Open Educational Resources

"OERlogo" by Michael Reschke. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning resources released under an open license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER can be full courses, course materials, lesson plans, open textbooks, learning objects, videos, games, tests, software, or any other tool, material, or technique that supports access to knowledge. Open Educational Resources are broadly considered to meet the “5Rs Framework,” meaning that users are free to:

• Retain: Users have the right to make, archive, and "own" copies of the content;

• Reuse:  Content can be reused in its unaltered form;

• Revise: Content can be adapted, adjusted, modified or altered;

• Remix: The original or revised content can be combined with other content to create something new;

• Redistribute: Copies of the content can be shared with others in its original, revised or remixed form."

Excerpted from SPARC. 

Publishing your work under a Creative Commons (CC) licenses makes it easy to share with others under terms that you choose.  Many Open Educational Resources are published under CC licenses because the licenses are easy to understand, standardized, and designed for online use.