: 140,000 / Source:
verified by PLOS staff
DOAJ: 1,323,304 / Source:
accessed 10/26/15
“Other (Multimedia, 3D): 23,000”
Wikimedia Commons: 23 (multimedia) / Source:
verifed by WMF staff
Internet Archive: 5,931 (data, software, collection, undefined) / Source: Internet Archive staff
Europeana: 17,646 (3D) / Source: Europeana staff
CC is everywhere: Millions of websites use CC licenses, including major platforms like Wikipedia and Flickr and smaller websites like your grandma’s blog.
Breakdown of works by platform includes data from 16 platforms and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Specific totals by platform below, with additional usage data from some platforms.
“Flickr: 356 million photos”
Exact total: 356,403,451
CC BY: 67,354,310
CC BY-ND: 19,215,096
CC BY-NC-ND: 90,361,041
CC BY-NC: 45,793,028
CC BY-NC-SA: 99,330,609
CC BY-SA: 32,756,937
CC0: 372,095
PDM: 1,220,335
Source:
verified by Flickr staff and accessed on 11/6/15
“Wikipedia: 35.9 million articles”
100% of articles under CC BY-SA
Total # of views of CC content: 199.7 billion from Nov 2014–Oct 2015
# of registered users: 42,116,280
# of users registered in the past 3 months: 1,087,269
# of registered users that are active: 69,419 (defined as registered users who contributed 5 times or more in the past month)
Source:
verfied by WMF staff
“Wikimedia Commons: 21.6 million media files”
Exact total: 21,650,962
CC0: 832,515
CC-BY: 3,427,781
CC-BY-NC: 4,839
CC-BY-SA: 17,385,701
CC-BY-ND: 0
CC-BY-NC-SA: 123
CC-BY-NC-ND: 3
PDM: 0
# of works under Version 4.0: 2,902,825
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 83.2%
# of registered users: 5,254,013
# of users registered in the past 3 months: 283,890
# of registered users that are active: 8,047 (defined as registered users who contributed 5 times or more in the past month)
# of users that use CC licenses, CC0 or PDM for their content: 649,886
Source:
verfied by WMF staff
“Europeana: 20.9 million digital objects”
Exact total: 20,953,772
PDM: 10,300,806
CC0: 517,675
CC BY-SA: 2,953,210
CC BY-NC-ND: 3,311,299
CC BY-NC-SA: 1,836,195
CC BY: 1,398,867
CC BY-NC: 551,597
CC BY-ND: 84,123
Source: Europeana staff
“YouTube: 13 million videos”
100% of videos under CC BY
Source: YouTube staff
“Vimeo: 5 million videos”
Exact total: 4,918,817 (Excludes CC0, so rounding up to 5 million)
CC: 55,583,807 videos
CC BY: 1,213,461
CC BY-SA: 408,614
CC BY-ND: 298,931
CC BY-NC: 790,365
CC BY-NC-SA: 587,729
CC BY-NC-ND: 1,619,817
CC0: Unknown
Source: Vimeo API (
“Internet Archive: 2 million files”
Exact total: 2,006,490
CC BY-NC-ND: 479,181
PDM: 391,930
CC BY-SA:  320,436
CC BY-NC-SA:  248,785
CC0: 223,036
CC BY: 220,781
CC BY-ND: 65,126
CC BY-NC: 57,215
# of works under Version 4.0: 102,900
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 8%
# of registered users: 2,335,606
# of users registered in the past 3 months: 106,965
# of registered users that are active: 3,000,000 (defined as the number of unique IPs seen a day)
# of users that use CC licenses, CC0 or PDM for their content: 107,383
Source: Internet Archive staff
“Bandcamp: 1.95 million tracks”
Approximately half are under CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY-NC-SA
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 11%
# of registered users: 660,000 users signed up for fan accounts
Source: Bandcamp staff
“500px: 661,000 photos”
Exact total: 661,307
CC BY-NC: 114,024
CC BY-NC-ND: 227,233
CC BY-NC-SA: 148,951
CC BY: 14,064
CC BY-ND: 34,831
CC BY-SA:  52,717
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 1.46% of total public photos
# of registered users: 6,000,000
# of registered users that are active: 1,000,000
# of users that use CC licenses, CC0 or PDM for their content: 56,837
Geographic breakdown of users (top 15 countries; # of distinct users):
United States: 4,390
Germany: 3,139
France: 2,484
Spain: 2,082
