Open Educational Resources (OER): Home

Most creators of OER and OA materials use Creative Commons Licenses. Some OA materials cannot be remixed or adapted, but are included in this guide as they may be the best low-cost options for particular courses. These are the Creative Commons licenses mentioned in this guide: 

CC BY: Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

CC BY-SA: Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

CC BY-NC: Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, so long as attribution is given to the creator.

CC BY-NC-SA: Allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

CC BY-ND: Allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. 

CC BY-NC-ND: Allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

OASIS searches open content from 97 different sources, including Canadian initiatives such as BCcampus and ecampus Ontario.

What are OER?

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning resources that are freely available to educators and learners. This freedom goes beyond accessing the resource without cost. User rights include the 5R activities outlined by David Wiley:

• Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
• 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)
• Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
• Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
• 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)

Wiley, D. (2014, March 5). The access compromise and the 5th R. Iterating Towards Openness. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221

In practice, many creators of OER grant some freedoms but not others. The mechanism for granting freedoms is licensing.

Creative Commons Licensing & Copyright

Creators of OER often use Creative Commons licenses to specify the rights they are granting to users. These licenses modify the terms of copyright. All Creative Commons licenses require attribution.

As a creator of OER, it is important to understand the implications of choosing a license and the rights you grant and retain. As a user of OER, it is important to comply with copyright law and the license granted by the creator. 

If you are adapting an OER, you can choose a license for the content that you create. The rest of the material is released under the original license. An exception is that if the original material has a share-alike (CC-BY-NC-SA) license, you must share your resource under the same terms.  

If you have questions about OER licenses or copyright, contact a librarian.