17.9 OER Summary & Recording

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Congrats, you completed our module on OER! 

OER stands for Open Educational Resources. These are freely accessible, openly licensed materials that are useful for teaching, learning, and research. They include a wide range of resources such as textbooks, lecture notes, syllabi, quizzes, videos, software, and any other tools or materials that support learning and can be used for educational purposes.

The key characteristics of OER include:

1. Open License: OER are typically released under an open license, such as Creative Commons licenses, which allows users to freely use, adapt, and distribute the materials with minimal restrictions.

2. Free Access: OER are available for free on the internet, making education more accessible to learners regardless of their financial circumstances.

3. Flexibility: Users are often allowed to modify and customize OER to suit their specific educational needs, whether it's adapting a textbook for a different audience or translating materials into other languages.

4. Global Collaboration: OER promote collaboration among educators and learners worldwide by facilitating the sharing of educational resources across borders and institutions.

5. Quality: While OER are free, they are not necessarily of lower quality. Many OER are developed and maintained by experts in their respective fields, ensuring that they meet high educational standards.

Overall, OER play a crucial role in expanding access to education, promoting innovation in teaching and learning, and fostering a culture of sharing and collaboration in education.

By now, you should be able to:

• Explore OER repositories such as OpenStax, MERLOT, and OER Commons to discover available resources. 
• Adapt and Customize OER.
• Provide clear attribution. 
• Integrate OER into course design.  

This recorded version allows you to capture the links and scroll through the chat.