Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost, and without needing to ask permission. Unlike copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights. OER may include full course curricula, course materials, modules, textbooks, media, assessments, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques, whether digital or otherwise, used to support access to knowledge.
In some cases, that means you can download a resource and share it with colleagues and students. In other cases, you may be able to download a resource, edit it in some way, and then re-post it as a remixed work. How do you know your options? OER often have a Creative Commons license or other permission to let you know how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared. (From OER Commons)
This video is intended to serve as an introduction to OER for college professors.
"An Introduction to Open Educational Resources" by Abbey Elder is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Creative Commons Licenses are given by the content creator and allow the content creator to keep copyrights of their work while allowing others to use the work with certain permissions, without seeking prior approval. Below are the licenses, from least to most restrictive:
CC BY: allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
Credit must be given to the creator.
CC BY-SA: allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
Credit must be given to the creator, and adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
CC BY-NC: allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
Credit must be given to the creator, and only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
CC BY-NC-SA: allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
Credit must be given to the creator, only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted, and adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
CC BY-ND: allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
Credit must be given to the creator and no derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
CC BY-NC-ND: allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
Credit must be given to the creator, only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted, and no derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
This content is from About CC Licenses and is licensed CC BY 4.0
To be considered OER, the material must have an open license. Open licenses enable the 5R permissions:
| RETAIN | Make and own copies of content |
| REUSE | Use the content in a variety of ways |
| REVISE | Adapt or modify the content |
| REMIX | Combine original or revised content with other open content to create something new |
| REDISTRIBUTE | Share copies of original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others |
This material is an adaptation of Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources, which was originally written by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition/.
The Open Educational Group conducts empirical research on the impact of OER adoption. Consult their Review Project page for a summary of all known empirical research on the impact of OER adoption.
This guide is adapted from Open Educational Resources by Carrie Gits and Open Educational Resources (OER) & Textbook Affordability by Gabby Hernandez, both licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
