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Open Educational Resources--OER: OER 101

Books with O P E N on the covers.

What is OER?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an Open license that permit no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

OER include educational materials that can be freely downloaded or copied, edited, and shared to better serve all students.

Note that the following are NOT OER:

  1. Paid subscription items that allow sharing and modifications.
  2. Items with a Creative Commons license that allow the item to be freely used but not altered or re-purposed.
  3. Curated packages of materials for a fee. Although the items themselves may be open, users are paying for the convenience and expertise.

OERs are a critical component of the open education movement.

OER in 2 minutes

What is OER? (2016), hosted by The Council of Chief State School Officers, is licensed CC-BY 4.0

Librarians' Role

Our role is to collaborate with faculty to locate, evaluate, and curate OER resources, and resources that are already available through the TCC Library (text and multimedia) that match course objectives and provide low/no cost textbook alternatives to students. 

5Rs

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

  • 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)

OER Workshops for Faculty

Are you interested in adopting / adapting / or creating an OER Textbook for your course? Maybe you haven't found the time or just don't know where to start. The TCC OER Librarians are here to help! We heard the feedback from our Spring '23 participants and have revised our Getting Started with OER workshop in Blackboard. Anyone is welcome to enroll after completing OCO's OER 101 online course.  Some may only need to complete the first two modules in order to start incorporating OER into their course, but everyone is encouraged to complete all four modules.  Compensation may be available for those who complete the workshop; details will be forthcoming. While the workshop can be completed all online, the OER librarians will be available for consultations in person and on Zoom throughout the Spring and Summer semesters.

Pre-requisite for workshop enrollment is the completion of requirements for the OCO OER 101 badge.

We encourage you to get started as soon as possible, in order to maximize the available funding for this work.

Questions? Please email OERLibrarian@tulsacc.edu

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