- Remix—permission to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e. g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
- Redistribute—permission to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e. g., give a copy to a friend)
The easiest way to confirm that an educational resource is an “open” one that provides you with the 5R permissions is to determine that the resource is either in the public domain or has been licensed under a Creative Commons license which permits the creation of derivative works; these licenses are CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, and CC BY-NC-SA.
Open educational resources come in all shapes and sizes. An OER can be as small as a single article, academic paper, video, or simulation, or it can be as large as an entire degree program. However, it can be difficult, or at least time-consuming for teachers to assemble OER into a collection that is comprehensive enough to replace an “all rights reserved” copyrighted textbook. When OER are collected and presented in ways that resemble a traditional textbook, it often makes it easier for teachers to use the resources. The term open textbook simply means a collection of OER that has been organized to look like a traditional textbook in order to ease the adoption process. To see examples of open textbooks in a number of disciplines, visit OpenStax (licensed CC BY 4.0, available at http://openstaxcollege.org/), the Open Textbook Library (licensed CC BY 4.0, available at https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/), or the BC Open Textbook Project (licensed CC BY 4.0, available at https://open.bccampus.ca/). Other times, OER are aggregated and presented as digital courseware. To see examples of open courseware, visit the Open Education Consortium (licensed CC BY 4.0, available at http://www.oeconsortium.org/courses/) and MIT OpenCourseWare (licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, available at https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm).
In addition to demonstrating that learners save money when their teachers adopt OER, research shows that learners can have better outcomes when their teachers choose OER instead of educational materials that are available under “all rights reserved” copyright.
The use of OER is strongly advocated by a broad range of individuals, organizations, and governments, as evidenced by documents like the Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2007), the UNESCO Paris OER Declaration (2012), and the recently adopted UNESCO Ljubljana OER Action Plan (2017).
