What are OER?
OER are teaching and learning materials that are licensed to allow for revision and reuse without any cost to the user. They can take many forms: self-contained textbooks, videos, quizzes, learning modules, websites, etc. The "free" aspect of OER, however, is really just the beginning of how OER can transform your teaching and your students' learning experience.
You don't have to be an expert or an authority to use, remix, or create OER.
How does all this free "sharing" and "remixing" work with copyright?
Most commonly, intellectual rights of OER are controlled by a flexible system of protections and permissions that replace copyright laws. That system is known as Creative Commons licensing.
If you use a creative commons licensed resource, make sure to attribute it properly.
Where do I find OER?
Lots of places, but you can access a very large percentage of available OER through two primary repositories: MERLOT and OER Commons.
An effective way to search MERLOT is through the "Browse" menu item. Go to View Discipline Index and follow the tree to your discipline :
An effective way to search the OER Commons site is to enter the Advanced Search options from the link on their homepage. After searching for key terms, use the filters on the results page to narrow items.
