Open Educational Resources: OER Explained

OER Global Logo by Jonathas Mello is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Unported 3.0 License

According to the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

"Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources released under an open license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OERs can be full courses, course materials, lesson plans, open textbooks, learning objects, videos, games, tests, software, or any other tool, material, or technique that supports access to knowledge."

The Open Education movement is built around the 5Rs of Openness

• Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
• Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
• Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
• Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
• Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

Why Use Open Educational Resources?

OERs are free, ready-to-use content for your classes. 
Creators and users are free to retain rights, reuse content, remix content, revise content, or redistribute content.

Materials are:

Most material is licensed under Creative Commons.