Open Educational Resources
What are open educational resources? Open Educational Resources (OER) are instructional materials that are made available to instructors and/or learners for free.
- See examples of OER and what you can do with them
What about copyright law? Many open educational resources have a public license (such as a Creative Commons license) that specifies how the materials may be used, adapted, and shared. Typically, you just need to give attribution to the creator of the materials, and you are free to edit and re-distrubute them. (But check the license to be sure.)
Who pays for this? The open educational resource movement has been funded in large part by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which has given more than $100 million over the last 8 years to MIT, Yale, and others "to increase access to knowledge for all and improve the practices of teaching and learning" (Hafner).
How can I find open educational resources?
- MIT
- Academic Earth
- Open Culture
- OER Commons
- Connexions
- Open Learning Initiative
- NCLOR