India: 1,242
Canada: 1,186
United Kingdom: 1,137
Brasil: 1,126
Italy: 943
Russia: 836
China: 821
México: 656
Australia: 651
Switzerland: 429
Argentina: 413
Source: 500px staff
“Jamendo: 496,000 tracks”
Exact total: 496,289
CC BY: 26,305
CC BY-SA: 107,117
CC BY-NC: 6,301
CC BY-ND: 19,210
CC BY-NC-SA: 228,977
CC BY-NC-ND: 106,258
CC NC-Sampling+ (retired tool): 1,505
CC Sampling+ (retired tool): 616
Free Art License: 1,050 (
compatible with but not equivalent
to CC BY-SA)
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 99.8%
# of registered users: 2,453,719
Source: Jamendo staff
“PLOS: 140,000 articles”
Aside from occasional one-offs, all articles are licensed CC BY.
# of works under Version 4.0: No exact number, but PLOS has used CC BY 4.0 from 2014 onwards. 33,000 articles were published in 2014, and 135,000+ articles were published between 2003-2014.
Total # of downloads of CC content: ~22.8 million in 2014 (1.9 million monthly article downloads in 2014)
Total # of views of CC content: ~139.2 million in 2014 (11.6 million monthly article views in 2014)
Geographic breakdown of users (Regions of corresponding authors of research articles published in 2014):
Americas: 32%
UK and Europe: 33%
Asia-Pacific: 33%
Rest of the world: 3%
Source: PLOS staff
“Total Open Access articles under CC BY: 675,000; under any CC license: 1.3 million”
Exact total (any CC license): 1,323,304
CC BY: 675,686
Source: Directory of Open Access Journals (
DOAJ
) on October 26, 2015
“Free Music Archive: 86,000 tracks”
Exact total: 86,394
CC BY: 3,615
CC BY-NC: 7,093
CC BY-ND: 802
CC BY-SA: 2,265
CC BY-NC-SA: 37,814
CC BY-NC-ND: 33,801
CC0: 774
PDM: 197
# of works under Version 4.0: 12,319
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 96%
Total # of downloads of CC content: 90,694,768
Total # of listens of CC content: 152,894,792
# of registered users: 235,060
# of users registered in the past 3 months: 9,851
# of registered users that are active: 11,785 (defined as registered users who have logged in in the past 3 months)
# of users that use CC licenses, CC0 or PDM for their content: 13,485 distinct artists (users not included are individual curators and netlabels)
Source: Free Music Archive staff
“Boundless: 49,000 open educational resources”
100% of OER under CC BY-SA
# of works under Version 4.0: 49,000
Total # of views of CC content: ~60 million visits in 2015 (5 million unique visitors a month)
# of registered users: 300,000+
Geographic breakdown of users (top 10 countries):
United States: 50.8%
India: 7.4%
United Kingdom: 6.4%
Australia: 4.5%
Philippines: 4.3%
Canada: 3.6%
Kenya: 2.4%
Malaysia: 1.9%
Pakistan: 1.6%
South Africa: 1.3%
Breakdown by type of user:
Students: 85%
Educators, Admin or Faculty: 10%
Other (experts, self-learner): 5%
Source: Boundless staff
“Tribe of Noise: 29,000 tracks”
100% of tracks are CC BY-SA
# of works under Version 4.0: 3,800
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 100% on www.tribeofnoise.com; 0% on pro.tribeofnoise.com
Total # of downloads of CC content: 500,000
Total # of listens of CC content: ~1.2 billion listens in 2015 (100 million unique listeners a month for CC-based music channels in-store)
# of registered users: 31,000 (90% are independent musicians)
# of users registered in the past 3 months: 640
# of registered users that are active: 26,700
# of users that use CC licenses, CC0 or PDM for their content: ~27,900 (90%)
Geographic breakdown of users (top 5 countries):
United States: 9,000
Netherlands: 4,000
UK: 3,000
South Africa: 2,000
Canada: 1,000
Australia: 10,000
Age breakdown of users:
<16 years: 2%
16-25 years: 21%
26-35 years: 27%
36-45 years: 21%
46-55 years: 16%
56-65 years: 10%
65+ years: 3%
Source: Tribe of Noise staff
“Skills Commons: 24,000 career training materials”
Exact total: 24,069
CC BY: 3,402
CC BY-SA: 3,429
CC BY-ND: 3,464
CC BY-NC: 3,430
