The Association of Veterinary Anaesthetists (AVA\) in conjunction with its partners and members strives to produce useful information and resources for the anaesthetist in practice. They have now created and released under Creative Commons licence, anaesthetic recording sheets, safety checklists and guidelines, and safer anaesthesia campaign.

Background about licencing

The AVA has for some time published resources on the website to help improve the safety of anaesthesia (checklists, GA monitoring forms etc).  Over the years there have been a steady stream of requests for permission to use these materials elsewhere. For example, to be translated into other languages, used in textbooks, loaded onto computerised practice management systems, or published on other websites.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

Campbell (2019) described the growth of the OER movement, with discussions between educators leading to publication of ‘The Cape Town Open Education Declaration’ in 2008. The vision of these pioneers was to create a wide range of co-created resources which were “open and free for all to use”. The OER movement has grown since then and is now supported by institutions including, for example, the University of Edinburgh, Wellcome, PLOS, and others.

Applying Creative Commons Licences to AVA resources

The aims of the OER movement are also congruent with some of the goals of the AVA Mission Statement, “…disseminating reliable and accessible resources … to promote the development and delivery of safe and sustainable anaesthesia for all animals”.

After discussion the AVA Committee has decided to apply Creative Commons (CC) licences to some resources published on the website. Copyright is retained by the author(s) and CC licensing permits fair access to the material and promotes wider distribution. Anyone using the AVA resources must show attribution linking to our website.

Jurox and Dechra provided generous support to help publish the original guidelines and the committee is grateful for these companies’ approval for this move to CC licensing.

Click here to go to the AVA Guidelines for Safer Anaesthesia