Open Educational Resources

What are open educational resources?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are instructional materials that are made available for instructors and/or learners to use for free.

• See examples of OER materials and what you can do with them
• This article provides in-depth information on the open educational resources movement:

Hafner, Katie. "An Open Mind." New York Times 16 April 2010.

Who pays for this?

The open educational resource movement has been funded in large part by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which has given more than $100 million over the last 8 years to MIT, Yale, and others "to increase access to knowledge for all and improve the practices of teaching and learning" (Hafner). The Gates Foundation, numerous colleges and universities, and others are also involved in developing and providing access to open educational resources.

Who is using it?

MIT reports that of those who use their OpenCourseWare resources, only 9% are instructors. The majority (43%) are intellectually-curious people with some free time or students (42%) looking for extra help on their coursework.

What about copyright law?

Many open educational resources have a public license (such as a Creative Commons license) that specifies how the materials may be used, adapted, and shared. Typically, you are asked to give credit to the creator or owner of the materials.

Where can I find open educational resources?

Below are links to just a few of the many sites that provide access to open educational resources. Some of these sites showcase the products of elite universities, while others are repositories to which anyone can contribute content.

MIT OpenCourseWare

Academic Earth

Open Culture

OER Commons

Connexions

iTunes U

YouTube/EDU

Open Learning Initiative (Carnegie Mellon)

NCLOR