FAC: Affordable and Open Educational Resources (A&OER) - Faculty: A&OER Basics

Through the MOBIUS consortium of libraries, ECC is a member of Open Textbook Network, an alliance of hundreds of colleges, universities, and consortia partners working together to advance the use of open textbooks in higher education. Textbook affordability is a major concern on college campuses throughout the United States. This partnership provides tools and services that will assist in building sustainable open textbook programs on our campuses. MOBIUS membership allows access to OTN resources including training and space on the OER Commons.

1) Truly open - free resources that can be used in whole or part. These may be public domain (copyright free) or have a CC (Creative Commons) copyright license that allows open use, including copying, modifying, use in course packs, etc. 

2) Free to use with restrictions - there are several levels of Creative Commons copyright permissions, some of which require that the resource be kept whole (not modified or remixed), include attribution, and/or include a link back to the source. TED Talks are an example of this. Always read the site's usage policy. 

3) Low cost to the student - this includes library resources or other materials paid for by the institution and  "OER" textbooks on a paid platform. Some institutions provide OER textbooks and subsidized printing, so they are free as e-books and low cost as hard copies for students. Library materials under copyright may or may not already be licensed for classroom use; fair use guidelines may apply. 

1) Adopt - use an existing open textbook or other OER without making changes.

2) Adapt - modify an open resource or mix parts of several existing open resources.

3) Create - author your own textbook or other resource, and make it open. 

The Open Education movement is built around the 5Rs of Openness:

• – 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)  (David Wiley Blog)