Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost. Unlike traditionally copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that retains copyright in their OERs in order to allow certain kinds of public uses. 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 an adapted work. How do you know your options? OER are usually made available under open licensing such as a Creative Commons license which indicates how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared.
An OER can take the form of an open textbook, tutorial, manual, educational video, quiz, syllabus, or...almost anything. The key word is open, indicating the creator has made it freely available for others to reuse.
Using OERs in your classroom instead of traditionally-published texts can significantly lower students' costs. When evaluating potential OERs for your classes, seek to answer these questions:
- Has this OER been peer reviewed?
- What type of license is this OER published under, and does it allow for modification, or just reuse?
- Are there clear instructions for using the OER?
- Will the bandwidth demands of this OER make access challenging for my students off-campus?
- Has this OER been properly maintained (up-to-date content, no broken links)?
Make sure you check your links regularly to see that the resource has stayed put!