Open Educational Resources (OER)

The PennWest University Libraries are committed to student success and affordability in education. This guide provides an overview of open educational resources (OER) for faculty, options to search for OER and other affordable materials in your discipline, and information on how the Libraries can partner with you to help make course materials more affordable for students.

What are OER?

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials in any medium that are released under an open license that allow free access, use, reuse, and adaptation by others. OER can include individual lessons or modules; supplemental course materials such as presentations, test banks, and handouts; or full-length textbooks. Most OER materials have a Creative Commons (CC) license that waive most copyright restrictions.

Check out the OER FAQ from Open Oregon and OER Mythbusting from SPARC to learn more about open educational resources.

What are Affordable Course Materials?

Affordable course materials are learning materials that are zero-cost or low-cost to students. These include library-licensed materials (e.g., eBooks, articles, or streaming videos) and no-cost online materials (e.g., government reports, data sets, etc.). 

Why use OER and affordable course materials?

OER and affordable course materials provide an alternative to the rising costs of traditional textbooks in higher education. In addition to decreasing costs for students, OER also offer additional benefits to students and faculty:

• Accessibility - Students retain access to OER textbooks and other open materials after a course has ended.
• Flexibility - OER can be revised and remixed to meet the specific needs of your course.
• Diversity - Students can gain better perspective on course content by using multiple sources from various authors.
• Currency - OER can be edited and updated more frequently than traditional textbooks.
• Academic performance - Several case studies have shown no significant difference in student performance when using OER instead of traditional textbooks. Usually the results are favorable to OER.
• Collaborative - Many OER are created from collaborations within a community of instructors in higher education who share reputable classroom materials.