Research Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Overview of OER

Overview of OER

Introduction

Educational resources are materials used to support teaching, learning, and research. They can include textbooks, journal articles, lecture slides, manuals, software, podcasts, and videos. However, not all educational resources are equal in terms of accessibility, cost, usability, and legal permissions.

Some educational resources are protected by copyright, while others are made freely accessible through open licences.

Copyrighted Resources

Copyrighted educational resources are typically published with full copyright, i.e. all rights are reserved by the creator or publisher. They are generally used by students, educators, researchers, and professionals. Access usually requires payment, either by individuals or through a library subscription, and is governed by licensing agreements. Users are generally not allowed to modify the resources without explicit permission.

Examples:

They are often distributed on the publisher's website, bookstores, databases and libraries.

Open Access (OA) and Open Licences

In the 1990s, the Open Access (OA) movement took shape with the launch of arXiv, an open access repository for self-archived preprints in physics and related fields. This encouraged a shift towards free public access to research. In the early 2000s, the Open Access movement was formalised, and the development of Creative Commons licences provided standard tools for creators to grant the public permission to use, share, and adapt their work. Around the same period, UNESCO officially introduced the term “Open Educational Resources” (OER) to emphasize that education is a public good, and with the use, sharing and adaptation of OER made possible through open licences like Creative Commons.

Although OA and OER promote openness and may sometimes overlap, they serve different purposes and audiences.

OA resources are primarily research publications such as journal articles, dissertations, conference papers and scholarly books used by researchers, scholars and the academic community. Unlike commercial educational publications, they are freely available online to read, download, and share, usually without paywalls or subscriptions on the publisher’s website or institutional repositories. However, unless they carry open licences like Creative Commons, they cannot be reused or modified without permission. Refer to the Open Access Library Guide for details

Open Access Journals

Open Educational Resources

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are any freely accessible teaching and learning resources such as textbooks, course readings, videos, podcasts, multimedia applications used by students, educators and course developers. They are openly licensed to allow access, reuse, adaptation, modification and distribution.

OER offer students a more affordable, accessible and inclusive alternative to chargeable course materials. For educators and course developers, OER provide opportunities to customise and innovate their teaching materials and to collaborate with others across borders. They are often hosted in the teaching and learnng repositories of the universities or non-profit educational organizations and digital libraries.

Sources:

About arXiv. https://info.arxiv.org/about/index.html
Budapest Open Access Initiative. https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/
UNESCO. Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries, UNESCO, Paris, 1-3 July 2002: final report. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000128515
UNESCO. Open Educational Resources. https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources/resources

5 Permissions of OER

5Rs

The core of an Open Educational Resource (OER) lies in the five permissions, also known as 5Rs:

R	Permission
Retain	The right to make, own, and control copies of the content. E.g. Download, duplicate, store and manage, etc.
Reuse	The right to use the content. E.g. Classroom teaching, website, video, etc.
Revise	The right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content. E.g. translation or adaptation, etc.
Remix	The right to combine the content with other open content to create something new (mashup). E.g. Re-create with other OERs to customise a textbook, module or learning material.
Redistribute	The right to share copies of the original, revised, or remixed content with others. E.g. Sharing with others.

Source: David Wiley (5 Marchm 2014) . The Access Compromise and the 5th R, in

improving learning. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221

Creative Commons Licences

Creative Commons (CC)

Unlike restrictive copyright licences that reserve all rights to the copyright owner and require users to seek permission before using the work, open licences clearly specify the permissions granted to users upfront. Open licences define what one can and cannot legally do with the content. This makes it easier for students to freely access OER, while educators can reuse, adapt, and customise these resources without requesting additional permission.

Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organisation that provides a set of standardized open licences that copyright holders can apply to their works. CC licences are widely used by OER creators as they allow others to legally use, share, and adapt the content, while the original creator retains copyright. Use of the work is permitted as long as users comply with the conditions specified in the Creative Commons licence.

There are six types of Creative Commons licences, all of which require attribution to credit the original creator. These licences differ in the permissions they grant and the restrictions they impose on reuse. For example, each licence specifies whether the work can be used for commercial purposes and whether users are allowed to modify or adapt the content into different formats or media, and whether modified works must be licenced under the same terms (known as “ShareAlike”). Amongst the CCs, CC BY and CC BY-SA are typically considered the most "open" as they allow the 5R activities.

Creative Commons 4.0 licences are the most current and recommended version that are international by design.

In addition to these six licences, Creative Commons also offers a public domain dedication tool called CC0 (also known as CC Zero), which enables creators to waive their copyright and related rights and place their work in the public domain. CC0 allows anyone to use the work freely, whether copying, adapting, remixing, or revising, without any legal restrictions or the need for attribution.

CC Key Features

Licence/Tool

Conditions/Key Features

CC0 (CC Zero)

No rights reserved. Maximum freedom for users

CC BY