Getting Started
Introduction to Open Educational Resources
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Provide a definition of open educational resources.
- Explain the difference between OER and other free educational materials.
- Describe the challenges and benefits of using OER in a class.
The purpose of this handbook is to get you involved in the adoption, creation, and use of open educational resources (OER). In this chapter, we will introduce you to the concept of OER and the benefits and challenges of using them.
Attribution: “OER Basics” from Open Oregon [Youtube] is available under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
Background
The open education movement was originally inspired by the open source community, with a focus on broadening access to information through the use of free, open content. As Bliss and Smith explain in their breakdown of the history of open education:
“much of our attention focused on OER’s usefulness at providing knowledge in its original form to those who otherwise might not have access. The implicit goal was to equalize access to disadvantaged and advantaged peoples of the world – in MIT’s language, to create ‘a shared intellectual Common.’”[1]
Following the rise of open education in the early 2000s, growing interest in open courseware (particularly open textbooks) catapulted the movement to new heights; however, the movement toward greater OER awareness among instructors is growing at a slow and steady rate. In a survey done in the U.S. in 2018 indicated that 47 percent of instructors had never heard of OER, whilst the remaining instructors had some degree of familiarity with the concept. There is still quite a large number of instructors are unaware of OER, but the percentage has shrunk by 19 percent since 2014, showing that awareness is growing.[2]
What is an OER?
Open educational resources (OER) are openly-licensed, freely available educational materials that can be modified and redistributed by users. They can include any type of educational resource, from syllabi to full courses.
- Openly-licensed: You can read about this more in the Copyright and Licensing chapter.
- Freely Available: The resources must be freely available online with no fee to access. Physical OER may be sold at a low cost to facilitate printing.
- Modifiable: The resource must be made available under an open license that allows for editing. Ideally, it should also be available in an editable format.[3]
The most comprehensive definition of OER available today is provided by the Hewlett Foundation:
“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.”[4]
With a definition so broad that it includes any educational material so long as it is free to access and open, it mig