Open Educational Resources (OER) are digitalised educational materials that can be found freely and openly online, for use and reuse in teaching and learning, both for educators and students (D’Antoni, 2006).
Open is the representation of the efforts of a worldwide community, empowered by the Internet, to help equalize access to knowledge and educational opportunities throughout the world. OER are teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain, or have been released under an intellectual license that permits their free use and customization by others. It is the granting of freedoms to share, reprint, translate, combine, or adapt that makes them educationally different from those that can merely be read online for free (Bissell, 2007).
OERs are “any type of educational materials that are available to the university community with little or no cost… [which] range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation,” (Pennsylvania State University, 2019).
Open Licenses
Creative Commons licenses have many important features in common. Every license helps creators
— we call them licensors if they use our tools — retain copyright while allowing others to copy,
distribute, and make some uses of their work — at least non-commercially. Every Creative Commons
license also ensures licensors get the credit for their work they deserve. Every Creative Commons
license works around the world and lasts as long as applicable copyright lasts (because they are
built on copyright). These common features serve as the baseline, on top of which licensors can
choose to grant additional permissions when deciding how they want their work to be used.
Find out more at https://creativecommons.org
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