TEE Courses

One of the key tools used in TEE (as well as in many small group training programmes) is the use of workbooks. Workbooks, especially self-study workbooks, are central to learning as they provide access to quality learning content in preparation for a class or TEE group meeting. The TEE movement is decentralised, so many programmes and institutions have developed their own contextual courses over the years. Some courses are stand-alone, while others form part of a tailored contextual curriculum. TEE courses are diverse, using slightly different approaches to the workbook design, and they differ in the educational level of the learners for which they are designed. And TEE courses exist in many languages.

TEEnet TEE courses

The vision behind TEEnet is to publish TEE courses under the Creative Commons licence, which means that TEE courses published by TEEnet are free to access, free to download, free to reprint, and free to distribute without a licencing fee.

TEEnet offers courses donated for free distribution and courses that TEEnet commissioned. The TEE courses developed directly for TEEnet are also free to contextualise under the Creative Commons licence. TEEnet is committed to finding and publishing new courses and commissioning new TEE courses.

TEEnet offers the following TEE courses free of charge to any TEE programme or church that would like to use them in the preparation of their members for life and ministry. Open access to quality learning material addresses an important gap for extending theological education to everyone-everywhere.

TEEnet’s TEE courses have been donated to TEEnet by their original copyright holders or are written directly for TEEnet (more courses are in preparation). All TEEnet courses are copyrighted under the Creative Commons Licences (CCL). There are broadly two different types of copyright that TEEnet uses: One we call “TEEnet Open Access License” (which corresponds to CCL BY-NC-ND) and “TEEnet Contexualisable License” (which corresponds to for BY-NC-SA).

CCL (Creative Common Licences) briefly explained

Creative Commons licences (CCL) are an internationally recognised copyright licence for published and creative works (see (https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/). The Creative Commons Licence is flexible and gives us different options for our published material while ensuring a recognised international copyright. There are six different Creative Commons licenses to choose from. One of the great advantages for us is that the Creative Commons licences allow us to freely share the material as it is (and allow the printing and the sharing of materials locally without any charge). Additionally, we can even modify the licence to enable the end users to edit, update, and contextualise our works.

TEEnet CCL licenses

TEEnet publishes e-books, TEE courses and related material free of charge and freely downloadable on our website for everyone-everywhere to use. We call this the TEEnet open access licence. However, some of our TEE courses are donated to TEEnet with explicit permission to modify, and these courses can also be contextualised and translated by others. We call this the TEEnet contextualisable licence. Here are the two TEEnet licences side by side:

TEEnet open access licence		TEEnet contextualisable licence
Explanation of the symbols		Explanation of the symbols
	BY (“attribution “) means credit must be given to the original copyright holders		BY (“attribution “) means credit must be given to the original copyright holders
	NC (“non-commercial”) means that the material cannot be sold to make a profit (but you can charge for the material to recover its production costs).		NC (“non-commercial”) means that the material cannot be sold to make a profit (but you can charge for the material to recover its production costs).
	ND (“no derivatives”) means no changes to the original course are permitted. Translations are possibe but require prior permission from TEEnet.		SA (“share alike”) means that changes to the original course are permitted (like contextualisation or translation, for example). SA (“share alike”), also means that any course or translation that uses part of the original copyrighted TEEnet course must retain the same copyright as the original and needs to be shared like the original with an unrestricted license. This new material must then be shared with TEEnet to benefit others.

How to access the TEEnet contextualisable licence TEE courses?

The TEEnet courses are available as downloadable PDFs from our website. However, TEEnet offers TEE courses with a contextualisable licence, which includes the option for TEE programmes and churches to contextualise the material, translate it, or add their logos and contact details to the course workbooks. Word documents for all courses are available after signing a licencing agreement with TEEnet that recognises that all contextualisation and translation of the material must be published with the same open access licence as the original on TEEnet. Please also see our Frequently Asked Questions page, “Questions FAQs,” or contact us directly for licencing.

Other Course Providers

TEEnet is not the only provider that offers TEE courses. Please also look at the TEE courses that other institutions provide that might help develop your own programme. Please get in touch with these providers directly to learn more about their courses and how to use them.