Open educational resources (OERs) are teaching and learning materials that can be freely used and reused without permission. OERs are available in the public domain or have an open license allowing reuse as long as the creator is attributed. Examples of OERs include textbooks, courses, images, and videos. OERs provide access to educational resources for free, saving students money while allowing universal access to education. However, the quality of OERs can be harder to determine and concerns exist regarding long-term funding and access to necessary equipment.

1. Trees from books from trees by Mazarine CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Traci Taylor
Librarian at Bellingham Technical College

2. What are open educational resources?
Open educational resources (OER) resources that
are available to use freely without getting
permission to use them. They are available with
“no strings attached”. OERs are either available in
the public domain, or they have an open license.
Any open license allows people to use and
repurpose the source without requesting
permission, but attribution needs to be given.
There are several different open licenses that
grant different permissions for use of the
resources. Some of the OERs include, but are not
limited to, are textbooks, courses, images, videos,
articles, to name a few. These resources are
available to anyone, anywhere, to use at no
charge.

3.  Access to quality educational resources
 No cost to students – saves money
 Education is provided to everyone
 Prospective students can learn more about a course
 Available to use freely without getting prior
permission

4.  Quality of resource is harder to determine
 Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable
 Sustainability of OERs over time – concern about
cost of future funding
 Access of equipment is not available to everyone
 Cost to maintain equipment