Resource Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Overview

What are OER?
Why OER?

Open Educational Resources - OER Diversity with rainbow colors by Lane Community College - via flickr Open Educational Resources (OER) are defined as freely available educational materials that are either in the public domain or have been created with an open license (for example Creative Commons-see tab FMI) which makes the materials available in terms of the "5R's" Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute. They can be in many mediums including digital.

OER include physical & digital learning materials such as:
modules	games
lectures	syllabi
homework assignments	simulations
quizzes	open textbooks
lab activities	full courses

While free and open resources are great, it is quality that is most important. The resources in this guide have been vetted by UMA librarians and are the most reputable OER sources currently available. The field continues to grow quickly; this guide will be updated frequently to reflect expanding resources.

OER offers a solution to the ever-increasing cost of textbooks to our students and their already overburdened educational budget. To help meet the need, UMA Libraries offers this guide to assist faculty in finding, evaluating, and using OER resources which will meet curriculum objectives and save students the cost of high-priced textbooks.

Other OER Research Guides

Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OER) are online resources (textbooks, journal articles, etc.) that are freely accessible and openly licensed. This guide provides information about resources that may be used by faculty members in addition to or in replacement of commercial textbooks.

Open Educational Resources
This guide is designed to assist faculty in the exploration, identification, evaluation, selection, and adoption of Open Educational Resources.

Open Education Resources (OER) at UMFK
Open Educational Resources or OER are resources that are in the public domain and/or made available to the public to use with generally few restrictions. Many of these resources are licensed under the Creative Commons license. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ for information.
UMFK OER Grants
We want to thank President Hedeen for her commitment to Open Educational Resources and her support and funding of the OER Grant Program. The UMFK OER Committee wants to incentivize instructors to abandon costly course materials in favor of those available to their students for free. In order to do this, we are offering grants to adopt or adapt/modify existing open-access materials. These materials would replace any items in the course, e.g. textbooks, for which students must currently pay. See "Eligibility & Timeline" for more information on application requirements.

UMM Open Educational Resources (OER)
Examples of OER include learning content (such as lesson plans, assignments, textbooks, exams, and videos) as well as tools for learning (like software for creating videos and websites, course management systems, word processing programs, and training materials). On this page, you will find some reasons to use OER in your classroom. On the tabs across the top of this guide, you can find resources for finding, creating, and researching the effects of OER.

ACRL/CJCLS OER Librarian Toolkit
"This toolkit was developed based on a survey conducted by the OER Taskforce under the leadership of Walter Butler. We hope that the value of this toolkit will be in connecting librarians with active OER Communities and resources that reflect the value of the work of academic librarians."

You can find a list of example OER LibGuides, or use SPARC's "Connect OER" to discover OER activities.

Connecticut State Colleges & Universities' Open CSCU
A resource to support the adoption and creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) and the implementation of Open Practices throughout the CSCU system