ADVANCED

In its simplest form, the concept of Open Educational Resource (OER) describes any educational resource (including curriculum maps, course materials, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any other materials that have been designed for use in teaching and learning) that is openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence fees.

The term OER is largely synonymous with another term: Open CourseWare (OCW), although the latter may be used to refer to a specific, more structured subset of OER. An Open CourseWare is defined by the OCW Consortium as 'a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content'¹.

OER has emerged as a concept with great potential to support educational transformation. While its educational value lies in the idea of using resources as an integral method of communication of curriculum in educational courses (i.e. resource-based learning), its transformative power lies in the ease with which such resources, when digitized, can be shared via the Internet. Importantly, there is only one key differentiator between an OER and any other educational resource: its licence. Thus, an OER is simply an educational resource that incorporates a licence that facilitates reuse, and potentially adaptation, without first requesting permission from the copyright holder.

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¹ www.ocwconsortium.org/aboutus/whatisocw
Taken from A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)

• What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?
• Is OER the same as open learning/open education?
• Is OER the same as e-learning?
• Who will guarantee the quality of OER?
• Shouldn't I worry about 'giving away' my intellectual property?
• How can education benefit by harnessing OER?
• What is the difference between OER and open access publishing?
• Is OER related to the concept of resource-based learning?
• Is OER really free?
• Where can I learn more about Creative Commons licenses and copyright?
• Where did the questions and answers in this FAQ section come from?