This text was originally published by Michelle Reed on UTA Libraries’ blog as pa
This text was originally published by Michelle Reed on UTA Libraries’ blog as part of the Year of Open in 2017.
Earlier this year, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) published “OER Mythbusting.” The document identifies seven common myths related to open educational resources (OER) and presents facts to counter the myths. In my discussions with UTA faculty and administrators about OER over the past year, I’ve been asked to address a few of the myths in multiple conversations. Below I’ll discuss these and others I’ve encountered in my time at UTA.
“OER ARE JUST FREE RESOURCES.”
Conflating free and open is incredibly common. However, the distinction is important. The “open” in open educational resources implies educators and students can access the material for free and ALSO exercise great freedom in revising and reusing the material. Open in this context hinges on authors proactively granting to downstream users the legal permission to engage in acts traditionally prohibited by copyright laws. This includes permission to download and retain the material, to share the material, and to revise or remix the material. These permissions are frequently communicated via a Creative Commons license.
Understanding the permissions component of OER may seem challenging because the boundaries of what is and is not allowable under copyright law are frequently blurry. Generally, in the absence of explicit permissions, it’s best to assume that everything you find on the Web is copyrighted. With copyrighted materials, you have the freedom to view the content, even for free. It’s also legal to link to copyrighted resources that are freely available on the Web. However, that’s generally where our rights as users end. Therefore, if you embed such resources into Blackboard or modify them in any way, you are taking a risk. Working with OER eliminates this risk because OER are intended to be legally shared and reused.
“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE RESOURCE.”
This one is true—sort of. It’s correct that there is a cost associated with the production and dissemination of resources. Even digital resources have hosting and maintenance costs, and all quality educational resources, regardless of how they are shared, take significant time and resources to produce. What we mean by “free” in the context of OER is “free for the user”—not free of all production costs.
So then, how are such projects possible? OER represent a shift in how publishing educational content is funded. Traditionally, this is how the system works: commercial publishers invest in creating a resource and then recoup the cost (and make a plump profit) through sales to students; textbook authors typically make (far less plump) royalties off of these sales. In this situation, the textbook is almost always fully protected by copyright, which is usually held by publishers rather than authors. This prevents educators from customizing or modifying the content in any way without seekin