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Open Educational Resources

Faculty guide to Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogy, and Creative Commons.

Attribution

Material in this LibGuide is adapted from:

Defiance College, Pilgrim Library Research Guide on Open Educational Resources by Lisa Crumit-Hancock. Permission to use granted with attribution. 

Lansing Community College (LCC) Library Research Guide on Open Educational Resources (OER) by Regina Gong licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The University of Oklahoma Libraries Research Guild on Open Educational Resources by Jen Waller and Cody Taylor licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Austin Community College (ACC) Library Services Guide on Open Educational Resources by Carrie Gits is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

"Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." - William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

OER are educational materials that are specifically designed by their creator/s to be openly available, and are often licensed to be re-used, re-mixed, and re-distributed.  Open is not just about low cost (though that is an important benefit of using OER) but about the ability to take what others have created, customize it for your specific educational needs, and then share your creation with others.  

OER come in a variety of forms:

  • Primary sources - Images, video, and sound recordings.  Some  sources are in the public domain, while others have been licensed as open by their creators.   In addition, many texts that are in the public domain are available online/electronically.
  • Learning content - created content that ranges from individual lectures, animations, and assessments to complete courses and textbooks.  

Why OER?

The open resource movement has been around for a while, starting with static learning objects (about 2000), and transitioning to OER that allowed for revision and reuse. It is the ever increasing cost of textbooks and materials for students that is now pushing the OER movement forward.  Textbooks and learning materials cost students approximately $1,200 per year.  According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 in 10 students didn't purchase a textbook because it was too expensive.  Through OER the cost of student materials can be drastically reduced.  OER also give instructors the ability to customize the materials, creating the "perfect" textbook instead of being bound to traditional print resources. 

 

PLEASE NOTE:  While this guide is specifically designed to introduce OER to faculty and staff at ICC, don't forget numerous electronic resources are available to you through the ICC Library.  

Read More about OER

Study finds use of open educational resources on the rise in introductory courses

Inside Higher Ed article from July, 2016

Opening the Textbook: Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2015-16

Study by the Babson Survey Research Group examined the discovery, evaluation, and adoption process for required course materials by U.S. higher education faculty

Open Textbooks Could Help Students

As the price of college textbooks continues to increase, more students are opting to skip the books even if their grades suffer, a survey conducted by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group has found. In a report released on Monday, the group said open textbooks—written by faculty members, peer-reviewed, and available free online—could help make textbooks affordable again.

The Cost and Quality of Open Textbooks:

The Cost and Quality of Open Textbooks: Perceptions of community college faculty and students. by TJ Bliss, John Hilton, David Wiley and Kim Thanos.

David Wiley's Blog, Iterating Toward Openness

Dr. David Wiley is Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning. He is also currently the Education Fellow at Creative Commons and adjunct faculty in Brigham Young University's graduate program in Instructional Psychology and Technology, where he leads the more...