Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are educational materials that are open and free to use for instruction and learning.

OERs can be adapted to the needs of the instructor and students.

Adopting OER in your course ensures equitable access to course materials. Access to OER reduces the cost of textbooks for students.

The 5 Rs of Open Educational Resources:

1. Retain: The right to make, own, and control copies of the content.
2. 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).
3. Revise: The right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language).
4. 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 mash-up).
5. 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).

Finding Open Educational Resources

Search for OER in online repositories:

• eCampus Ontario’s Open Library
• OER Commons
• MERLOT
• OpenStax
• MIT Open Courseware
• Applied Math and Science Education Repository (AMSER)
• Open Textbook Library

More information about Open Education is available on the Library’s Open Access Guide.