Open Education Resources (OER): Overview

SURVEY SHOWS STUDENTS OPTING OUT OF BUYING HIGH-COST TEXTBOOKS 
"a [2014] survey released by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund shows that 65% of student consumers have opted out of buying a college textbook due to its high price, and of those students, 94% say they suffer academically."

"OER 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 re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." [1]

The Open Education movement is built around the 5Rs of Open [2]

• Retain -- users have the right to make, archive, and own copies of the content
• Reuse – content can be reused in its unaltered form in a wide range of ways 
• Revise -- content can be adapted, adjusted, modified, and altered 
• Remix – original or revised content can be combined with other open content to create something new 
• Redistribute -- copies of the content can be shared with others in its original, revised or remixed form 

Just because an item is free, doesn't mean it is open.

It explains the “classroom revolution” of OER and hints at the possibilities available.

From http://libguides.bristolcc.edu/oer