MERLOT recognizes the effort and commitment of the many different kinds of MERLOT community members who participate in building and sustaining the repository and services that comprise MERLOT. To protect the membership and its contributions to the community, MERLOT has adopted the intellectual property (IP) protection policies of the consortium, Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org) to 1) encourage creators of online materials to share their work with others who might wish to reuse the materials in creative ways, and 2) ensure that contributions of online materials by MERLOT members to the MERLOT community are protected from misuse and abuse.

I have started this Community Conversation to provide a forum for discussion and questions regarding licensing of online materials and the use of Creative Commons licenses.