Open Educational Resources
What is it?
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are openly available at little or no cost for teaching, learning, or research. Examples of OER include lectures, assignments, quizzes, activities, full courses, course modules and other resources.
Who uses it?
Lecturers in ENGG1200 use Open Educational Resources in their Materials Science modules. View the full collection of resources collated at: http://groups.diigo.com/group/material-science-OER.
Examples
- Wikimedia Commons
A database of freely usable media files - Adaptive Mechanics
A collaboration between 7 Australian universities has led to the creation of a pioneering suite of interactive and highly engaging adaptive tutorials that teach key threshold concepts in first year mechanics - DoITPoMS
Self-contained, interactive Materials Science developed by the University of Cambridge - PHYSCLIPS
Multimedia resources to help students understand kinematics and dynamics.
How does it work?
OER are typically found in collections or repositories or shared by the developers (individuals or institutions). Some of the legal frameworks simply allow free re-use, others permit users to adapt, customise and modify resources to their needs. Find Free-to-Use Teaching and Learning Content from Around the World at oercommons.org.
JISC Open Educational Resources programme provides an overview of search engines for OERs
More information
ELI 7 Things You Should Know About Open Educational Resources (OER). (2010). Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7061.pdf
A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER). (2011). Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002158/215804e.pdf