Open

Educational

Resources

(OER)Innovation in Education

by

Sandi Phinney York

What are Open

Educational Resources?

"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

Examples of OERResources Released under Open License

Images

Videos

Artwork

Textbooks

Courses & modules

And many other materials…

Resources in the Public Domain

Materials published

before 1923 or those

with expired copyrights

Materials that were

never copyrighted

Materials donated to

the public domain

Government

documents

Benefits Can reduce education costs for students by

using free material.

Encourages sharing of ideas among

communities of learning around the world.

May help reduce labor for instructors by having

ready-made supplementary materials.

Many resources may be customizable to

instructor or student purposes.

All people around the world (not just students)

have better access to knowledge and

information.

Challenges

It can be difficult to wade through the wealth

of material available to find appropriate

material.

Conversely, it may impossible to find material

in a specific subject area.

The quality of content is not guaranteed and

must be assessed by the user.

Not everyone has easy access to technology.

The economic sustainability of OER is unclear.