CC BY-NC-SA: 3,430
CC BY-NC-ND: 3,465
Public Domain: 45
CC0: 3,402
Other: 2
percentage of works under CC or public domain out of ALL works on platform: 100%
Total # of downloads of CC content: 24,254
Total # of listens of CC content: 37,903
# of registered users: 595
#of users registered in the past 3 months: 108
# of users that use CC licenses, CC0 or PDM for their content: 100%
Geographic breakdown of users: 100% North America
Source: Skills Commons staff
“MIT OpenCourseWare: 2,300 courses”
Exact total: 2,304
100% of content created by MIT faculty and staff is CC BY-NC-SA
# of works under Version 4.0: 2,304
Total # of downloads of CC content: 75,795,556 (zip + iTunesU downloads)
Total # of views of CC content: 1,214,440,794 (web + YouTube views)
# of registered users: n/a (121,589,875 unique visitors)
Geographic breakdown of users (top 15 countries; # of distinct users):
North America: 44%
South America: 4%
Africa: 6%
Europe and Russia: 17%
Asia-Pacific: 29%
Breakdown by type of user:
Learners: 43%
Students: 42%
Educators: 9%
Other: 6%
Source: MIT OCW staff; October 2015 report (
);
Countries with Open Education policies
Countries listed have legislation, policies, or funder mandates at the national, provincial/state, or institutional level that lead to the creation, increased use, or support for improving OER. CC relied on our international open education partners to notify us of existing open education policies in their countries. For specific policy information, see the
OER Policy Registry
Total $ dispersed via policies to date:
United States: 2,249,843,557 USD; 2,802,750,000 USD projected for 2015/16
Canada: 16,040,000 CAD; 850,000 CAD projected for 2015/16
Poland: 45 million Polish złoty (approximately 11 million Euro or 13 million USD)
“Open Textbooks have saved students $174 million to date, with an additional $53 million projected through academic year 2015/16”
Our open education partners collectively reported cost savings of $174,448,941 USD after replacing proprietary textbooks and materials with open textbooks licensed under CC. These savings are to date, inclusive of the 2015 fall term. These same partners projected collective cost savings of $53,427,667 USD for the 2015-2016 academic year.
Data was collected via an open call to the global open education community. All respondents were from North America. All respondents, projects, reported savings, and sources are listed below. Due to the diversity of the open education space, savings were calculated per individual project. We only included a project’s cost savings in the total if a methodology was provided. We also avoided duplication by verifying each project’s savings by year.
Reported savings to date in 2015
All numbers are USD; savings reported in CAD have been converted using
www.oanda.com
If a project reports $0, it is because the project has just started; it has not tracked savings to date; or the number was not verified by the source.
Not all projects were able to provide projected savings, so the total is a low estimate.
Project
Reported savings (to date unless specified)
Projected savings for AY 2015/16
Method used to calculate savings
Source
Georgia Affordable Learning Initiative - Georgia Highlands College
$1,970,000
$1,000,000
Textbook savings calculated by looking at the actual number of students enrolled in each class, and then using the cost for the non-OER textbooks from the previous semester. Example: for ARTS 113, the previous non-OER text cost was $117.50. Had the 315 students enrolled in the class this fall had to purchase the previous text, the total cost would have been $37,012.50. The OER used in this class this semester is free, so we consider $37,012.50 to be the savings to our students. In total over the last three years 21,536 students have not had to purchase a textbook for a savings of $1.97 million.
