What Is OER?

Open educational resources (OER) are free 和 openly licensed educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, 研究, 和 other purposes. The William 和 Flora Hewlett Foundation provides the following definition:

"OER are teaching, learning, 和 研究 resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use 和 re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, 模块, textbooks, streaming videos, 测试, software, 和 any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.”

OER are licensed with the following permissions:

重用: Use the content in its unaltered form in a wide range of ways

修改: Adapt, adjust, modify, improve, or alter the content

混音: Combine the original or revised content with other OER to create something new

Redistribute: Share copies of the original content or revisions 和 remixes with others

保留: Make, own, 和 keep copies

OER can be reused because they are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner which allows for free use 和 repurposing by others. Creative Commons (CC) licenses are the predominant st和ards for open licensing 和 make OER possible! To learn more about them, see About CC Licenses.

Public domain 和 open licensing grant free access to the materials, but the scope 和 nature are different. Open licensing recognizes clear ownership of intellectual property 和 the work is still protected under copyright law, whereas works in the public domain are not protected by copyright law. Therefore, users are required to follow the license requirements when using openly licensed materials.

To learn more about works in the public domain, see Copyright Terms 和 the Public Domain from Cornell University 图书馆.