Definitions
What Are Open Educational Resources (OER)?
Open educational resources (OER) are high-quality teaching and learning materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, adaptation, and redistribution by others. The use of such resources addresses the rapid increase in the cost of textbooks and other learning materials in the last two decades and supports instructional innovation.
What Is Open Pedagogy?
While the open education community emerged to address the rising cost of textbooks, practitioners quickly realized that openly-licensed materials allow for innovative, learner-centric pedagogies. Educators are engaging their students in content creation and seeing the impact of their learning through this "open pedagogy," which is built upon the foundational principles of emancipatory, constructionist, and constructivist pedagogies. Even in the open ed community, no commonly-held definition exists. To learn more about what several practitioners are doing and how they define it, check out the OEN Open Pedagogy Portal.
What Is an Open License?
An open license permits creators of resources to retain copyright, while simultaneously allowing others to participate in what are known as the “5R activities” of OER:
Retain: Make, own, and control your own copy of content
Reuse: Use the content as-is
Revise: Adapt, adjust, modify, improve, or alter the content
Remix: Combine the original or revised content with other content to create something new
Redistribute: Share your copies of the original content, revisions or remixes with others
The vast majority of open textbooks have a Creative Commons license that allows for editing, adapting and making derivatives. Learn more about Creative Commons licenses here.
Are OER and Inclusive Access the Same?
Like OER, inclusive access models aim to ensure that all students have access to their learning materials on day one of class, but the cost is rolled into their tuition (OER is free). Students lose access to these materials after the semester ends because of copyright restrictions and license agreements between the publisher and the institution. True OER, in contrast, allow students to retain their learning content in perpetuity, serving students and learners of all ages and stages. This is important for students who may have to retake a course or who are enrolled in a sequence (ex. Biology I and Biology II), where having access to the previous semester's book is essential. Learn more at InclusiveAccess.org.
“By automatically charging students for digital texts, Inclusive Access makes it harder for students to save on used books, print rentals, or borrowed copies.”