This document defines open educational resources (OER) as teaching, learning, and research materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license allowing free access, use, adaptation, and redistribution. It provides examples of OER including images, videos, artwork, textbooks and courses. The benefits of OER are reducing education costs, encouraging sharing of ideas globally, and providing ready-made materials for instructors, while challenges include finding appropriate materials, assessing quality, and ensuring technology access.

1. Open
Educational
Resources
(OER)
Innovation in Education
by
Sandi Phinney York

2. What are Open
Educational Resources?
"teaching, learning and research materials in any
medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public
domain or have been released under an open license
that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and
redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.“
- UNESCO

3. Examples of OER
Resources Released
under Open License
 Images
 Videos
 Artwork
 Textbooks
 Courses & modules
 And many other
materials…
Resources in the
Public Domain
 Materials published
before 1923 or those
with expired copyrights
 Materials that were
never copyrighted
 Materials donated to
the public domain
 Government
documents

4. Benefits
 Can reduce education costs for students by
using free material.
 Encourages sharing of ideas among
communities of learning around the world.
 May help reduce labor for instructors by having
ready-made supplementary materials.
 Many resources may be customizable to
instructor or student purposes.
 All people around the world (not just students)
have better access to knowledge and
information.

5. Challenges
 It can be difficult to wade through the wealth
of material available to find appropriate
material.
 Conversely, it may impossible to find material
in a specific subject area.
 The quality of content is not guaranteed and
must be assessed by the user.
 Not everyone has easy access to technology.
 The economic sustainability of OER is unclear.