Source: College staff obtained data from faculty using OER;
California Affordable Learning Solutions Initiative
$0
$1,000,000
No reported savings to date. Projected savings will be captured by an online reporting tool used by CSU campuses.
Source: California State University, Office of the Chancellor.
Alberta OER Project
$0
$11,512
Rough estimate: 10 courses @ 30 students @ $50 CAD per student = $15 000 CAD
Source: Rory McGreal, Athabasca University
B.C. Open Textbook Project
$703,648
$538,192
Method described in detail at
Source: BCcampus
CK-12: District El Paso ISD, TX
$200,000
No method described, but reported by news source.
Source:
CK-12: District Tullahoma City Schools
$490,000
$215,000
Average social studies text price was approximately $80 per text. In accomplishing the transition to CK-12 flexbooks we were able to save the cost of $80 per text and reallocate those funds to support our teachers who served as flexbook curators and to purchase chromebooks. So for students these textbooks, formerly $80 per text, are now $0 per text.
Source: CK-12 Foundation
College of the Canyons: OER Degree Pathway
$750,000 for academic year 2014/15
$800,000
Total sections using OER in lieu of commercial textbook X average enrollment per section X cost of new textbook. in years past we used $100 as an average cost. The amount saved is now based on the actual retail cost of the new textbook for each specific course in our local college bookstore.
Source: College of the Canyons
Introductory Statistics/Collaborative Statistics: by Openstax College/Illowsky & Dean
$3,000,000 (for De Anza College only)
95+ sections/year using text → 95 * 40 = 3800 students/year minimum. 3800 students * 8.5 years = 32,300 students. 32,300 * average cost (new, used, self-selling) of $100 for another text = $3,230,000 if ALL students have a text. Some years, 100-105 sections used the text (110 sections per year). The 5 distance learning sections/ year have 60 students per section.
Source: Barbara Illowsky, PhD, Dean of Basic Skills & Open Educational Resources, CCC Online Ed Initiative (OEI). Savings are professor’s personal conservative estimate for De Anza College.
Lumen Learning
$1,614,335 for Fall 2015
We have assumed the textbook cost was $100 per course, and have calculated savings at $95 per course after our $5 support fee.
Source: Lumen Learning
Maricopa Millions: OER Project
$4,584,000
Savings calculated using class size of 20 and textbook cost of $100 for the “No Cost/Low Cost” sections of the 50 highest enrollment courses and all developmental education courses. We use the following to calculate the savings: Top 50 enrollment courses identified as “Low cost/No cost - less than $40” (mostly OER). 20 students per section. $100 savings per student (books, online homework, etc)
Source: Maricopa Community Colleges funds;
Montgomery College: OER Project
$0
$78,640
Track using fields: instructor, course, OER type, reference, students FY2106, cost of former resource, cost savings (# of students times former resource cost)
Source: Montgomery College
Open Learning Initiative
$15,264,110 for academic year 2014/15
$4,000,000
Calculated using SPARC methodologies (100 dollars per enrollment average price), less cumulative service fees. In the 2014-2015 year we saw 48k enrollments academically (this does not count independent OLI use). However some portion of those enrollments did pay a service fee (always less than the textbook, totaling 232,190. So using 100 dollars, 4,800,000 - 232,190 = 4,567,810
Source: OLI
Open Oregon
$0
$227,175
Open Oregon calculated these numbers by asking grantees to estimate max/min cost of previous textbooks, as well as estimated # of students enrolled per year.
Source: Open Oregon;
Open Textbook Network (University of Minnesota)
$1,500,000
We are using an average per student savings estimate based on research done by national experts (David Wiley and Nicole Allen). They examined several research studies on open textbook savings and determined that $100 student savings was a reliable average. It takes several variables into consideration, including how many student buy used, rent, don’t buy, etc.  As a network, we agreed on the $100/student method. Our members verified adoption of the book by faculty and then verified enrollments. We then apply the $100/student.
