Open Educational Resources

Source: "VIDEO: Education without limits: Why open textbooks are the way forward" by opensourceway is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Open Educational Resources (OER) can be anything from textbooks and assignment questions to video and audio files. They are resources that can be accessed for free, but more importantly, they adhere to David Wiley's Five Rs. They can be retained, reused, revised, remixed, or redistributed.

Image Source: "The 5 Rs of OER" is a derivative of the 5 R Permissions of OER by Lumen Learning, licensed under CC BY 4.0.  

This means that not only can anyone can access the resource, but they can also contribute to it and use it for their own educational purposes without fear of copyright infringement - this is because of their "open" license. To learn more about types of open licenses, view our section on Creative Commons & Copyright. 

For more information on the basics of OER, see our recommended reading in the sidebar. 

This material is an adaptation of Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources, which was originally written by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license

What are the benefits of Open Educational Resources (OER)? The benefits are abundant for students and faculty alike:  

• Pre-developed texts and coursework allow faculty to spend less time establishing materials, and more time focusing on their students
• Lower textbook costs have been shown to greatly impact the likelihood of student success
• Integrating OER development into student evaluation allows students to feel the work they are doing is meaningful and has purpose
• Faculty can collaborate and innovate with other professionals from across the globe, allowing their insights and knowledge to make an immediate impact on the academic sphere
• Increase access to education
• Adding value to global knowledge production

These examples are only a few of the many, for more information and further reading on the benefits of OER, visit the links listed below.

A core component of Open Educational Resources is their open licenses. If copyright is the legal right to publish, sell or reproduce a work by the work's author/creator, then Creative Commons can be described as a license which closes the gap between the public domain and that which is considered "all-rights-reserved." 

But what is a Creative Commons license, and how does it work?

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the free sharing of knowledge and collaborative creativity through providing Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools which serve to lessen the often confusing, often disheartening legalities surrounding copyright. These licenses are provided for free on their website for anyone to use. It's as easy as answering a few questions on how you would like your work to be used, and they provide the appropriate license for you.

To find the license that best suits your work, visit them at https://creativecommons.org/choose/. 

Creative Commons licenses come in six forms, but these can be combined in a number of different ways to create a variety of licenses with different levels of access. The six main forms are as follows, and are ordered from least to most restrictive. NOTE: Creative commons licenses with an ND (No derivatives or adaptions permitted) are not generally considered compatible with OER (remember the 5 Rs above).

License Image	Basic Description of License
	CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC BY includes the following elements: BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
	CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-SA includes the following elements: BY  – Credit must be given to the creator SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
	CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.  It includes the following elements: BY  – Credit must be given to the creator NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
	CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.  CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements: BY  – Credit must be given to the creator NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
	CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.  CC BY-ND includes the following elements: BY  – Credit must be given to the creator ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted
	CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.  CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements: BY  – Credit must be given to the creator NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

Additionally, there is an image to denote that a resource or work is entirely in the public domain:

Image	Basic Description of Public Domain Tool
	CC0 (aka CC Zero) is a public dedication tool, which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions.
	Public Domain Mark enables works that are no longer restricted by copyright to be marked as such in a standard and simple way, making them easily discoverable and available to others. Many cultural heritage institutions including museums, libraries and other curators are knowledgeable about the copyright status of paintings, books and manuscripts, photographs and other works in their collections, many of which are old and no longer under copyright.

This material is an adaptation of About CC Licenses, which was originally written by CC commons and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license 

It's important to note that works licensed under certain license types should not be mixed with others.

"License Compatibility Chart" by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0

For more information on how to combine resources with different license types, see the video below.

Source:  Video "Creating OER and Combining Licenses - Full" by TheOGRepository, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareALike 3.0 Unported license

The infographic below demonstrates how these forms can be combined, and what rights a person retains when using that resource. It's organized from "most open" at the top in green, and "least open" at the bottom in the red.

"Creative commons license spectrum.svg" by Shaddim is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Attribution statements are the most important part of adapting and adopting work, and should absolutely be included any time a work is derived, adapted, or remixed.

Luckily, there is an easy formula to follow when attributing someone's work. 

The ideal attribution contains a resources Title, Creator, Source, and License, and links should be provided to all the relevant material. For example: 

This material is an adaptation of  "Best practices for attribution" which was originally written by Creative Commons and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. 

This attribution is ideal as we have noted that our resource is an adaptive material and we have linked to the correct webpages under the title, author name, and license type.

For more information on attributing, follow the link "Best practices for attribution" in the attribution above. 

Open Access (OA): The concept of open access continues to evolve, but in general, it means that works such as peer-reviewed journal articles, graduate theses, data, or other types of scholarly information are made available free of charge, immediately (no publisher delay or embargo), and in a permanently accessible, online format. Source: Dalhousie Open Access LibGuide

Open Educational Resources (OER): The concept of open educational resources is based in information that, while made available free of charge, immediately, and in a permanently accessible format, can also be remixed, reused, revised, and redistributed.

The following infographic explains the differences between OA and OER in greater depth:

For more information on Open Access, visit our LibGuide: OA LibGuide