Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning resources that permit ​free use and repurposing​. Specifically, they are licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in some or all of the 5R activities:
This material was created by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition/.
"'Open Educational Resources' are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. 'Open educational resources' include, but are not limited to, full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, faculty-created content, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge."
Source:Section 67423 of the California Education Code (College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015)
Under AB 798, OER may also include library resources, as well as other resources that are free of cost and legally available to students. They can include a wide variety of different materials:
Pros
Cons
This video is intended to serve as an introduction to OERs for college professors.
Beyond the obvious benefits that come from the cost savings to students, research has shown that OERs have a significant effect on student success. Students provided with free instructional materials at the beginning of a term have been shown to have much better success in their courses, as measured by a variety of metrics.