Source: OTN obtained the $1.5 million in student savings reports from nine early members.
OpenIntro
$2,000,000
$1,000,000
Based on feedback from students, about half of college students buy the paperback version of the textbook while the other half exclusively use the free PDF. The paperbacks are about $10, so we estimate savings per student to average about $100. Through Oct 7th, 2015, we sold 14,838. Subtracting out about 500 as books we’ve directly purchased for teachers and a couple thousand that are associated with one of the co-author’s Coursera courses, we think $2 million is a conservative estimate. We also average around 15,000 to 20,000 textbook PDF downloads per month, though we don’t know all the groups that are making use of the textbook. We don’t include Coursera savings / value in our current estimates. We also do not estimate savings from our other free and open-source resources, e.g. in time savings for instructors who then do not need to develop their own resources from scratch.
Source: OpenIntro; with paperback figures from sales through CreateSpace
OpenStax College
$53,600,000
$25,800,000
We use a composite number of $98.57 to estimate student savings (our number discounts for used books, rentals, e-books etc). Current number of students 261,000, number of schools 2,000
Source: OpenStax College manually verifies every faculty adoption
Tacoma Community College: OER Project
$1,000,000
To date, we have been meticulously calculating the exact savings by keeping track of the price of the book that was replaced, but we are contemplating moving to a revised methodology that takes into account other factors, such as a new course that uses OER from the beginning.
Source: Tacoma Community College OER Project
Virginia Tech: University Libraries Open Education Initiative
$0
$72,000
Savings are calculated for zero-cost textbook replacement for 900 students given the conservative assumptions regarding what students otherwise would pay (where 10% go without textbook access, 10% buy the old (2011) edition used, 50% rent ($56.93), 10% buy a new paperback ($72.78) and 20% buy a used hardcover textbook from the campus bookstore ($215.60).
Source: University Libraries, Virginia Tech
University of Maryland University College
$5,167,748
$15,000,000
UMUC’s department of Learning Design and Solutions compiled the list of courses and the type of resource(s) used in each, as well as the previous price for textbooks in those courses. Using Fall, Spring, and Summer 2014 enrollment data, which I disaggregated by course, I estimated the cost-savings based on the price of each course’s previous textbook times that course’s enrollment for the aforementioned term. The estimated cost-savings thus assumes that all UMUC students’ would have purchased the textbook.
Source: Dr. Katrice Hawthorne, Professor at University of Maryland University College
Virginia Community Colleges: Zx23 Project
$1,454,100
$3,685,148
We count adoptions of OER through direct communication with Zx23 Project grantees (# of course sections taught X student enrolled in each section X $100 avg textbook cost). We combine data on these adoptions with data from tangential NVCC projects.
Source: Virginia Community College System & Lumen Learning, Inc.
Reported savings included from the 2014 State of the Commons report
Savings in the 2014 report were pulled from a 2013 survey by Nicole Allen of SPARC:
We cross-checked this list with responses we received this year and removed duplicates. We erred on the side of underreporting.
