What are open educational resources (OER)?
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning resources created with the intention of being freely accessible to all. Most are developed by expert educators, and are covered by Creative Commons (CC) licenses that permit users to reuse, remix, and share their content. Examples include open textbooks, course readings, learning modules, educational games, videos, quizzes, or even entire courses.
The use of OER in higher education is gaining momentum as a means of making learning more affordable and accessible for students, and creating new opportunities for instructors to adapt and customize flexible learning resources for their courses.
The 5 R's of Openness
What does it mean for an educational resource to be "open"? The 5R Framework, proposed by David Wiley, defines the major characteristics of open content.
Retain
the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
Reuse
the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
Revise
the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
Remix
the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
Redistribute
the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)
*This material was created by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at: http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221
Open pedagogy
Open pedagogy refers to a set of innovative teaching approaches and practices made possible through the use of OER in the classroom. The "5R permissions” (i.e. retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute) associated with OER offer new and exciting possibilities for student-centred instructional design. In the words of David Wiley in "What is Open Pedgogy?," traditional course assignments are far too often “disposable” in the sense that they “add no value to the world – after a student spends three hours creating it, a teacher spends 30 minutes grading it, and then the student throws it away” (2013). Open pedagogy, though, fosters the development of new kinds of “renewable assignments” that invite and empower students to make a meaningful contribution to public discourse and knowledge beyond the classroom walls. A few examples of open pedagogy in practice include student projects to publish in open course journals, collaboratively develop their course syllabus, update and edit Wikipedia entries, create and share digital exhibits, or remix and adapt online instructional videos.
For more ideas and examples, check out this video of a keynote talk from SFU OER grant recipient Dr. Juan Pablo Alperin (School of Publishing) where he describes why and how he practices open pedagogy as a “starting point for giving students a sense that their knowledge is a public good.” And you can also browse through additional case study examples from other institutions in the Open Pedagogy Notebook.
If you're interested in undertaking an in-class publishing project using open source journal and monograph publish software at SFU, please contact SFU Library Digital Publishing at digital-publishing@sfu.ca.
Licensing (Creative Commons)
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works that are available to share and build upon legally. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. Each of their licenses is represented with a symbol that explains all the rights associated with the resource.
They maintain a page with step by step instructions for how to choose a license. Using a CC BY license is generally considered a best practice for OER creators and adaptors, as this allows the most flexible downstream uses of content for creators and end-users alike. For questions about open licensing, contact the SFU Copyright Office at copy@sfu.ca.