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 enhancing opportunities for instructors to adapt and customize flexible learning resources for their courses.
For more information about finding and using OER in the classroom, contact Hope Power (Teaching & Learning Librarian) at hpower@sfu.ca.
What are open educational practices (OEP)?
Open educational practices (OEP) - also known as open pedagogy - refers to a set of teaching approaches and methods in which students develop and share OER, or open content more broadly. In practice, this involves the design and delivery of learning activities and experiences that invite and empower students to make meaningful contributions to public discourse and knowledge beyond the classroom. Examples include student projects to publish in open course journals, update and edit Wikipedia entries, publicly annotate online course readings, or create and share video tutorials or digital exhibits for their classes.
For examples of OEP in the classroom, check out the Open Pedagogy Notebook.
SFU Library Digital Publishing supports instructors and students in creating open access publications that feature student work and involve students in the publishing process. For more information, contact digital-publishing@sfu.ca.
What is open 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.