What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses) which allow anyone to freely use, adapt, and share the resource-anytime, anywhere.” https://sparcopen.org/open-education/

Advantages of Using OER:

• Free
• Peer reviewed for quality, consistency and comprehensiveness
• Flexibility
• You could use an OER textbook that’s different from what other faculty use for the course
• You could change OER materials outside the current 3-year adoption window
• You could update the course material more frequently
• You could edit the OER content. For example, you might modify it to increase the diversity and timeliness/relevance of content
• Students can collaborate and contribute original content in OER creation which is a high impact practice
• Data demonstrates that students using OER materials have better learning outcomes and higher retention rates than students using publisher-provided materials for purchase

• Reduces barrier to educational course materials (access and financial barriers) for students
• Access to course materials on the first day of courses for improved learning outcomes
• Free, open to all...keep indefinitely
• Low cost printing, at cost of printing only
• State of IL - Current legislation (SB3856) - would force universities to offer textbooks for free