"'Open Educational Resources' are high-quality teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license, such as a Creative Commons license, that permits their free use and repurposing by others, and may include other resources that are legally available and free of cost to students. 'Open educational resources' include, but are not limited to, full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, faculty-created content, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge."
Source: Section 67423 of the California Education Code (College Textbook Affordability Act of 2015)
OER Mythbusting addresses the top seven myths about OER in North American higher education, as voted on my more than 100 faculty, librarians, students and other members of the OER community. This project grew out of a discussion during one ofSPARC’s Libraries and OER Forum monthly calls, where a group of librarians from theU.S. and Canada identified a need for better resources to address misconceptions about OER. A team of volunteers developed a poll and distributed it over email lists and social media over a two week period in July 2017. The results were then used to produce this collaboratively written document.
"An Introduction to Open Educational Resources" by Abbey Elder is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... This video is intended to serve as an introduction to OER for college professors.
Q: What is ZTC?
A. Zero textbook cost means that students do not incur any costs for purchasing course material. However, zero-cost to the students does not guarantee zero cost to the institution, ie. subscription databases, library equipment loans. To create a course that is at zero-cost to students, course instructors can use many platforms including Open Educational Resources; Open Access, Creative Commons, and public domain materials; along with resources owned or licensed by the Library.
Q. What is OER?
A. OER stands for Open Educational Resources. "Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse, without charge. OER often have a Creative Commons or GNU license that state specifically how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared” (OER Commons). OER materials can include textbooks, test materials, instructional videos, and other learning materials and tools.
OER might be similar to what you are currently doing. If you have ever used a worksheet that another instructor created, that's the basic concept of OER. Fundamentally, the only difference between OER and the worksheet you got from a colleague (or vice versa) is that the open license gives you and others formal permission to use, adapt and share it.
Source: Adapted from Skyline College ZTC FAQ
Example Three Body
Textbooks comprise a significant part of the cost of education for our students and the high cost of textbooks negatively impacts student access and success.