2 OER: The Basics
Christine Rickabaugh
What are Open Educational Resources?
“Open Educational Resources (OER) 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.”[1]
In practical terms: OER can be any resource that you use for education or research purposes that is in the public domain or has an open (Creative Commons) license.
If it’s free online it’s OER?
No, not necessarily. Creators post content that you can access for free (think of YouTube) but that doesn’t mean you have the right to download it, edit it, post it on your personal website, or resell it. When we say something is “openly licensed” or “has a Creative Commons license” that means you have permission from the creator to do a few specific things, depending on which license the creator has selected. We call these the 5 Rs of OER.
- Retain: download and save
- Reuse: use often as needed
- Revise: adapt, modify, and translate
- Remix: blend existing content and add your own
- Redistribute: share revisions and remixes
| Material Type | Openly Licensed | Freely Available | Modifiable |
| Open educational resources | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free online resources under all rights reserved copyright | No | Yes | No |
| Materials available through the University Library | No | Yes | No |
| Open access articles and monographs | Yes | Yes | Maybe |
Try this H5P self-check on the Five Rs of Open.
Why use OER?
The reasons educators use OER vary, but here are three of the biggest reasons:
- The benefit to students in saving textbook costs. Textbook costs have risen by more than 1000% over the last 40 years, 4x the rate of the Consumer Price Index.[2] Studies have shown up to 25% of students have dropped a class due to the high cost of a textbook.[3]
- Faculty benefit from being able to customize the course materials. Resources that are openly licensed can be remixed and edited together to create a textbook that meets a course’s learning objectives. They can incorporate more culturally relevant examples, inclusive language and other content.
- Student grades are likely to improve with the use of OER. Open resources are available before, during, and after the first day of class, so students don’t miss out on learning while they wait for a back-ordered textbook. “OER improve end-of-course grades and decrease DFW (D, F, and Withdrawal letter grades) rates for all students. They also improve course grades at greater rates and decrease DFW rates at greater rates for Pell recipient students, part-time students, and populations historically underserved by higher education [emphasis added]”[4] (p. 262).
Wondering about open/Creative Commons licenses?
Creative Commons licenses are a way to give any creator (from an individual to a large organization) a standardized way to grant public permission to use a creative work that falls under copyright law. This is a way of publicly telling the world, “As copyright holder, I give you permission to do certain things with my work.” The type of license defines what you’ll allow others to do. You can visit CreativeCommons.org for additional information.
- William & Flora Hewett Foundation. (n.d.). Open education. https://hewlett.org/strategy/open-education/ ↵
- Keenan, Meghan. (2015, August 4.) College textbook prices up over 1000 percent since 1977. The Washington Examiner. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/red-alert-politics/1512366/college-textbook-prices-up-over-1000-percent-since-1977/ ↵
- Florida Virtual Campus. (2016, October 7). 2016 student textbook and course materials survey. https://www.oerknowledgecloud.org/archive/2016%20Student%20Textbook%20Survey.pdf ↵
- Colvard, N. B., Watson, C. E., & Park, H. (2018). The impact of open educational resources on various student success metrics. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. (30, 2).https://isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE3386.pdf ↵
