1.1 Open Educational Resources
Lauri M. Aesoph
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Define OER and develop a basic concept about them.
- Understand how OER work and how they can be beneficial to the teaching/learning processes around the globe.
What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?
There are a number of different definitions for open educational resources, but they all contain similar elements. Some of them are as follows:
| Source | Definition |
|---|---|
| UNESCO | OER are teaching, learning or research materials that are in the public domain or released with an intellectual property license that allows for free use, adaptation, and distribution. |
| Hewlett Foundation | OER are defined as teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. |
| OER Commons | OER are the teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost, and without needing to ask permission. Unlike copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights. |
The 5R Framework
Each of the above definitions of OER is built around the 5R framework. The 5R framework, developed by David Wiley, is a useful tool to help understand whether a teaching resource is, in fact, an open educational resource. The 5R framework defines the rights of a user over content, i.e., what a user must be able do with the content in order for it to be considered an OER.
- Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content.
- Reuse – the right to reuse the content in its unaltered/verbatim form.
- Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content.
- Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other content to create something new.
- Redistribute – the right to make and share copies of the original content, a revision of the content, or remixes of the content with others.
How Open Educational Resources Work
The following video was created by Nadia Mireles and won third prize in a recent U.S. Department of Education open education video contest. It does a good job of explaining OER, including how they can be shared, reused, and remixed in different educational contexts. (Video length is about 3.5 minutes.)
Drilling down into OER more deeply we find open textbooks, a subset of OER. Simply, an open textbook is a textbook that has been released with an open license, typically a Creative Commons license.
The open license allows the textbook to be copied, shared, and revised. This means that the textbook can be distributed to students for free. It also means that educators have the right to change the content of the textbook, allowing textbooks to be customized to meet the specific needs of learners. Additional information about open textbooks is given in the attached TEDxKyoto talk, which is delivered by Dr. David Ernst, Chief Information Officer in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Ernst leads the Open Textbook Network hosted at the University of Minnesota. (Video length is about 7 minutes.)
Additional Resources
The Open Education Matters: Why is it important to share content? video by Nadia Mireles is used under a CC BY license.
The Knowledge Belongs to Everyone: David Ernst at TEDxKyoto 2012 video by TEDx Talks is used under a CC BY license.
