What is OER?

Before we begin the work of adopting, customizing, or creating an OER, we need a strong understanding of where OER came from and what, exactly, they are.

Background

The open education movement was originally inspired by the open source community, with a focus on broadening access to information through the use of free, open content. As Bliss and Smith explain in their breakdown of the history of open education:

“much of our attention focused on OER’s usefulness at providing knowledge in its original form to those who otherwise might not have access. The implicit goal was to equalize access to disadvantaged and advantaged peoples of the world – in MIT’s language, to create ‘a shared intellectual Common.’” (Bliss and Smith, 2017)

Following the rise of open education in the early 2000s, growing interest in Massive Open Online Courses, (MOOCs), open courseware, and particularly open textbooks catapulted the movement to new heights; however, there are still many instructors who have never heard of open educational resources (OER) today.

What is an OER?

Open educational resources (OER) are openly-licensed, freely available educational materials that can be modified and redistributed by users. They can include any type of educational resource, from syllabi to full courses.

• Openly-licensed: You can read more about what this entails in the next section, Copyright and Licensing.
• Freely Available: The resources must be freely available online with no fee to access. Physical OER may be sold at a low cost to cover the cost of printing.
• Modifiable: The resource must be made available under an open license that allows for editing. Ideally, it should also be available in an editable format.

With a definition so broad that it includes any educational material so long as it is free to access and open, it might be easier to ask, “What isn’t an OER?”

What is not an OER?

If a resource is not free or openly licensed, it cannot be described as an OER. For example, most materials accessed through your library’s subscriptions cannot be altered, remixed, or redistributed. These materials require special permission to use and therefore cannot be considered “open.” Table 1 below explains the difference between OER and other resources often misattributed as OER.

Although some materials are free to access for a library’s users, that does not mean that they are free to access for everyone (including the library). Similarly, while some open access resources are made available under a copyright license that enables modification, this is not always the case.

Sources

1. Bliss, T.J. and Smith, M. “A Brief History of Open Educational Resources.” In Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science, edited by Rajiv Jhangiani and Robert Biswas-Diener, 9-27. London: Ubiquity Press, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bbc.b.
2. Weller, Martin. The Battle for Open: How Openness Won and Why it Doesn’t Feel Like Victory. London: Ubiquity Press, 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bam

This chapter was adapted from The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder, licensed CC BY 4.0.