OER vs Open Access
- OPEN ACCESS: OA items are online, free to access, and free to read, BUT carry traditional copyright restrictions per the original copyright holder.
What does this mean? You can use item in teaching, research, and learning, BUT no variations of the material can be reproduced without permission from the copyright holder.
- OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER): OER, a type of OA, are teaching, learning, and research resources that, through permissions granted by the copyright holder, allow others to use, distribute, keep, or make changes to them.
What does this mean? You can adopt or adapt open educational resources according to the original item's content license. The openness of Creative Commons licenses vary, so pay close attention to what permissions each individual item provides.
The 5 Rs
The 5R permissions are what make OER different from material which is copyrighted under traditional, all-rights-reserved copyright.
Another way to frame this is that "open" in Open Educational Resources doesn’t simply equate to being "free"; in fact, it can more accurately be described as:
open = free + license/permissions (the 5Rs)
Why Open Education Matters - Videos
The 5 Rs
The terms "open content" and "open educational resources" describe any copyrightable work (traditionally excluding software, which is described by other terms like "open source") that is licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities. The 5Rs are shorthand way of remembering the activities typically permitted by Creative Commons licenses:
- Retain = Keep the work forever
- Reuse = Use the work for your own purpose
- Revise = Adapt, modify, or translate the work
- Remix = Combine the work with another resource to make a new work
- Redistribute = Share the work with others
More About OER
- Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER)(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. Our membership includes hundreds of colleges across North America. CCCOER is part of Open Education Global.
- 2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report™ | Teaching and Learning Edition(EDUCAUSE) This report profiles key trends and emerging technologies and practices shaping the future of teaching and learning and envisions a number of scenarios and implications for that future. It is based on the perspectives and expertise of a global panel of leaders from across the higher education landscape.
- UNESCO OER(UNESCO) The Recommendation on OER, adopted by UNESCO’s General Conference at its 40th session on 25 November 2019, is the first international normative instrument to embrace the field of openly licensed educational materials and technologies in education.
June 2017: Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 810 (SB810), which requires that Texas higher education institutions share searchable information with students about courses that use OER. The full text relevant to course marking is copied below.
SECTION 35. Section 51.451, Education Code, is amended by adding Subdivision (4-a) to read as follows:
(4-a) "Open educational resource" means a teaching, learning, or research resource that is in the public domain or has been released under an intellectual property license that permits the free use, adaptation, and redistribution of the resource by any person. The term may include full course curricula, course materials, modules, textbooks, media, assessments, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques, whether digital or otherwise, used to support access to knowledge.
SECTION 36. Section 51.452, Education Code, is amended by amending Subsection (a) and adding Subsection (d) to read as follows:
(a) Each institution of higher education shall:
(1) for each semester or academic term, compile a course schedule indicating each course offered by the institution for the semester or term to postsecondary students;
(2) with respect to each course, include with the schedule a list of the required and recommended textbooks that specifies, to the extent practicable, the following information for each textbook:
(A) the retail price;
(B) the author;
(C) the publisher;
(D) the most recent copyright date; [and]
(E) the International Standard Book Number assigned, if any; and
(F) whether the textbook is an open educational resource;
(3) except as provided by Subsection (b), at the time required by Subsection (c)(2):
(A) publish the textbook list with the course schedule on the institution's Internet website and with any course schedule the institution provides in hard copy format to the students of the institution; and
(B) make that information available to college bookstores and other bookstores that generally serve the students of the institution; and
(4) except as provided by Subsection (b), as soon as practicable after the information becomes available disseminate as required by Subdivision (3) specific information regarding any revisions to the institution's course schedule and textbook list.
(d) If an institution of higher education or a college bookstore publishes a textbook list with a course schedule on an Internet website that provides a search function, the institution or bookstore must:
(1) ensure that the search function permits a search based on whether a course or section of a course requires or recommends only open educational resources; or
(2) provide a searchable list of courses and sections of courses that require or recommend only open educational resources.
SECTION 37. Section 51.453, Education Code, is amended to read as follows:
Sec. 51.453. TEXTBOOK ASSISTANCE INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS. To the extent practicable, an institution of higher education shall make reasonable efforts to disseminate to its students information regarding:
(1) available institutional programs for renting textbooks or for purchasing used textbooks;
(2) available institutional guaranteed textbook buyback programs;
(3) available institutional programs for alternative delivery of textbook content; [and]
(4) the availability of courses and sections of courses that require or recommend only open educational resources; and
(5) other available institutional textbook cost-savings strategies.
