School of Arts, Sciences and Health

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

OERs are educational materials both print and digital that are created by educators with the intention of sharing with other educators. Published materials are often licensed to ensure the author(s) receive financial credit each time their work is purchased, say in a bookstore each semester. OERs are licensed in a way that enables educators from around the world to locate, adapt, and use various materials from others in their own classrooms. 

OERs can come in a variety of formats:

• Primary sources - Images, video, and sound recordings.  Some sources are in the public domain, while others have been licensed as open by their creators.   In addition, many texts that are in the public domain are available online/electronically.
• Learning content - created content such as lectures, videos, and course excersies 

Why OERs?

Librarians would like to see the trend towards OER materials center stage since we directly observe how many students are unable to or are unwilling to purchase expensive textbooks for an 8-week or 16-week course. OSUIT is partnering with OpenStax to reduce costs for students. 

The Open Education Movement was 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)