Introduction to Open Educational Resources

The open-source software community initially inspired the open education movement, focusing on broadening access to information through free, open content.  OER has always been a grassroots initiative, with many individuals and organizations contributing to its development.  One of the first major initiatives was MIT’s OpenCourseWare Imitative, founded in 2001. As Bliss & Smith (2017) explain in their breakdown of the history of open education:

Much of our attention focused on OER’s usefulness at providing knowledge in its original form to those who otherwise might not have access. The implicit goal was to equalize access to disadvantaged and advantaged peoples of the world – in MIT’s language, to create ‘a shared intellectual Common( Bliss & Smith, 2017).  

However, OER is not an exclusively North American movement. For example, significant growth occurred after the UNESCO Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries convened in 2002.  In part, the final declaration at the forum stated that participants “expressed their… wish to develop together a universal educational resource available for the whole of humanity, to be referred to henceforth as Open Educational Resources” (UNESCO, 2002, p.6.). 

Following the rise of open education in the early 2000s, growing interest in open courseware (particularly open textbooks) catapulted the movement to new heights; however, the movement toward greater OER awareness among instructors is growing slowly and steadily. A survey done in the U.S. in 2018 indicated that 47% of instructors had never heard of OER, while the remaining instructors had some degree of familiarity with the concept. There is still a large number of instructors who are unaware of OER, but the percentage has shrunk by 19% since 2014, showing that awareness is growing (Seaman & Seaman, 2019).

The Hewlett Foundation provides the most comprehensive definition of OER available today:

Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions (Hewlett Foundation, n.d.).

So, Open Educational Resources (OER) are openly licensed, freely and easily accessible educational materials that users can adapt and redistribute. While many think of OER as referring predominantly to open textbooks, OER includes a wide variety of resources, such as videos, images, lesson plans, coding and software, and even entire courses.

For a resource to be considered open, it must fulfill the following criteria called the 5Rs:

• Reuse – take a resource and use it in any context that you want
• Remix – take multiple resources and mix them to create a new resource^[1]
• Revise – take a copy of a resource, change it and adapt it to the local context^[2]
• Retain – take a copy and have control of that copy forever
• Redistribute – the right to share what you have created

With a broad definition that includes any educational material so long as it is free to access and open, it might be easier to ask, “What isn’t an OER?

If a resource has a traditional copyright licence or requires a fee to be accessed, it is not considered an OER. For example, most materials accessed through the library’s subscriptions cannot be altered, remixed, or redistributed. Therefore, these materials require special permission and are not “open.” Similarly, YouTube’s standard license includes a traditional copyright statement that does not allow videos to be retained (saved), altered, or remixed.

Cost Savings

One of the often cited benefits of OER is the cost savings for students. Alongside tuition fee increases at Canadian institutions of about 3% yearly, compulsory fees can set students back nearly $1,000 a year and are often not covered by student loans. According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian undergraduate student paid approximately $1,091 in compulsory fees during the 2023/2024 school year. (Statistics Canada, 2023).  This price was up 4.5% from the previous school year.

The cost of textbooks impacts college students, who must wait to purchase their course materials until well into the semester or choose not to purchase them (Florida Virtual Campus, 2018). A 2018 survey of SAIT students found that over 90% of respondents were very concerned about textbook costs (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, 2018). In 2019, 25% of SAIT students reported never or rarely purchasing textbooks for their course, citing the cost (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, 2019). The cost of textbooks might not be a significant issue, but it can be an insurmountable hurdle for students struggling to get by. A recent study at the University of Manitoba indicated that 35.3% of students experienced some degree of food insecurity throughout their degree (Entz et al., 2017).

Access to a Quality Education

When you share course materials openly, you allow students to engage with your content before, during, and after your course. Because OER is always free to access online, students interested in taking a course you teach can read up on the course beforehand and ensure they are ready and interested in the material. Moreover, students who have already taken your course can rely on the fact that their course materials will not evaporate at the end of the semester and that they can continue to review the materials you provided for years. With increased inclusive access models from publishers, temporary access to educational materials is becoming more common. This type of access may reduce the entry cost for students to access a textbook for one semester, but this access is typically limited and comes with other hidden costs.

The students who benefit from access to OER are not just the ones in your classroom. OER is free for anyone worldwide to access, whether they have a university affiliation or not. ^[3] This encourages learners and students to explore educational content without committing the time and money they might not have to attend post-secondary.

Although cost savings are a major talking point in favour of open educational resources, instructors can integrate OER into their courses without removing the paid resources they find helpful (SUNY OER Services. (n.d.). ). While creating an entire OER textbook can seem daunting, the gradual integration of small OER as supplementary resources can be built up over time. Over a few years, instructors may find that they have tailored so many small OERs to their course content that these resources are more effective in supplementing the course than the paid resources they previously used. The freedom to adapt OER to instructional needs is often the most attractive aspect of OER. Since OERs are openly licensed, educators can edit, reorder, and remix OER materials in various ways.

Use, Improve, and Share

Many instructors report using their required course textbooks in different orders than suggested or skipping entire portions of the textbook altogether (Liebermen,  2019).  Using OER allows instructors to adapt and revise existing versions of openly licensed books to fit their course material better. Supplementary resources may be added directly to the text, streamlining resource access for students and giving a clear course outline that aligns with the syllabus. Instructors may also update an existing OER to provide modern and culturally relevant examples.

Network and Collaborate with Peers

A significant concern with open resources is that they may be seen as less reliable than traditionally published materials that go through rigorous editing processes. However, opening up resources makes it easier for peers across institutions to review and edit each other’s work. The ability for others to edit and re-share work also allows you to explore the reviews and gain a deeper understanding of the available resources. Not to mention, creating open resources is a great chance to build a team of peers to help develop a new and valuable learning tool.

Lower Costs to Improve Access to Information

One of the most popular reasons for creating and reusing OER is that it allows every student easy access to course resources. This, in turn, benefits instructors, for all of their students will have all the tools needed to succeed in the course, regardless of financial or accessibility barriers. Open course resources may also lead to more passionate and engaged students, as students can explore course material before enrolling.