LibGuides: Open Educational Resources--OER: OER 101

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:

Paid subscription items that allow sharing and modifications.
Items with a Creative Commons license that allow the item to be freely used but not altered or re-purposed.
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)