Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): What Are OER?

Subject Specialist

Kellam Ayres

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Subjects: Creative Writing, English, Open Education

Unless otherwise noted, this LibGuide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

What are OER?

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free to use and accessible to all.
OER allow anyone to adapt, revise, remix, and share the materials—wherever, whenever.
This open use is made possible through an "open license" (often through Creative Commons) that works alongside copyright to permit a wide range of uses.

Examples of OER

OER are open, peer-reviewed textbooks, streaming videos, assignments, syllabi, and more:

Principles of Economics 2e
Principles of Economics 2e covers the scope and sequence of most introductory economics courses. This textbook is available through OpenStax, a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University. It can be freely viewed online, downloaded as a PDF, or ordered as a print copy for a small fee. It has a CC-BY Creative Commons license.
French Grammar Games
Created by Brigitte Humbert, Associate Professor of French & Francophone Studies at Middlebury College, this resource is an online, digital language-learning grammar game collection for students of French. It has a CC-BY-NC-SA Creative Commons license.
Research Methods in Psychology, 4th Edition
A comprehensive textbook for research methods classes. This textbook is available through the Open Textbook Library and can be freely viewed online, downloaded as a PDF, or ordered as a print copy for a small fee. It has a CC-BY-NC-SA Creative Commons license.
Português para principiantes
Português para principiantes is a media-rich text designed to provide learners with a solid grammatical basis for using Brazilian Portuguese. This textbook is available through Pressbooks, can be freely viewed online and downloaded as a PDF, and has a CC-BY-NC-SA Creative Commons license.
Chemistry, 2nd edition
Chemistry 2e is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the two-semester general chemistry course. This textbook is available through OpenStax, a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University. It can be freely viewed online, downloaded as a PDF, or ordered as a print copy for a fee. It has a CC-BY Creative Commons license.

Why Choose OER?

Benefits for students:

Access to assigned materials on the first day of class, and materials can be retained throughout their years at Middlebury and beyond.
A hard-to-beat price tag: free!

Benefits for faculty:

A classroom where every student has equal and consistent access to the course materials on day one and throughout the term.
The flexibility to adapt open materials to one’s specific pedagogy, and to adjust the materials as needed from year to year.