1 Identifying, Finding, and Adopting OER
Resources for identifying, finding, and adopting OER
shorelinecc
Recognizing Different Types of OER
Remember, OER refer to educational materials that include permission for anyone to use, modify and share. In its simplest form, the term OER describes any educational resources (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 are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees.
Materials that are under full copyright, or which are not accompanied by a specific license allowing anyone to copy, adapt and share them, are not Open Educational Resources. You can use these materials only within fair use provisions or copyright exceptions.
According to Schaffert & Geser, 2008 & OLCOS Roadmap, 2012, the core characteristics of OER are:
- Open Access: Content is provided free of charge for educational institutions, content services and users such as teachers, students and lifelong learners.
- Open Format: Content is produced in open format with functionalities that allows for easy re-use.
- Open License: Liberal licenses to enable re-use combine and re-purposing of content.
- Open Software: Produced with open-source software.
To simplify things, you can think of OER falling into the category of either content or tools:
- Adapted from Understanding OER. Provided by: SUNY OER Services. Located at: https://oer.suny.edu/. Project: OER Community Course. License: CC BY: Attribution
Using OER Search Utilities and Services
There are billions of openly licensed materials available on the web, so how do you go about finding the right OER for your needs?
Watch this video by Caitlan Maxwell, Digital & Electronic Collections Librarian at Shoreline CC Ray Howard Library adapted from Amy Hofer, Open Oregon Statewide Open Education Library Services Coordinator’s OER Search Video –to learn how to save time searching so you can spend more time designing your course to use open materials.
Resources listed in video:
- Open Textbook Library (University of Minnesota)
- OER Commons
- OpenWA OER Resource Repository
- OpenWA Hub (Washington 100 Project)
- Shoreline CC Library Open Education and Textbook Affordability OER Resources guide
Using Google Advanced Search
The Google search engine has an ‘advanced search’ that lets you search by ‘usage rights’ for content published to the Internet under an open license. The Advanced Search dialogue can be found under the Settings function or can be directly accessed at http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Using OER Repositories
You can begin your search for OER at Shoreline CC Library’s Open Education & Textbook Affordability Guide. The Shoreline CC Ray Howard Library and eLearning staff is always available to help you find and integrate OER into your work.
You can also explore a vast list of OER Repositories and other search utilities on the Open Washington and Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources site.
- Adapted from Understanding OER. Provided by: SUNY OER Services. Located at: https://oer.suny.edu/. Project: OER Community Course. License: CC BY: Attribution
