what is an oer college course

What are OER?

The Open Course Library, from Washington State University, is a collection of expertly developed educational materials – including textbooks, syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments – for 81 high-enrollment college courses. 42 courses have been completed so far, providing faculty with a high-quality, affordable option that will cost students no more than $30 …

What is open educational resources (OER)?

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)

Is the course content OER or not?

Nov 10, 2021 · OER allow learning materials to be inclusive and accessible to all students at any time and place, supporting student readiness with convenient access to course content at immediate point of need; moreover, they increase the impact of instruction beyond the classroom by allowing students to take these materials with them after the course ends — enabling …

What are the copyright laws for OER course materials?

Definition of Open Educational Resources (OER) OER are freely and publicly available teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. For example, instructors may download the material, tailor it to one’s course, save a copy locally to …

What is an OER course?

Definition of Open Educational Resources (OER) OER can include textbooks, course materials and full courses, modules, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. An open source (or open) textbook is a textbook which is OER.

What does OER mean in college?

open educational resourcesOER, or open educational resources, are defined by OER Commons as “teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.” In other words, OER are textbooks and other course ...Mar 11, 2020

What is the purpose of OER?

OER are digital contents for teaching-learning purpose released under open intellectual property licenses to enable their free use or repurposing. These resources include full courses of academic programs or learning material such as textbooks, lessons, lectures, assessments, and tests [1].

What are the types of OER?

Open Educational ResourcesOpen Courseware.Learning Modules.Open Textbooks.Streaming Videos.Open Access Journals.Online Tutorials.Digital Learning Objects.Oct 4, 2021

Why are OERs important in education?

OER gives a wide variety of materials from which to build a class without having to start from scratch. OER is important because it provides affordable material to students, allows faculty to enhance their own work, and provides faculty with content for classes.

Does OER have to be free?

Open educational resources are and always will be free, but not all free resources are OER. Free resources may be temporarily free or may be restricted from use at some time in the future (including by the addition of fees to access those resources).

What are the disadvantages of OER?

Disadvantages of OERs include:Quality issues. ... Lack of human interaction between teachers and students. ... Language and/or cultural barriers. ... Technological issues. ... Intellectual property/copyright concerns. ... Sustainability issues.

What is the usual license of OERs?

For OER, the most widely used open licenses are the Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which make it possible for educators to freely and legally share their work. Creative Commons licenses work with copyright to automatically give users a set of usage rights pertaining to that work.

What is the OER starter kit?

This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER). The text is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER.Jul 1, 2019

What is the best open educational resources?

Free LearningMIT OCW. As the forerunner of the Open Educational Resource movement, MIT's Open CourseWare is still one of the most valuable OERs for both learners and teachers. ... Lumen Learning. ... Khan Academy. ... Merlot. ... OER Commons. ... OpenStax. ... Academic Earth. ... Learningpod.More items...•Nov 26, 2018

How many OER are there?

3 Types of OER (and where to find them)

Which of the following is an example of OER?

Types of OER include (but are not limited to) syllabi, lesson plans, learning modules, lab experiments, simulations, course videos, discussion prompts, assignments, assessments, library guides, and course design templates.

What are the rights of OER?

Open licensing permissions for OER are typically defined by the 5 Rs, outlining an individual's right to: 1 Retain: create, archive, and own copies of the content 2 Reuse: content can be reused in its unaltered form 3 Revise: content can be adapted, adjusted, modified, and altered 4 Remix: original or revised content can be combined with other content to create something new 5 Redistribute: copies of the content can be shared with others in its original, revised or remixed form.

What does "retain" mean in a document?

Retain: create, archive, and own copies of the content. Reuse: content can be reused in its unaltered form. Revise: content can be adapted, adjusted, modified, and altered. Remix: original or revised content can be combined with other content to create something new.

What is an OER?

Definition of Open Educational Resources (OER) OER are freely and publicly available teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.

What is library licensed material?

“Library-licensed materials” are course materials, which are available free to library patrons. They include eBooks and print versions of books on reserve. The eBooks may or may not be downloadable/retainable; they may or may not be accessed offline; the license may allow for multiple users or only one user to use the material at the same time. Library-licensed materials can be adopted for courses. While they are free for library patrons, they are not free—rather, they have been paid for by the library.

What is affordable content?

Affordable course content describes any free, low-cost, or openly licensed educational resources that can serve as alternatives to high-cost resources. At UMW, low-cost is defined as requiring students to spend no more than $40 in total for course materials. Affordable course content can include textbooks, digital courseware, course modules, videos, journal articles, and any other materials used to support learning.

Is OER copyright free?

Most affordable course content still retains traditional copyright licensing, including restrictions on how a resource can be used or shared. The exception is OER, which are free of cost and most copyright restrictions, allowing them to be freely used, revised, saved, and distributed.

What is OER in education?

The Open Educational Resources (OER) Degree Initiative seeks to boost college access and completion, particularly for underserved students, by engaging faculty in the redesign of courses and degree programs through the replacement of proprietary textbooks with open educational resources.

What is open educational resources?

Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. For the purposes of this initiative, Open Educational Resources Degrees are one-year or two-year postsecondary programs which are offered ...

What is an OER?

Going back to our definition, we need to remember that OER are resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.

How to use OER?

A useful way to appreciate the value of OER is to understand what you, the user of openly licensed content, are allowed to do with it. These permissions are granted in advance, and are legally established through Public Domain or Creative Commons copyrights: 1 Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage) 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 material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup) 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)

What is an open educational resource?

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation provides the following definition of open educational resources: “OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full ...

What is reuse in a video?

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)

What is an instructional designer?

Instructional Designers can work with faculty and students to integrate OER into teaching and learning, and can also share and publish their course design templates as OER. Many instructional designers and technologists work with librarians and IT services to help integrate OER into learning management systems and other course learning platforms.

What is the role of a librarian?

Librarians play a key role in OER initiatives – advocating, developing, exploring, and managing OER . Along with helping you find OER, librarians can help you better understand copyright and licensing concepts, and guide you through your Creative Commons licensing options if you choose to create materials yourself.

What is the #1 barrier to greater OER adoption?

Despite rising faculty awareness of open educational resources, the #1 barrier to greater OER adoption is that 50% of faculty say it is “too hard to find what I need” when searching for content.

What is an open textbook library?

The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks. A growing network of higher education institutions and systems are supporting the library and the adoption of open textbooks as members of the Open Textbook Network.

What is GNU software?

GNU is an organization sponsored by the Free Software Academy; GNU has produced a number of licenses relating to software. Some web material you may come across make use of the following:

Can you dedicate a work to the public domain?

An additional concern is whether the person making the dedication has the right to do so. Only the copyright owner can dedicate a work to the public domain.

Is a government website free?

Generally speaking, anything found on a .gov website is free to use . Technically, the reason government-produced content is free to use is because they are in the public domain, making this more of an extension to the discussion we just had on public domain content, but many people tend to think of government-produced content differently from works produced by everyday citizens. Examples of good government-produced OER are the National Institute of Health’s Toxicology Tutor and NASA’s Historical Studies in the Societal Impact of Spaceflight textbook.

Is Creative Commons open source?

We’re glad you asked! The answer is no. Creative Commons is the open license that popularized open educational resources, which has caused the two terms to be used synonymously by some. But this is misleading because a resource can be OER without carrying a Creative Commons license.