Open Educational Resources (OER): Overview of OER

OER are "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others."  (From The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)

OER materials are released under an open license granting permission for everyone to do the 5Rs (Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute).

1. Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
2. 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)
3. Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
4. Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
5. 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)

Source: Graphic cropped from BCOER Poster created by BC Campus Open Ed, used under CC-BY 4.0 license.