OER

"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."

- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation 

OER can include:

• Textbooks
• Assignments, Handouts, Tests and Quizzes
• Audiovisual Resources, Sound Recordings, Photos, Illustrations
• Entire Courses, Lesson Plans
• Anything to help you teach as long as it is open.

It is not enough to be free. OER should also be open.

But what do we mean by open?

OER should follow the 5 R's:

• Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
• Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
• Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
• Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
• Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

(5 R's text from "The Access Compromise and the 5th R" by David Wiley, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.)