Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.
— UNESCO/2019
Open Licenses
An Open license refers to a license that respects the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner and provides permissions granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials. 'UNESCO 2019'
— Image adapted from: “Relationship between the public domain, open license, and all rights reserved copyright” by Boyoung Chae, licensed under CC-BY 3.0.
Creative Commons Licenses
There are six main Creative Commons licenses. The six CC licenses are based on four conditions.
License Conditions
When using a Creative Commons license, creators choose a set of conditions they wish to apply to their work.
Attribution (BY)All CC licenses require that others give you credit the way you request.
ShareAlike (SA)Others can modify your work, as long as they distribute the new work on the same terms.
NonCommercial (NC)Others can use your work for any purpose other than commercially.
NoDerivatives (ND)Others can only share original copies of your work; no modifications allowed.
The Six Main CC Licenses
CC BYAllows maximum reuse, requiring only attribution.
ShareAlike: CC BY-SAPermits modifications if shared under the same terms.
NoDerivatives: CC BY-NDPermits sharing but no modifications.
NonCommercial: CC BY-NCRestricts use to non-commercial, requires attribution.
NonCommercial – ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SAAllows non-commercial remixing if credited and licensed identically.
NonCommercial – NoDerivs: CC BY-NC-NDMost restrictive; share-only, no changes, no commercial use.
it is the adaptable, user-friendly non-profit open education resource platform that educators trust for creating, customizing, and sharing accessible, interactive textbooks, adaptive homework, and ancillary materials.
A free and open online publication of educational material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum, ranging from introductory to the most advanced graduate courses.
Global nonprofit removing barriers of cost and location.
Aggregated OER Collections
The collections of aggregated OER below are some of the larger known initiatives that are utilized by educators and library staff. Many of them have overlapping resources, as they curate and aggregate their content from the same content providers.
MERLOT Repository of thousands of member-contributed resources.
OER Commons An extensive OER library aggregates a variety of OER across learning levels and subjects, and has an embedded authoring tool for remixing and localizing content.
OER Commons (Open Author) OER Commons is one of the largest repositories for OER, and they make an authoring tool available for free use. Open Author allows you to write directly in a simple interface or import your own documents. One of its best features is the Accessibility Checker that will review your content and alert you to opportunities to make it more accessible.
Pressbooks Pressbooks is an open textbook creation platform. Authors can write and publish books that can be exported into a few formats, including PDF, MOBI, and EPUB, and shared. Many examples of Pressbooks are available in their Directory.
H5P (HTML5 Package) is a free, open-source framework used to create, share, and reuse interactive HTML5 content, such as interactive videos, quizzes, presentations, and games. Example : Ecampusontario H5p Studio : https://h5pstudio.ecampusontario.ca/
The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) promotes the awareness and adoption of open educational policies, practices, and resources.
We believe that these practices will promote equitable access to education, particularly for underserved students while supporting academic freedom and faculty choice of openly licensed curriculum materials.
UNESCO (OER)
The leading international body defining and supporting the implementation of OER recommendations globally.
William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
Philanthropic organization funding work to solve social and educational challenges worldwide, with a focus on democracy and equity.
iConnect
— Image adapted from: “Relationship between the public domain, open license, and all rights reserved copyright” by Boyoung Chae, licensed under CC-BY 3.0.
