Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials that are either in the public domain or use Creative Commons licences, making them publicly available and accessible.
OER are designed to make educational and research material inclusive and accessible, supporting the purpose of the UN SDG 4: Quality Education. This is achieved through allowing anyone to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute the pedagogical materials. OER are available in a range of formats including syllabi material, lesson plans, textbooks, assessments, images, videos, interactive learning activities, audio, software for example.
You can find information on using OER in your subjects in our Library services for teaching and learning: Open educational resources (OER) guide.
This video (1:17) describes what open educational resources are:
Video transcript: Open Educational Resources (OER) and innovation: Why OER?
Open educational resources are central for the development of inclusive knowledge societies and to help achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially to reach SDG4, SDG5, SDG9, SDG10, SDG16, and SDG17.
To support universal access to information and knowledge, and to transform economies and societies, it is important to innovate.
To foster innovation, one of the major challenges is to create the conditions for access to and use of quality knowledge.Because open educational resources are free to access, reuse, repurpose, adapt, and redistribute, they can reduce the cost of developing educational materials, be adapted easily to different learning contexts, and help develop gender-sensitive materials and alternative and accessible formats for learners with special needs.
Governmental and institutional investments can be enhanced for socioeconomic growth by accessing a variety of innovative pedagogical options.
End transcript.
In building inclusive knowledge societies, OER support education that is equitable, inclusive, open and participatory, while also enhancing academic freedom and the professional autonomy of academics and researchers by widening the scope of available resources.
Benefits of OER to researchers include:
Image created by UOW Library and shared under CC BY-SA licence.
On the lands that we study, we walk, and we live, we acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians and cultural knowledge holders of these lands.