Open Educational Resources, or OER, refer to any teaching and learning materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license, such as a Creative Commons License or GNU General Public License for software, that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution with no or limited restrictions.
OER can be: Full courses, learning objects, tests or any other tools, materials, or techniques for use in teaching, learning, and research.
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Course Material |
Open Textbooks |
Videos |
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Lesson Plans |
Software |
Games |
To get started, check out this brief video by Abbey Elder introducing OER in higher education.
Attribution: "An Introduction to Open Educational Resources" by Abbey Elder is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International license
Free or low-cost: OER programs report saving students millions on the cost of education. Low costs mean that students can access course materials from the start of class and, therefore, have every opportunity to succeed.
Student-driven, multimodal learning: OER are one way of engaging students more deeply in the educational process, moving beyond lecture and text. Open education gives instructors the tools to involve students in the creation of learning materials.
Lifelong learning: Because OER are open, they allow students to return to course content again and again--before and after courses.
Customization: Faculty members can customize their class instruction for their students. David Wiley, adjunct faculty at BYU, argues compellingly in "iterating toward openness" that OER can facilitate more meaningful, more inclusive pedagogical practices.
Increasing support for "plug and play" resources: For instructors who have little time to adapt resources, OER projects like OpenStax and the Open Learning Initiative are increasingly making "packaged" resources available. Packaged resources include textbooks with accompanying ancillary resources (slides, clicker exercises, learning materials) and entire courses and course modules.
The content on this page is derived from Anderson, T. & O'English, L. (2018). Open educational resources: Tools for affordable learning. Washington State University Libraries. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
Definition of OER is from UNESCO and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
