Open Educational Resources (OER)

What is an Open Educational Resource (OER)?

Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium--digital or otherwise--that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

• Definition from Hewlett Foundation 

"In its simplest form, the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) describes any educational resources (including curriculum maps, course materials, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any other materials that have been designed for use in teaching and learning) that are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees...  an OER is simply an educational resource that incorporates a license that facilitates reuse, and potentially adaptation, without first requesting permission from the copyright holder."

• Definition from “A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER),” prepared for the Commonwealth of Learning by Neil Butcher and edited by Asha Kanwar (COL) and Stamenka Uvalic´-Trumbic´ (UNESCO).

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Open Educational Resources is intended to support authors, teachers, professors, librarians, and all open educators in evaluating when and how they can incorporate third party copyright materials into Open Educational Resources to meet their pedagogical goals.

“Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OER, available at auw.cl/oer is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Unless otherwise indicated, information and materials in this guide are released under a Creative Commons Attribution License 

The content of this LibGuide is meant to inform and educate; the content in this guide does not constitute legal advice in any way.