Open Educational Resources: Overview

Open Educational Resources 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 - Openly Licensed to Support "5R" Benefits - Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute.

Educational - Designed for educational use.

Resources - Materials that support teaching and learning, including textbooks, video, assessments, etc.

OER materials are released under an open license granting permission for everyone to:

• Retain -- users have the right to make, 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
• Redistribute -- copies of the content can be shared with others in its original, revised or remixed form.

OER includes learning materials such as:

• open textbooks
• full courses
• modules
• syllabi
• lectures
• homework assignments
• quizzes
• lab activities
• games
• simulations