What are OERs
It is easy to throw around the term ‘OER.’ It is easy to smile and nod when people talk about accessibility. Free, Adaptable, Implementable? Sure, Great. But are OERs really?
OER Definition
“Open Educational Resources (OERs) 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 [permissions], that [allow] no-cost access re-use, repurpose, adaptation and redistribution by others” (Harvard, 2024).
Basically OERs are learning materials you can access, adapt, share, and more at no cost at all.
What are Open Permissions?
The best way to understand what “open permissions” means and what that allows you to do, is to remember the “5Rs”. They are:
- Retain: to keep the work forever
- Reuse: use the work for your own purpose
- Revise: adapt and modify the work
- Remix: combine it with other resources
- Redistribute: share the work on a broad scale
If material has “open permissions” it means that they have been made available for free and can be adapted in any of the ways outlines in the “5R” usually to be used for student and curriculum (Harvard 2024).
What OERs are Not:
Learning materials don’t qualify as OERs unless it is openly licensed, freely available and modifiable.
Examples:
- Textbooks You Have to Buy: Anything that you need to pay for just to read or use.
- Subscription-Only Resources: Articles or videos that you can only access by paying a monthly fee.
- Content with Strict Copyright: Any media that can’t be shared or modified because of copyright rules.
