Introduction to Open Educational Resources

This lesson introduces Open Educational Resources (OER) and provides essential background information and understanding for educators preparing to develop and use OER content. Activities include a review of different OER repositories, content availability and restrictions.

Readings

1. Read Wikipedia: Open educational resources.
2. Read Wikiversity: Open Educational Resources.
3. Read WikiEducator: OER Handbook for Educators.
4. Read Wikipedia: Creative Commons license.

Activities

1. Review the lesson summary, key terms, review questions and flashcards below.
2. Use the Discuss page to post comments and questions regarding this lesson.
3. Consider ways in which open educational resources might be used to enhance content offerings for your students.
4. Create a table to compare OER repositories. Include columns for Repository, Content Types Available, Education Level, Audience, Quality, License, Who Can Contribute, Approval Process, and Notes. Based on your discipline and your students' educational level, select and compare relevant repositories and some of the content available. For example:

Repository	Content	Level	Audience	Quality	License	Contributors	Approval	Notes
College Open Textbooks	Open Textbooks Listing	College	Anyone	Varies	Varies	Authors	Review
Connexions	Modules, Collections	Primary, Secondary, College	Anyone	Varies	CC-BY	Anyone	Review
Curriki	Lessons, Collections	Primary, Secondary	Teachers	Ratings	CC-BY	Teachers	Review
MERLOT	Courses, Lessons, Other	Primary, Secondary, College	Teachers	Ratings	CC-BY	Anyone	None
MIT Open Courseware	Courses	College	Anyone	High	CC-BY-NC-SA	MIT Professors	N/A
OER Commons	Courses, Lessons, Other	Primary, Secondary, College	Anyone	Ratings	CC-BY-SA	Anyone	Review
OpenStax College	Textbooks	College	Anyone	High	CC-BY	Teachers	Review
Saylor.org	Courses	College	Anyone	High	CC-BY	By Contract	N/A
Wikibooks	Textbooks	Primary, Secondary, College	Anyone	Varies	CC-BY-SA	Anyone	None
WikiEducator	Lessons	Primary, Secondary	Teachers	Varies	CC-BY-SA	Anyone	None
Wikiversity	Courses, Lessons, Other	Secondary, College	Anyone	Varies	CC-BY-SA	Anyone	None

Lesson Summary

• Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly formatted and openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.^[1]
• Available OER content types include courses, modules, lessons, textbooks, and a variety of other resources.^[2]
• Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of content types (courses, textbooks, or individual learning objects), target audiences (educators, parents, students), and contributor qualifications (contract, peer-reviewed, open).^[3]
• Most OER are now licensed under one of several Creative Commons public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.^[4][5]

Key Terms

accessibility

The degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible.^[6]

CC-BY

Creative Commons - Attribution license.^[7]

CC-BY-NC-SA

Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike license.^[8]

CC-BY-SA

Creative Commons - Attribution - Share Alike license.^[9]

Creative Commons license

One of several public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.^[10]

digital divide

An economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT).^[11]

open content

Describes a creative work that others can copy or modify.^[12]

Review Questions

1. Open educational resources (OER) are _____ that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.

   Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly formatted and openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.
2. Available OER content types include _____.

   Available OER content types include courses, modules, lessons, textbooks, and a variety of other resources.
3. Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of _____, _____, and _____.

   Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of content types, target audiences, and contributor qualifications.
4. Most OER are now licensed under one of several _____ that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.

   Most OER are now licensed under one of several Creative Commons public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.

Flashcards

• Test your understanding of the key terms.

References

Resource type: this resource is a lesson.

Completion status: this resource is considered to be complete.