OER

Open educational resources (OER)

Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes. There is no universal usage of open file formats in OER.

The term OER describes publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve and redistribute under some licenses.

The development and promotion of open educational resources is often motivated by a desire to provide an alternate or enhanced educationalparadigm.

The OER movement originated from developments in open and distance learning (ODL) and in the wider context of a culture of open knowledge, open source, free sharing and peer collaboration, which emerged in the late 20th century.

The term "open educational resources" was first adopted at UNESCO's 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries.

Advantages of Open Educational Resource

Advantages of using OER include:

• Expanded access to learning – can be accessed anywhere at anytime
• Ability to modify course materials – can be narrowed down to topics that are relevant to course
• Enhancement of course material – texts, images and videos can be used to support different learning styles
• Rapid dissemination of information – textbooks can be updated quicker online than publishing a textbook
• Cost saving for students – all readings are available online, which saves students hundreds of dollars.