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2 Familiarize Yourself with OER

What OER is

OER stands for Open Educational Resources. These are teaching, learning, and research materials that are freely available for use and repurposing by others. OER can include a wide range of resources such as:

  • Textbooks
  • Course materials
  • Syllabi
  • Lecture notes
  • Assignments and tests
  • Educational videos
  • Multimedia applications

What sets OER apart from traditional educational materials is that they are typically licensed to allow anyone to freely use, modify, and distribute them. Common licenses used for OER are Creative Commons licenses, which ensure that the resources can be shared and adapted legally.

OER is a part of the larger open education movement, which aims to reduce costs for students, increase access to education, and improve the quality of teaching materials through collaboration and adaptation.

What OER isn’t

Not all educational resources are OER. To be considered Open Educational Resources (OER), materials must be both freely accessible and openly licensed, meaning they can be used, modified, and shared with few or no restrictions. Some examples of what is not OER include:

  1. Commercial Textbooks: Traditional textbooks that are sold by publishers are not OER because they are not freely accessible and typically cannot be legally modified or shared without permission.
  2. Copyrighted Materials: Any resources (books, articles, videos, etc.) that are under traditional copyright and cannot be shared, reused, or adapted without explicit permission are not OER.
  3. Free but Restricted Resources: Resources that are available online for free but cannot be modified, shared, or redistributed (e.g., many online articles, YouTube videos without an open license) do not qualify as OER.
  4. Licensed Materials with Limited Permissions: Some educational materials may be licensed for specific uses (e.g., for classroom use only) but still impose significant restrictions on modification or redistribution. These are also not OER.
  5. Subscription-Based Resources: Educational resources that are behind a paywall or require a subscription, even if offered at a discounted rate, are not considered OER.

To summarize, while many resources may be free or accessible online, they only qualify as OER if they meet the criteria of open licensing, allowing for unrestricted use, adaptation, and redistribution.

 

The 5 R’s of OER

The 5 R’s of OER describe the core principles that define what users are allowed to do with Open Educational Resources. These principles ensure that OER can be freely used, modified, and shared. The 5 R’s are:

  1. Retain: The right to make, own, and control copies of the content. Users can download, duplicate, store, and manage the material in various formats.
    • Example: Downloading an open textbook and saving it to your device for future use.
  2. Reuse: The right to use the content in a variety of ways. OER can be used in different contexts such as in classrooms, websites, presentations, or learning management systems.
    • Example: Using a lesson plan from OER in a live class or a webinar.
  3. Revise: The right to adapt, modify, or alter the content. This allows users to adjust or improve the material to suit their specific needs.
    • Example: Translating an OER textbook into another language or updating an outdated example in a math textbook.
  4. Remix: The right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new. Users can integrate different OERs into a new resource.
    • Example: Combining several OER videos, articles, and lesson plans into a new, customized online course.
  5. Redistribute: The right to share copies of the original, revised, or remixed content with others. Users can distribute the content to others without restrictions.
    • Example: Sharing a customized version of an OER textbook with colleagues or students.

These 5 R’s reflect the philosophy of OER, emphasizing freedom of access, collaboration, and customization in education.

 

OER_Mythbusting_2017.pdf (sparcopen.org)

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Introduction to Low or Zero-Cost Course Materials Copyright © by Morehead State University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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