Faculty/staff guide to Open Educational Resources (OER): OER basics
On this OER basics page, explore: what OER means, watch videos about OER basics, and explore links to modules and tutorials to learn more about OER.
What is OER?
OER is an educational movement
OER stands for "Open Educational Resources" and is linked to an educational movement that began 20+ years ago and has become a global educational movement. Faculty who use OER in their courses are using freely available, high-quality educational resources in order to bring textbook costs down for students.
"Open educational resources (OER) are any resources available at little or no cost that can be used for teaching, learning, or research."
The term can include textbooks, course readings, and other learning content; simulations, games, and other learning applications; syllabi, quizzes, and assessment tools; and virtually any other material that can be used for educational purposes. [...] OER can originate from colleges and universities, libraries, archival organizations, government agencies, commercial organizations such as publishers, or faculty or other individuals who develop educational resources they are willing to share."
Text source: "7 Things You Should Know About Open Educational Resources" by EDUCAUSE
Image source: "oer_logo_EN_1" by Breno Trautwein is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Learn more about OER
- Learn OER - Open Washington ModulesSelf-paced modules created by Open Washington to learn about OER and why it matters.
- Free to LearnAn Open Educational Resources Policy Development Guidebook for Community College Governance Officials
- OER Handbook for EducatorsThis wiki-style handbook is designed to help educators find, use, develop and share OER to enhance their effectiveness online and in the classroom.
- OER TutorialOpen tutorial about OER by Algonquin College. This course is meant as a primer to anyone interested in learning more about the OER movement. It provides learning opportunities related to the origins of open resources, copyright and open licensing. It also acts as an overview of searching best practices both on the web and in OER repositories.
Videos about OER basics
This video answers the questions: What OER support do I have? ; Where can I find potential OER for my course? ; What's the difference between copyrighted, openly licensed, and open access materials ; and How do I know what permissions I have any OER that I want to use?
This video has captions. Click the ^ arrow at the bottom of the video to use the table of contents.
Are you unexpectedly adopting OER while transitioning your instruction online? This "Getting started with OER" webinar (56 mins.) is designed for beginners. Don't have an hour to watch the webinar? Explore the slides, linked below. This webinar covers:
- How OER is different from "free" resources
- How Creative Commons (CC) licenses work
- Where to find OER
- How to incorporate open pedagogy into your instruction.
In less than 2 minutes, watch this video produced in Washington state that explains the concept of OER and the 5 R's:
Are you considering incorporating open resources into your course to save students money and improve teaching and learning? Watch this 6-minute video for some tips for finding Open Educational Resources to build or add to your classes.
Text source: "OER - Open Educational Resources" by Portland Community College Library licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0
Watch this short (2:22 minutes) animated video about open education and why it matters.
Attributions
Except where otherwise noted, the content in this guide by Tacoma Community College Library is licensed under CC BY SA 4.0. Please see sub-pages for any additional attributions.
Except where otherwise noted, the content in these guides by Tacoma Community College Library is licensed under CC BY SA 4.0.
This openly licensed content allows others to cite, share, or modify this content, with credit to TCC Library. When reusing or adapting this content, include this statement in the new document: This content was originally created by Tacoma Community College Library and shared with a CC BY SA 4.0 license.
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