LibGuides: Teacher Education: Open Educational Resources (OER)

The 5 Rs of OERs

Image Credit: "5Rs-7(transparent)", Making Open Educational Resources: A Guide for Students by Students is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?

"Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium - digital or otherwise - that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions" - UNESCO

OERs:

Are the same quality as traditional textbooks
May be peer-reviewed
Can include ancillary materials such as presentation slides, simulations, and assessments.
Free for the end user (This is important with the rising cost of textbooks)
Encourages equity = Equal Access for All!

Finding OERs

Directory of Open Access Books
A searchable database of peer-reviewed scientific monographs that have been made accessible by academic publishers in open access. DOAB was established by OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) Foundation.
LibreTexts
Created by UC Davis with the support of Department of Education grants, LibreTexts contains open textbooks and other OERs. Use the "Libraries" tab on the left to browse subjects.
Milne Open Textbooks
Containing openly-licensed, peer-reviewed textbooks from the State University of New York, SUNY Open Textbooks provides open textbooks as well as consultation services for faculty interested in adopting or creating OER.
OER Commons
Teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse. Launched by ISKME (Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education).