Open Educational Resources (OER)

This Topic Guide is intended for faculty interested in learning more about Open Educational Resources (OER) and LCT-designated courses. Information presented here includes open education efforts in the state of Oregon, links to OER, and a bit about the philosophy behind open education.

This guide will help you:

•  Learn more about OER and why lowering costs for students is important
• Discover open source resources in popular OER repositories to use in your class
• Find answers to OER FAQ (from Open Oregon) 
• Learn about OER efforts at CCC and Oregon
• Learn about Low-Cost Text (LCT) courses at CCC 
• Learn about Creative Commons and open licensing
• Brush up on copyright and fair use in educational settings

Open Educational Resources 

Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open (Creative Commons) license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and reshare them. OER can include:

• Learning content: full courses, course material, content modules, learning objects, collections, and journals.
• Tools: software to support the creation, delivery, use and improvement of open learning content including searching and organization of content, content and learning management systems, content development tools, and online learning communities.
• Implementation resources: Intellectual property licenses to promote open publishing of materials, design-principles, and localization of content.

The above bullet points are from UMass Amherst Libraries - a great place to learn even more about OER.

Blank screen, prefer the HD version, or want Closed Captioning? Watch the YouTube video.
Originally published by intheacademia (2012).