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), 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 affordable for our students.

What does OER mean?

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.

The 5R Permissions of OER

The term "open educational resources" describes a copyrightable work that is licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:

• Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
• Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
• Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
• Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
• Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

The 5R Permissions of OER was created by David Wiley and published freely under a CC BY 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition/.