Project
Reported savings in 2013
College of the Canyons
$556,000
Flat World Knowledge
$47,947,100
Lumen Learning
$1,300,000
OER-Based General Education Certificate Program at NOVA
$122,000
Open Course Library
$5,711,400
Orange Grove Texts Plus
$530,000
Precalculus by Carl Stitz & Jeff Zeager
$1,235,400
Siyavula
$23,500,000
Center for Computer- Assisted Legal Instruction: eLangdell Press
$67,500
The Virginia Community College System
$52,000
Utah State Office of Education
$87,500
“Z Degree” Tidewater Community College
$42,100
“The Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, and Wikimedia Foundation”
The Ford Foundation requires CC BY for all grant-funded projects and research:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation requires the CC BY license for research and data:
The Vancouver Foundation will require CC BY beginning 2017 for all projects and research funded through community advised grant programs:
The Wikimedia Foundation requires CC BY or another free license for media files and recommends CC0 for data:
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation requires CC BY for all digital outputs of its grantmaking:
“Together with The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a longstanding open policy leader,  these foundations collectively made grants of approximately $1.9 billion in 2015”
To arrive at this figure, we added the annual grantmaking figures from the most recent year available (2013) as listed on
. We assume those foundations will continue to make similar amounts of grants in the near future. The Gates Foundation policy applies only to research funding—it is not foundation-wide like the others. So we used the estimate of $900M/year quoted by
Science
Hewlett Foundation
Total: $434 million
Source:
Foundation Center
Ford Foundation
Total: $560 million
Source:
Foundation Center
Gates Foundation
Total: $900 million
Source:
Science magazine
Vancouver Foundation
Total: $1.13 million
Source: Vancouver Foundation (
financial statements
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Google
for providing us with the foundational data upon which this report was built. Thanks especially to:
Agnes Toth, Google
Brendan Hickey, Google
Paul Haahr, Google
Erin Simon, Google
We would also like to acknowledge the following individuals and organizations for their contributions. This report would not be possible without them.
Platform data
Alexis Rossi, Internet Archive
Ariel Diaz, Boundless
Benjamin Glatstein, Microsoft
Brandon Muramatsu, MIT Office of Digital Learning
Cheyenne Hohman, Free Music Archive
Danielle Ward, DeviantArt
David Knutson, PLOS
Donna Okubo, PLOS
Ed Harrison, Boundless
Guillaume Paumier, Wikimedia Foundation
Hessel van Oorschot, Tribe of Noise
Jake Johnson, Internet Archive
Jennifer Elias , Bandcamp
Juliet Barbara, Wikimedia Foundation
Kimberly Potvin, Flickr
Leo Lipsztein, YouTube
Martin Guerber, Jamendo
Matt Lee, Libre.fm
Matt McLernon, YouTube
Neil P. Quinn, Wikimedia Foundation
Nuno Silva, 500px
Paul Keller, Kennisland
Richard Lumadue, Skills Commons/California State University, Office of the Chancellor
Sarah Agudo, Medium
Tilman Bayer, Wikimedia Foundation
Yvonne Ng, MIT Office of Digital Learning
Open education data
Amanda Coolidge, B.C. Open Textbook Project
Amy Hofer, OpenOregon
Andrew Christopher, Institute of Museum and Library Services
Anita Walz, University Libraries, Virginia Tech
Barbara Illowsky, CCC Online Ed Initiative (OEI)
Buddy Muse, Montgomery College “Open Educational Resources”
Christie Fierro, Tacoma Community College OER Project
David Diez, OpenIntro
David Harris, OpenStax College
David Wiley, Lumen Learning
Elijah Scott, Affordable Learning Georgia Initiative, Georgia Highlands College
Gerry Hanley, California State University, Office of the Chancellor
Hetav Sanghavi, CK-12 Foundation
James Glapa-Grossklag, College of the Canyons
Jennryn Wetzler, US. Department of State
Kamil Śliwowski, CC Poland
Karen Vignare, University of Maryland University College
Katrice Hawthorne, University of Maryland University College
Kelsey Wiens, CC South Africa
Kim Thanos, Lumen Learning
Konstantin D. A. SCHELLER , European Commission
Lorna Campbell , University of Edinburgh
Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University
Nate Angell, Lumen Learning
Neeru Khosla, CK-12 Foundation
Norman Bier, Open Learning Initiative
Ovidiu Voicu, Foundation for an Open Society Romania
Paul Golisch, Maricopa Millions OER Project
Renva Watterson, Affordable Learning Georgia Initiative, Georgia Highlands College
Ricardo FERREIRA, European Commission
Richard Sebastian, Virginia Community College System
Rory McGreal, Athabasca University
Sara Trettin, U.S. Department of State
Sarah Cohen, Open Textbook Network at University of Minnesota
Attributions
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