Faculty Services and Resources at Houff Library: Open Education Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.

OERs are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them.

Open license refers to a license that respects the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner and provides permissions granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials.

Definition from UNESCO

Go to the VIVA website to learn more about VIVA Open and Affordable Initiatives including VIVA grant opportunities and the VIVA Open OER Commons.

Open textbooks are a subset of open educational resources (OER) and reside in the public domain — where copyrights have been waived by the copyright holder or copyright has expired — or have been released by the copyright holder under an open-copyright license...Open textbooks are available digitally, accessed online or through shareable formats, to be freely used by anyone: students, instructors, librarians, and members of the public. In general, they can be modified, printed, shared, retained, remixed, and reused. If the work has been released with a Creative Commons – or other open-copyright – licence, the user must adhere to that license’s legal requirements.

From "What are open textbooks?" from BC Campus.

Find open textbooks:

• Open Textbook Library
  • Provides access to over 1230 open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. Download, edit and distribute them at no cost. The Open Textbook Library is supported by the Open Education Network.
• Pressbooks Directory
  • Faculty can use this resource to identify freely and publicly available, openly licensed books. It currently has 1,650 open texts from 80 different initiatives/sources.
• SUNY OER OASIS
  • On this site you’ll find openly licensed textbooks and courses written and curated by SUNY Faculty. 
• BC Campus Open Textbooks
  • BC Campus Open Textbooks offers over 150 textbooks across disciplines that are all openly licensed with Creative Commons licenses. They also offer a guide to authoring and adapting open textbooks.

There are several ways to contact librarians for assistance:

Visit us in A110

Email at: library@brcc.edu

Call Us: (540) 453-2247

Text Us: 1-540-592-4324 (Available Mon.-Fri.: 8am-4:45pm)

Use the Library Directory to connect with a specific librarian 

Need help scheduling an EAB appointment? Check out this video

Use EAB Navigate to schedule a 30 minute, one-on-one meeting

Need help with something after-hours? Visit the Ask a Librarian page! Options include a live chat with 24/7 access to a librarian who can help you. 

Have questions about copyright? 

Use the resources below or ask us at the library!

• Fair Use Evaluator https://librarycopyright.net/resources/fairuse/index.php
• Scholarly Communication Toolkit: Fair Use: Guide from the Association of College & Research Libraries.
• BRCC Copyright Policy
• FAQs for Creative Commons from the Creative Commons Global Network

Unlike openly licensed materials, public domain materials have no legal restrictions on their use (though of course, there is an ethical, academic obligation to cite your sources). Public domain materials may be right for your course if you are looking for older materials such as art, literature, or other historical materials that may help provide context for more current work in your discipline.

Tips for Using Public Domain Materials:

• Always look for copyright, terms of use, or permissions statements.  Even if a museum, library, or archive is making its materials available online, you should verify that the object is in the public domain.
• If an item description does not include its copyright status and you really want to use it, contact the organization and ask.
• Always cite the author and source of the content you are using.
• Cite and link to any item you have downloaded.  Many institutions require you to give them credit through a citation and link.  But even if not required it is always a good practice to source where and when you obtained materials.
• Not sure if something is in the public domain? Check out Cornell's Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States guide.

From the VCCS Policy Manual: 

Section 5 - Educational Programs

5.14 Adoption and Use of Open Educational Resources (OER)

5.14.1 OER Definition: Open Educational Resources (OER) are publicly available teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. “OER Course” is a course exclusively using freely available OER.

5.14.2 Use of OER Materials: Colleges shall make use of OER materials in accordance with the provisions of the VCCS Policy 12.0, Intellectual Property Policy and Procedures; the Creative Commons licensing standards; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998; applicable state and federal copyright laws; accepted best practices of the OER community, including a succinct and well-accepted definition of OER; and college policies and academic standards.

5.14.3 Responsibilities and Support of Faculty Using OER Materials: Faculty who incorporate OER materials into their courses, or create, adapt, or share OER shall be in compliance with policies governing the use of course materials under VCCS Policy 12.0, Intellectual Property Policy and Procedures. When developing OER, faculty are to use only materials that are published under a Creative Commons License or exist in the Public Domain. It is the faculty member’s responsibility to ensure that content incorporated into OER courses is eligible for and meets the standards for a Creative Commons license and is properly attributed. Faculty should consult the college’s intellectual property policy administrator or other OER expert to determine eligibility and correctly note attributions. Colleges shall ensure that all OER materials are accessible to persons with disabilities. VCCS colleges will provide training, support, and encourage recognition of OER use, adaptation, and creation as a meaningful scholarly and professional endeavor.

5.14.4 Licensing OER: Faculty or staff who create original content that is incorporated into a course designated as OER or who create OER of other types or formats shall place a Creative Commons Attribution License on such content as defined in VCCS Policy 12.03.f Creative Commons.

5.14.5 Identification of OER courses: Courses exclusively using low cost or no cost OER materials will be identified within the course registration system.