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Open Educational Resources (OER)

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by the use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses) which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere."--Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)

Examples of OER include:

  • Textbooks
  • Streaming media
  • Lecture slides
  • Quizzes & assignments
  • Games

Opencontent.org states that true OER are free to access and allow for the 5R's of open content:

  1. Reuse: use the content in a wide range of ways
  2. Remix: combine original or revised content with other material to create something new
  3. Redistribute: share copies of the original content, revisions, or remixes with others
  4. Revise: adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself
  5. Retain: make, own, and control copies of the content

5 Rs of OER

Making Open Educational Resources: A Guide for Students by Students by Ashlyne O'Neil; Jykee Pavo; Mikayla Bornais; Tariq Al-Rfouh; Chris Nardone; Elijah Annoh-Waithe; Lawrence Villacorte; Lorenzo Pernasilici; Marianne Kantati; Mitchel Macmillan; Mohamed Eldabagh; Norman Ha; Devin Wacheski; Anas Al-Chalabi; Dave Cormier; Brandon Mailloux; Ghanem Ghanem; Kamaal Kusow; Kristen Swiatoschik; Patrick Carnevale; Rana Kilani; Steven Shlimoon; and Zain Raza is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

OER Basics