OER, or Open Educational Resources, "are high-quality teaching, learning, and research materials that are free for people everywhere to use and repurpose."
Cost and accessibility are key factors when discussing OER and its usefulness.
With OER, students and faculty alike are granted freedom to:
The 5Rs of Openness:
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)
OER provide access to not only textbooks but also:
OER include: