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Open Access: Open Educational Resources

This guide explains what open access and open educational resources (OER) are, offers guidance on how to use them effectively, and connects students, faculty, and the community to free, reliable scholarly materials available without subscription barriers.

Acknowlegements

The Open Educational Practices guide was originally created by Steven Bell at Temple University and has been adapted for Mitchell Community College.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Proper attribution is to the Open Educational Practices guide and Steven Bell.

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What are Open Educational Resources?

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, ad Cultural Organization defines Open Educational Resources (OER) as follows:

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt, and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video, and animation."

5R Activities

In his blog post, Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources, David Wiley defines "open" as everyone's ability to engage freely and with perpetual permission in these 5R activities:

  1. Retain: make, own, and control a copy of the resource.
  2. Revise: edit, adapt, and modify your copy of the resource.
  3. Remix: combine your original or revised copy of the resource with other existing material to create something new.
  4. Reuse: use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly.
  5. Redistribute: share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource with others.

Benefits of OERs

Educators, learners, and learning institutions are driving the development of OER. Benefits to using OER include:

  • Providing an alternative to the rising costs of education.
  • Alleviating the burden of student debt while providing opportunities to students who might not otherwise be able to afford or access materials.
  • Equally or more effective than traditional commercial textbooks.
  • Providing an opportunity to try new ways of teaching and learning that are more collaborative and participatory.

"A Review of the Effectiveness & Perceptions of Open Educational Resources As Compared to Textbooks" by Research Shorts (c) YouTube (2017), licensed under CC BY

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