Open Educational Resources

This SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Open Education Leadership program extends over two semesters and provides instruction on how to create and adopt OERs. The module also covers basic principles of OERs as well as information on copyright, open licensing, and publishing. In addition, the module provides practical experience planning and accessing OERs.

This self-paced course provides 10 modules on how to use OERs. Module topics include the meaning of open educational resources and the concepts of copyright, open licensing, and public domain. In addition, the course distinguishes between the different types of Creative Commons licenses and provides a module on accessibility.

This resource from Tidewater Community College provides an introduction to OERs. It provides links to several OER journals, textbooks, and images. Links to OpenCourseware are also available.

This learning module is provided by OpenStax. It provides material on the advantages and disadvantages of OERs and how to locate them. There is also a discussion of fair use and the TEACH Act. Creative Commons licensing and public domain sources are also discussed. In addition, the module explains delivery, storage, and organization of OERs.

Provided by OERup!, these modules show you how to find, create, use, and share OERs. In addition to basic terms, the materials also explain how to analyze, search, and repurpose resources for use as OERs. There is also discussion of accessibility, creating, collating, and sharing OERs.

Skills Commons is a free online open library that provides links to open learning materials. Some of the materials link to sites that explain how to locate OERs and how to use OERs.

A six-week course hosted by OpenEdMOOC addresses the significance of open education; copyright, public domain, and the idea of a commons for learning materials; the 5Rs of OERs; Creative Commons and open licensing; finding, using, and creating OERs; OER impact and effectiveness; and the future direction of open education. The course includes links to relevant videos and published articles and reports.

Hosted by the Canvas Network, this self-paced online course is targeted at educators and faculty and covers the following topics: how to identify OERs, review of the six Creative Commons licenses, how to write attributions, incorporating OERs into the curriculum/course work; creating new OERs, and getting permission to use closed content in an open resource.

This is a five-day workshop on OERs in higher education. The modules cover such topics as affordability and student success, discussion of OERs, searching for OERs, using OERs, and reflections on open pedagogy.

The materials Include OER online modules targeted at faculty. The modules consist of webinars and online materials designed to teach participants how to identify resources with a Creative Commons license and what can be done with those works. The modules also include the advantages and disadvantages of OERs, how to research and analyze OER repositories, how to effectively search for OERs, and how to create new OERs by remixing existing open resources.

This faculty-oriented OER workshop is divided into two parts—"Part 1: The Easy Way to Create, License, and Share Free Materials," and "Part 2: Exploring the Possibilities of Open Educational Resources." Part 1 includes an extensive module on how to create and share OERs, and Part 2 has one on how to use OERs in an open classroom.

Presented by Affordable Learning Georgia, this online tutorial includes OER modules that cover defining open resources and OERs, open licensing and public domain, Creative Commons, finding OERs, GALILEO and USG Library Resources, and evaluating open resources.

Lumen Learning's OER course includes modules to help faculty members adopt and use OERs in their classrooms. Each module includes readings, videos, and activities. The six modules are: "Why Open?," "Introduction to Open Licensing," "Investigating OER on the Web," "Open Textbook/Open Courses," "Remix OER," and "Create and Share."

This course designed by Lumen Learning's David Wiley focuses on "the ways in which openness impacts many areas of education—curriculum, instruction, learning, policy, technology, research, and finance, among others." The course includes modules covering everything from open education, open licensing, Creative Commons, OERs, open courseware and open textbooks, open source vs. open content, open teaching and MOOCs, open assessment, and open badges.

This one-day workshop on OERs was developed by The Commonwealth of Learning. It includes six modules that cover the definition of OERs, where to find OERs, open license types, using OERs, and the OER life cycle.

This is an openly licensed OER textbook published by Iowa State University Press. The book is divided into five sections, including "Getting Started," "Copyright," "Finding OER," "Teaching with OER," and "Creating OER."

This video provides an introduction to the basic principles of open education. It explains CC licensing, the 5Rs of OERs, and captioning. The video addresses the evolution of technology and how technology has democratized access to education. This video promotes the advantages of affordability and access that OERs provide. The visual graphic aligns well with the content of the video.

This video provides a faculty perspective of OERs. In addition, it also explains the 5Rs of OERs and Creative Commons licensing. This is a good perspective from faculty on how to engage students in creating OERs and how to find CC-licensed OERs.

This is a discussion of the economic benefits of OERs by Lumen Learning's David Wiley. He explains the effects of OERs on student outcomes and student retention. Wiley also provides perspective on how OERs provide economic freedom by empowering faculty to develop open learning materials free of the restrictions of traditional textbooks.

This video provides a comparison of OERs vs. traditional textbooks. It addresses cost, quality, and flexibility of OERs, and how these compare to standard textbooks.