Hekman Library: Open Educational Resources (OERs): Home

Welcome to the Library Guide for OERs!

This guide will give you suggestions for specific library resources to learn more about Open Education Resources (OERs), along with places to find OERs, research on OERs, and getting more help from your research librarian!

(image taken from Wikipedia)

What are OERs?

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are educational materials, such as full courses with readings, mini-lessons and simulations, instructional components, and peer-reviewed texts, that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. They are valuable because they enable faculty to develop courses with a variety of content and educational experiences that more closely align with their course learning outcomes as they utilize materials created by their peers. They are also important because they lower the cost of education for students as textbook costs have outpaced inflation by 400% since 2006.

Why Open Matters
Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education form a broad Open Agenda that is critical to accelerating the way we discover knowledge and unlocking our potential to solve big problems and make new discoveries....Today, we have the unprecedented ability to use, adapt, and build on knowledge in real time to solve problems and make new discoveries." SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) works to enable the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials in order to democratize access to knowledge, accelerate discovery, and increase the return on our investment in research and education.
Open : the philosophy and practices that are revolutionizing education and science (2017)
"Affordable education. Transparent science. Accessible scholarship. These ideals are slowly becoming a reality thanks to the open education, open science, and open access movements. Running separate—if parallel—courses, they all share a philosophy of equity, progress, and justice. This book shares the stories, motives, insights, and practical tips from global leaders in the open movement."
Connect OER
Connect OER is a platform to share and discover information about OER activities at campuses across North America.
Creative Commons
One goal of Creative Commons is to increase the amount of openly licensed creativity in “the commons” — the body of work freely available for legal use, sharing, repurposing, and remixing. Through the use of CC licenses, millions of people around the world have made their photos, videos, writing, music, and other creative content available for any member of the public to use."