Open access

If you use other people's work licensed under a CC license you can use the work in more ways than if it was without license or labelled with a restricted license. However, you need to make sure that you adhere to possible restrictions that are present in some of the creative commons licenses. 

With all creative commons licenses you need to make sure to give proper credit. This is also in line with good academic practice. Besides credit, you need to pay attention to licenses that include these restrictions below if you want to create derivative works and make them public. You are always permitted to create your own private derivative works. 

SA - ShareAlike: You need to make sure that if you create derivative works and make them public, they are shared under a license with the ShareAlike restriction, make sure that you use the same license for your work. You can see a license chart for license compatibility here.

NC - NonCommercial: If you intend to make a profit from your adaption or redistribution, you should make sure the NC restriction is not part of the license of the original work. As long as your use is non-commercial, you can proceed.

ND - NoDerivatives: This restriction does not allow you to make any adaptions or remixes. You are still allowed to create collections. See the box below for further information.

References: 
About CC Licenses by Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0

Creating a collection is just one way you might want to use content licensed under Creative Commons. It is also one of the use cases often misunderstood – can you create a collection if the CC license of the original content includes the No Derivatives restriction? In short, yes! A collection is not an adapted work but it is important to know the difference when adaptions are not permitted.’
Adaptions are a bit more tricky – not all licenses allow you to create an adaption of an original work. Licenses play a major role! 

Where the adaption or derivative work alters the work, a collection does not. 
An adaption consisting of four different images would bring these images together to create a new image consisting of different excerpts from all images, creating a new work. A collection, however, would bring all four images in their own space, with their own attribution to each image. In this way, none of the images are altered, only reproduced. The difference between the derivative work and the collection is whether you alter any of the content or mix them together, or if you reproduce them in original form! 

When you create a collection, each work needs to carry its original license which should be included along with proper citation. You might want to include a license for any contribution you add to the collection, however. Your own license will apply to any new content you add, such as introductions and to the arrangement of the content as well. The license should clearly state what it is applied to!

In an adaption or derivative work it is less obvious where a source comes into play
All sources should still be listed with proper atttibution. An adaption modified the original work in a substantial way. It does not have to be a larger modification but it does have to more than i.e. correcting a spelling mistake. It will ultimately be the copyright law in the country the use case is taking place that will determine what constitutes an adaption. Also, keep in mind that you always can make adaptions as long as it is only for your own use. Some commons examples of what constitutes an adaption is translations and adaptions from novels to film.

Any adaptions you make of CC licensed work should take the original license into account. If you are adapting content, try to use the same license as the original work or a license compatible with the original work. In the chart created by Creative Commons, you can check which
license will be compatible. It is recommend that you include the same license terms as the those present in the original license. For example, if the work you wish to remix included BY-NC, you could use any of the licenses, BY-NC, BY-NC-ND or BY-NC-SA. It is not recommend that you use a more open license than the original.

When remixing several works into a new adaption, you need to consider both or all original licenses before you start remixing. The CC License Compatibility Chart will help you look up compatible licenses. Not all licenses are compatible since you cannot adhere to both licenses when you apply a license to your own work. For instance, a SA license cannot be honored at the same time as a NC restriction. The general rule is that if you have several works you are adapting, you will need to select the most restrictive of the licenses of the work you use
 

4.4 Remixing CC-licensed Work by Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0
CC License Compatibility Chart by Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0

If you are making a article based thesis you can include any articles licensed with a Creative Commons License. If you are the copyright owner of all articles yourself you can proceed without extra caution.

If the publisher is the copyright owner of any of your articles you can still include the articles but be cautious if an article bears the CC-BY-NC-ND or CC BY-ND license. You can include your article in your thesis as long as your thesis is a collection and not an adaptation. In practice this means that you should make sure the article is included in your thesis without any changes made from the publisher's version. You can correct spelling mistakes if needed as well as change the format if it is necessary. 

Make sure to include license of any articles. It should be easy to see to what content the license refers. 

You can give your thesis a license of your own choice as long as everything under another license in your thesis is clearly marked. 

If you want to make sure you can use a work freely, you can look for works in the public domain. If you use work in the public domain you do not need to adhere to any restriction. However, as it is always good academic practice to cite your sources, make sure to include a reference to anything you use.
A work will be automatically assigned to the public domain when the copyright expires. In Denmark this is 70 years after the author(s) death. It may be difficult to know if the copyright is expired if you are using newer work. To help label material some use the Public Domain Mark. Others assign their work to the public domain before their copyright expures.

 The Public Domain mark

This label is used to indicate that a work is not under copyright. It is not a legal tool as it does not change the copyright status of a work. It only served to inform others that a work is not under copyright.

 CC0

CC0 dedicates a work to the public domain in the extent that is is possible. Some copyright law terms do not allow all rights to be waivered. The CC0 tool can also be used to indicate that one waivers all possible rights one has.

Reference and images:

3.1 License Design and Terminology by Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0