Open Educational Resources (OER) Guide

What is OER?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, or research resources that are offered freely to users in at least one form and that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open copyright license that allows for their free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with attribution.

H.R.2107 - Affordable College Textbook Act, Congress

OER Repositories by Format

OER Repositories

OER Terminology

open educational resource (OER) - "a teaching, learning, or research resource that is offered freely to users in at least one form and that resides in the public domain or has been released under an open copyright license that allows for its free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with attribution."

affordable educational resource aka affordable course content - "any required course material that students purchase for less than $50. This may include low-cost or no-cost options and library materials that do not have an open license."

open access (OA) - content that is "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions;" typically refers to scholarly works.

gratis OA - refers to free-to-read scholarship that remains under copyright or other license protection ("free as in lunch")

green OA - refers to free-to-read, repository-based open access scholarship, typically as a result of author self-archiving.

gold OA - refers to free-to-read open access scholarship that is subsidized by per-publication fees or other means.

libre OA - refers to free-to-read scholarship that is also public domain or licensed for reuse for purposes that exceed Fair Use ("free as in liberty")

How open is it? open access terminology guide by SPARC, PLoS, and OASPA (CC BY).

Creative Commons Licensing Types

Affordable Learning PA

Affordable Learning PA, or ALPA, is the Pennsylvania state organization consisting of volunteers from many libraries, colleges, and universities working together to create, educate, and spread awareness of open educational resources.

An Introduction to OER

Creating OER