Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely and openly available. They can be text documents, audio, video, multimedia, tests, software, learning objects or any other tool used for learning and teaching. The key is that they can be widely distributed and adapted with clear reuse terms, often under a Creative Commons license. At the University of Alberta, we anchor our definition of open to David Wiley's 5 Rs: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute.1
1 David Wiley, “Defining the ‘Open’ in Open Content and Open Educational Resources,” published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
The 5R framework was proposed by David Wiley. These five aspects are the main characteristics of 'open' content.
Retain: The right to make, own, and control copies of the content.
Reuse: The right to use the content in a range of ways, such as in a class or study group, on a website, or in a video.
Revise: The right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content (such as translate the content or update an edition).
Remix: The right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create new content (such as incorporate content into a mashup).
Redistribute: The right to share copies of the original content, a revised version, or a remix with others (such as share a copy with a friend or class).
CC Attribution 4.0 license by David Wiley at: http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221
OER Postcard (Three Reasons) by Claire Coulter, Scott Cowen, and Emma Gooch (eCampus Ontario)
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