Creative Commons: Open Education

"Open Education encompasses resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment. Open Education maximizes the power of the Internet to make education more affordable, accessible and effective." -Open Education, SPARC

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others."
-Open Educational Resources, UNESCO

Why? Open education allows instructors agency to align learning materials more fully with their pedagogical needs such as localized content. In addition to cost savings, open education provides an opportunity for students to contribute to their own knowledge.

How? Creative Commons licenses help make it simple and legal to retain copyright and legally share educational resources with the world.

Open Access and Open Education both stress the importance of making information available for individuals around the world, regardless of wealth or status. These are not wholly separate ideas or incompatible practices. Download an handout about the expectations for Open Access and Open Education here.

A defining part of OER is that the content either exists in the public domain or has been released under a license that permits reuse and adaptation. Not all free resources are actually OER and it is important to be aware of this distinction as you consider how you want to create, reuse, and adapt educational resources.

Dr. David Wiley developed the 5Rs framework to explain and remember permissions granted by an open license. This framework is a good guideline and if you are able to practice the 5Rs with a resource it can be considered OER. The 5Rs outline that users have the right to do the following:

Retain - Make, own, and control copies of the content
(e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)

Reuse - 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 - Adapt, adjust modify, or alter the content itself
(e.g., translate the content into another language)

Remix - Combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new
(e.g., incorporate the content into a mash-up)

Redistribute - Share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others
(e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)