The Open Education movement is an international effort to tear down boundaries to educational resources. Open Educational Resources (OER) are openly-licensed text, media, or other digital assets used for teaching, learning, and research. OER are typically free for users to use, modify, or distribute.
The 5 Rs
OER are not just "free" textbooks. Depending on the license attached to an OER, users may be free to copy, modify, print, distribute... etc. These are the characteristics behind the "5 Rs".
- 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)
Ways to use OER
Incorporating an OER into your instruction can be done in 3 primary ways.
- Adoption - finding and integrating an existing OER without making changes
- Adaptation - finding and editing an existing OER to suit your course/assessment style/context
- Creating - developing an original OER
*UNB affiliates may apply for grants for a variety of adaptation/creation-related tasks through AtlanticOER - contact Catherine Gracey for more information.
Copyright and Licenses
OER are designed specifically to be shared, modified, and distributed. To ensure this, they typically carry a Creative Commons license, a tool that works with copyright law that allows creators to specify how users can engage with their works. There are 6 different CC licenses that specify different allowable uses.
If you need any assistance or have any questions, please contact copyright@unb.ca.
