Open Educational Resources (OER)

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open educational resources (OERs) are free digitized materials offered to educators, students, and self-learners under a Creative Commons (or other "open") license that allows users to copy, use, adapt, and redistribute for educational and research purposes. 

 Works in the public domain also fall into the category of OERs and are free to use by the public. 

The 5Rs of OERs 

To encourage educators to embrace the openness of OERs, a framework known as the 5Rs was established to define the rights of open content and provide guidance on how to use these resources. These rights are maintained by open licensing organizations such as Creative Commons, enabling creators to claim how their work can be used publicly. 

Source: David Wiley. Available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Brief History of OERs 

When OERs were introduced to the education world in 2002, skeptics questioned whether an open resource model would work. Faculty, college administrators, and others were concerned about whether OERs could match the quality and authority of textbooks and supplemental materials published by established textbook providers. 

 In the following years, as more organizations and institutions started open publishing programs and Creative Commons began its licensing platform to certify and kick-start the open licensed model, some educators still questioned how effective OERs could be and whether they could live up to their promise as free or low-cost replacements for traditional textbooks. 

Today, evidence is starting to mount that OERs can positively impact the educational system, from K-12 through postgraduate programs. And these impacts are both financial and performative. 

Why Use OERs? 

Flexibility 

Move beyond the restraints of traditional pedagogy and explore new ways to connect students with learning content. Open Educational Resources allow instructors to customize course content to the specific learning goals of their courses and adapt new approaches to teaching and learning. 

Affordability

With the rising cost of higher education, every dollar counts. The ballooning cost of expensive textbooks and course materials is outpacing inflation and wages, resulting in a negative impact on students. The 2016-2017 report from the National Association of College Stores found students spent an average of $579 on their required course materials.  

Student Success and Retention

One study shows that 65% of students don't buy textbooks due to the cost, even when they know it will affect their grade.  Nearly 50% of students reported that the cost of textbooks directly impacts what types and the number of classes students are able to take. Help your students succeed by using no-cost textbooks and course materials. 

Benefits of OERs Beyond Cost Savings 

As OERs became increasingly available during the 2000s and expanded worldwide, higher education institutions began to adopt OERs into their courses—even offering "zero textbooks" classes. With the growth in OERs, educators began to realize that the benefits went beyond saving money for students. 

Driven by innovative faculty, educators began adapting OERs for their purposes, creating original course content that involved and engaged students in ways textbook reading and practice did not. In the process, teachers began to assess the materials and learning outcomes of their courses more deliberately because they now had the freedom to adapt, modify, and correlate those resources in a more targeted way.

References 

College Board. (n.d.). Trends college pricing - College Board research. https://research.collegeboard.org/trends/college-pricing

Florida Virtual Campus, Office of Distance Learning & Student Services. (2018, December 20). 2018 student textbook and course materials survey. https://dlss.flvc.org/documents/210036/1314923/2018+Student+Textbook+and+Course+Materials+Survey+-+Executive+Summary.pdf/3c0970b0-ea4b-9407-7119-0477f7290a8b