# Open Educational Resources/Lesson

This lesson introduces Open Educational Resources (OER) and provides essential background information and understanding for educators preparing to develop and use OER content. Activities include a review of different OER repositories, content availability and restrictions.

## Readings

* Wikipedia: Open educational resources
* Wikiversity: Open Educational Resources
* WikiEducator: OER Handbook for Educators
* Wikipedia: Creative Commons license

## Activities

* Review the lesson summary, key terms, review questions and flashcards below.
* Use the Discuss page to post comments and questions regarding this lesson.
* Consider ways in which open educational resources might be used to enhance content offerings for your students.
* Create a table to compare OER repositories. Include columns for Repository, Content Types Available, Education Level, Audience, Quality, License, Who Can Contribute, Approval Process, and Notes. Based on your discipline and your students' educational level, select and compare relevant repositories and some of the content available. For example:
   | Repository | Content | Level | Audience | Quality | License | Contributors | Approval |
   | BC Open Textbooks | Open Textbooks Listing | College | Teachers | High | Varies | Teachers | Review |
   | College Open Textbooks | Open Textbooks Listing | College | Anyone | Varies | Varies | Authors | Review |
   | Community College Consortium | Varies | College | Anyone | Varies | Varies | Varies | Varies |
   | Creative Commons | Multimedia | Primary, Secondary, College | Anyone | Varies | Varies | Anyone | None |
   | Curriki | Lessons, Collections | Primary, Secondary | Teachers | Ratings | CC-BY | Teachers | Review |
   | Global Text Project | Textbooks | College | Anyone | Varies | CC-BY | Varies | None |
   | Lumen Learning | Courses | College | Anyone | High | Varies | Teachers | Review |
   | MERLOT II | Courses, Lessons, Other | Primary, Secondary, College | Teachers | Ratings | CC-BY | Anyone | None |
   | MIT Open Courseware | Courses | College | Anyone | High | CC-BY-NC-SA | MIT Professors | N/A |
   | OER Commons | Courses, Lessons, Other | Primary, Secondary, College | Anyone | Ratings | CC-BY-SA | Anyone | Review |
   | OpenStax | Textbooks | College | Anyone | High | CC-BY | Teachers | Review |
   | Saylor.org | Courses | College | Anyone | High | CC-BY | By Contract | N/A |
   | Wikibooks | Textbooks | Primary, Secondary, College | Anyone | Varies | CC-BY-SA | Anyone | None |
   | WikiEducator | Lessons | Primary, Secondary | Teachers | Varies | CC-BY-SA | Anyone | None |
   | Wikiversity | Courses, Lessons, Other | Secondary, College | Anyone | Varies | CC-BY-SA | Anyone | None |

## Lesson Summary

* Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly formatted and openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.
* Available OER content types include courses, modules, lessons, textbooks, and a variety of other resources.
* Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of content types (courses, textbooks, or individual learning objects), target audiences (educators, parents, students), and contributor qualifications (contract, peer-reviewed, open).
* Most OER are now licensed under one of several Creative Commons public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.

## Key Terms
### accessibility

    The degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible.

### CC-BY

    Creative Commons - Attribution license.

### CC-BY-NC-SA

    Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike license.

### CC-BY-SA

    Creative Commons - Attribution - Share Alike license.

### Creative Commons license

    One of several public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.

### digital divide

    An economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT).

### open content

    Describes a creative work that others can copy or modify.

## Review Questions

* Open educational resources (OER) are _____ that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes. Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly formatted and openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research purposes.
* Available OER content types include _____. Available OER content types include courses, modules, lessons, textbooks, and a variety of other resources.
* Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of _____, _____, and _____. Different OER initiatives have been established targeting a variety of content types, target audiences, and contributor qualifications.
* Most OER are now licensed under one of several _____ that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. Most OER are now licensed under one of several Creative Commons public copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works.

## Flashcards

* Test your understanding of the key terms.

## See Also

* Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resoures
* Lumen: Adopting Open Educational Resources in the Classroom
* OpenSource: Creating Open Textbooks
* A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students
* CARLI: OER Presentations and Webinars