Open Educational Resources (OER)
OER Overview
Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.
— UNESCO/2019Open Licenses
An Open license refers to a license that respects the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner and provides permissions granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials. 'UNESCO 2019'
— Image adapted from: “Relationship between the public domain, open license, and all rights reserved copyright” by Boyoung Chae, licensed under CC-BY 3.0.
Creative Commons Licenses
There are six main Creative Commons licenses. The six CC licenses are based on four conditions.
License Conditions
When using a Creative Commons license, creators choose a set of conditions they wish to apply to their work.
The Six Main CC Licenses
Choose a License for Your Work
Finding OER
OER Repositories and Libraries
Provides open textbooks that are peer-reviewed by educators, and can be reused and remixed to align with general course requirements
offering 1604 open textbooks, free to use and distribute, and are licensed to be freely adapted or changed with proper attribution.
it is the adaptable, user-friendly non-profit open education resource platform that educators trust for creating, customizing, and sharing accessible, interactive textbooks, adaptive homework, and ancillary materials.
Lists open textbooks in a number of subject areas. It also includes a directory of other open textbook sites and a guide to using open textbooks
offers a curated collection of textbooks, many of which have been reviewed and vetted by educators
OER Courses
A free and open online publication of educational material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum, ranging from introductory to the most advanced graduate courses.
It is a free and open collection of material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum..
Personalized learning dashboard with instructional videos.
Hundreds of free courses from world-class universities.
Global nonprofit removing barriers of cost and location.
Aggregated OER Collections
The collections of aggregated OER below are some of the larger known initiatives that are utilized by educators and library staff. Many of them have overlapping resources, as they curate and aggregate their content from the same content providers.
Repository of thousands of member-contributed resources.
An extensive OER library aggregates a variety of OER across learning levels and subjects, and has an embedded authoring tool for remixing and localizing content.
OER by Discipline Directory – Open Textbook
A reference of OER listed by subject area and discipline.
Federated Search Tools
OASIS is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier by searching multiple sources for OER and other open content at once.
The Mason OER Metafinder links to a wide array of open content, including open access books and articles, documents in the public domain, and OER.
INSTITUTIONAL COLLECTIONS
The institutions below share collections of OER specific to their institution:
(Georgia higher ed institutions)
(University of Michigan)
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHERS AND REPOSITORIES
Open Access journal articles
Open Access books
Public domain books and documents
Open access book publisher
OER Authoring & Publishing Tools
OER Commons is one of the largest repositories for OER, and they make an authoring tool available for free use. Open Author allows you to write directly in a simple interface or import your own documents. One of its best features is the Accessibility Checker that will review your content and alert you to opportunities to make it more accessible.
Pressbooks is an open textbook creation platform. Authors can write and publish books that can be exported into a few formats, including PDF, MOBI, and EPUB, and shared. Many examples of Pressbooks are available in their Directory.
is a free, open-source framework used to create, share, and reuse interactive HTML5 content, such as interactive videos, quizzes, presentations, and games. Example : Ecampusontario H5p Studio : https://h5pstudio.ecampusontario.ca/