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Open Educational Resources: Definition

Definitions

ECU Adopted OER Definitions Page 2

OER Basics

OER and Copyright

According to the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, "Open licensing does not replace copyright. Open licenses work with copyright to promote shared use. This changes the copyright from “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”

Full copyright- all rights reserved; Creative commons- some rights reserved; Public domain- no rights reserved

"Creative Commons: A User Guide" by Simone Aliprandi, Creative Commons Attirubtion-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported. 

Affordable Course Material Options

Effectiveness of OER

OER vs. Free to Access

There are many materials students and faculty can freely access online, including library resources. Only materials that have an open license or are in the public domain are OER. This is because OER must be open as defined by the 5Rs:

See description below

From Rosario Passos. Licensed under CC By 4.0.

Accessibility

The 5 Rs of Open

  • Retain: Make and own a copy
  • Reuse: Use in a wide range of ways
  • Revise: Adapt, modify and improve
  • Remix: Combine two or more
  • Redistribute: Share with others