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Defining OER

What is OER
Definitions and examples of OER from the Creative Commons Wiki.

Open Educational Resources
The William and Flora Hewitt Foundation website offers definitions, examples, and narratives on OER adoption and use.

The Four Rs of Open Content
David Wiley explains concepts driving open content and OER.

A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)
A comprehensive guide to OER, including a summary of key issues, an analysis of those issues, and detailed information on specific areas of interest.

Defining the “Open” in Open Content and Open Educational Resources
A simple introduction to OER, including definitions of the 5 Rs as well as requirements and restrictions related to OER.

Video of David Wiley’s TEDx NYED Talk
David Wiley shares his thoughts on OER and open pedagogy in this timeless Ted Talk.

Open NYS: What is OER?
The Open NYS site offers an overview of OER, as well as access to information on adoption and use.

Finding OER

Open NYS
You can search through the discipline collections on the Open NYS site for resources vetted by SUNY and CUNY faculty.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides avenues for you to explore resources, collections, and providers.

Google Advanced Search
The Google search engine has an ‘advanced search’ that lets you search by ‘usage rights’ for content published to the Internet under an open license.

Open Educational Resources: Big List of Resources
The Big List is a comprehensive list of OER repositories and search utilities, including complete courses, artwork, multimedia, and open access books.

Open Educational Resources (OER): Find OER
This list of OER Websites and search tips from the University of Illinois includes repositories of recorded lectures, videos, open textbooks, modular components, complete courses, and other OER search engines.

Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)
This utility, from George Mason University Libraries, searches across 16 OER repositories at once. You can add or remove sources to modify your search targets. You can try out the Mason OER Metafinder by typing in a search term below.

Evaluating OER

Open Educational Resources (OER): Evaluate OER
This site provides a short checklist to help evaluate OER, as well as links to a variety of OER evaluation rubrics.

OER Assessment Rubric
This rubric is developed by Sarah Morehouse with help from Mark McBride, Kathleen Stone, and Beth Burns is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resources Objects
This packet includes 8 separate rubrics for the evaluation of OERs created by ACHIEVE.org.

BC Open Textbooks Review Criteria
This guide from BC Campus Open Ed is specific to the evaluation of open textbooks.

OER Evaluation Tool
This tool is designed for K-12, and can be used to align appropriate resources to the Common Core State Standards, and to evaluate the resource against certain aspects of quality.

Creating OER

OER and Collaborative Content Development
This report from INACOL describes the benefits of OER, provides a framework for planning, and offers strategies for successfully collaborating on OER development.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides spaces for you to collaborate on the creation of OER.

Creating and Modifying Open Educational Resources
This mini course from Affordable Learning Georgia provides guidance for faculty and staff interested in creating or adapting open educational resources.

Faculty: Creating OERs
This site offers guidance on authoring tools you can use, as well as repositories for sharing OER.

A 7-Step Guide to Creating Your Own Open Educational Resources
This article from a teacher provides guidance on how to get started creating OER.

Creative Commons Attribution Builder
This resource builds attributions for you based on the Creative Commons licensed work that you use.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons
The home of Creative Commons, and guide to OER licensing options.

Creative Commons Choose Tool
A walkthrough process for choosing a Creative Commons license.

Creative Commons Licensing Explained
This video explains each of the Creative Commons licenses.

Creative Commons Explained in Plain English
This article does a great job of clarifying each of the Creative Commons licenses.

Promoting OER

Faculty Showcase and OER Studies
This site share testimonial videos of faculty across the three California higher education systems who are using open textbooks.

California Open Online Library for Education
This site showcases faculty and student examples of OER. These narratives will inspire you to share your experiences using OER in your classes.

How to Advocate On Your Campus
This site from the BC Campus provides information for students who are interested in advocating for OER adoption and use on their campuses.

Participating in OER Research

OER Research Toolkit
The OER Research Toolkit from the Open Education Group provides a variety of resources to guide your research, including a guidebook and surveys for students and faculty.

OER Adoption Impact Explorer
The OER Adoption Impact Explorer from Lumen Learning enables you to investigate the impacts of adopting OER.

The COUP Framework
The COUP Framework is the Open Education Group’s approach to studying the impact of open educational resources (like open textbooks) and open pedagogy in secondary and post-secondary education.