Faculty Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials (including textbooks, courses, learning objects, tests, media, etc.) that can be freely used and reused, without charge. OER often have a Creative Commons that state specifically how the material can be used, reused, adapted, and shared.

A Quick Guide to Open Educational Resources (OERs) by Georgia State University Library is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

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A Quick Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)

What are OERs?

• Freely available - Most are legal to copy, adapt, and redistribute semester after semester.
• Open - "Open" means openly licensed, meaning they are in the public domain or the copyright holder has abridged rights to eliminate barriers to access/use/derivative works.
• CC licensed - Often contains a creative commons license. Check each resource for use rights.

Why are OERs and other types of affordable content important?

• Course materials are freely available on the first day of class.
• Increases in Retention, Completion, and Grade Point Averages.
• Cost savings - As of February 2018, $31.3 million dollars (projected) in textbook costs saved across the University System of Georgia. (source: affordablelearninggeorgia.org)
• Increases opportunities for creativity, collaboration and innovative teaching.

Affordable content beyond OERs

• Library subscribed resources
• Open access content - Such as ScholarWorks@GSUscholarworks.gsu.edu

OER Projects

• Replace a high-cost textbook with a free textbook
• Create new course materials
• Publish an open textbook
• Revise existing OER to meet current needs
• Develop course templates based on OER to facilitate use
• Use library resources in place of textbooks

Contact information for GSU University Library - Highline College employees can contact HC Librarians

Watch this video from Open Oregon to learn more about OER (6:11).

"OER Basics" by Open Oregon is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Used by permission from Brock University Library 

Textbook Costs Contribute to Basic Needs Insecurity

According to the report Fixing the Broken Textbook Market:

• 60% of students skip buying at least one textbook.

• About 20% students skip buying access codes necessary to complete assignments.

• Almost every respondent worried forgoing these materials would impact their grade.

• The cost of course materials has a broad impact on the lives of students.

  • 25% reported needing to work extra hours to afford course materials.

  • 22% prioritized purchasing access codes over other course materials.

  • 19% made decisions on which classes to take because of materials cost.

  • 11% reported skipping meals due to materials costs.

"Fixing the Broken Textbook Market" by Cailyn Nagle and Kaitlyn Vitez, U.S. PIRG Education Fund is licensed under CC BY 4.0
 

Equity in Open Textbook Content

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials (including textbooks, courses, learning objects, tests, media, etc.) that can be freely used, revised, remixed, retained and redistributed without charge. OER often have a Creative Commons license that states specifically how the material can be used, reused, adapted, and shared. They may also be in the public domain.

Open Access Resources (OAR) are available online free for people to use, but they may not be revised, remixed, retained, or redistributed. Examples include state government documents (U.S. government websites are in the public domain), articles from open access journals, websites, etc.

Library-Licensed Materials are resources that a library subscribes to for use by their users. These are free for the users because the library has already paid an access cost. Similar to Open Access Resources, they can be used but not revised, remixed, retained, or redistributed.

Note: Fair Use provides for some leeway in using Open Access and Library-Licensed materials with students in a classroom setting (in person and online). Learn more about OER licenses and copyright.

Open licenses, like Creative Commons (CC), work with traditional copyright to enable easier use of things you create, and allow you to reuse work from others. They do this by communicating, in a standardized way, the rights you want to share with others. It's important to note that if a person creates content and places a CC license on it, they still retain the original copyright.

The CC license tells the user how they can use that material. As an example, if you see an open license that says CC-BY-NC 4.0, then it's a Creative Commons license that requires attribution (BY = credit given to the author) and requires that you not make money off the use of the content (NC = non-commercial). Since CC licenses change slightly over time, the number at the end indicates which version that work is licensed under.

Once you place a CC license on your work, you cannot revoke it. See How do CC licenses operate? for more information.

"What are Creative Commons Licenses?" by The University of Guelph McLaughlin Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Highline College Librarians are available to help you during the following hours:

Opening Week Hours
Monday, Thursday, & Friday: 8am-5pm
Tuesday: 12pm-5pm
Wednesday: 11am-5pm
Saturday-Sunday: Closed

If you need help from a librarian when Highline College Librarians are not available, please use the 24/7 chat service.

	In Person Highline Library, Building 25
	By Phone 206.592.3232
	By Email refhelp@highline.edu
	By Chat Ask Us 24/7!
	By Consultation Schedule a Consultation!

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY license.

"Faculty Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)" by Highline College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Note: Links and embedded images/videos with a listed source may or may not be covered by a CC license.