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“Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OER range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video, and animation.” (Definition by UNESCO).
OER are high quality, no-cost, accessible textbook alternatives, and course materials. As the costs of traditional textbooks rise, the use of OER can help remove a barrier to education that many students face.
Use this guide to learn more about what is available and how you can use, reuse or adapt those materials.
As you know, the cost of textbooks is high and getting worse. But the good news is there are many open and low-cost resources that you can use that are just as effective but cost much less. Here are some good reasons why you should consider going open:
The terms "open content" and "open educational resources" describe any copyrightable work (traditionally excluding software, which is described by other terms like "open source") that is licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:
This material was created by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition/.
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