Benefits of OER
Introduction
Welcome to the Open Educational Resources (OER) guide. This guide is designed to help teaching academic staff to find, use, adapt and create OER. For more assistance with locating OER for your course please contact Ask the Library.
What are OER?
Open Educational Resources (OER) are designed to make education more inclusive, opening up opportunities to those who otherwise couldn’t afford it by alleviating the high cost of course materials.
OER are educational materials that have been licensed for free use and adaptation (e.g. Creative Commons) or do not have copyright restrictions (e.g. the public domain).
OER include a wide range of resources such as textbooks, teaching and learning materials, images, videos, games, lesson plans, worksheets and assessments.
Why OER matter
Watch the video below to find out how teaching and learning materials are changing and why OER matter!
Video Length: 2 min 9 sec
UniSA testimonials
Hear from UniSA staff on how Open Educational Resources are being used and the impact this has for their students
Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
"The textbook minimisation project led by the UniSA Library is a fantastic initiative. Teaching curriculum, delivery modes and resources in higher education are constantly evolving. As such , the prescribing of a hard copy textbook that a student will carry around and have for years is becoming less common. Moving to portable, flexible, electronic resources is essential, and minimising textbook usage helps drive the development of new electronic resources." Professor Craig Williams, Dean Programs: Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
Nursing
"Working with the UniSA Library, as part of the textbook minimisation project, we were able to conduct a comprehensive review of the textbooks and alternative resources available for the nursing program with the aim to reduce the overall cost of texts for students. We were able to reduce the financial burden for students significantly, and this was a really important outcome to promote equity and access for all students in the nursing program. In addition, we were able to comprehensively scrutinise the references and resources across the nursing program to identify the most appropriate and current references to improve the overall quality of the resources available for students." Maria Chilvers, Lecturer in Nursing
Applied Physics
"The textbook minimisation project is a great idea and approach to help reduce the cost of studying for students by reducing the number of textbooks that students need to buy. In place of textbooks, open access and other centrally licenced or free resources are provided to students to aid them with their studies. The library was very helpful in identifying suitable resources for a couple of more foundational physics courses, and we have now switched to using a free online textbook which the students really appreciate." Dr Sam Tuttle, Lecturer: Applied Physics
The 5 Rs of using OER
When you are using OER, you have the flexibility to:
| 5 Rs | Allows you to |
|---|---|
| reuse | use content in its unaltered/verbatim original format |
| retain | keep copies of content for personal archives or reference |
| revise | adapt or alter content to suit specific needs |
| remix | combine content with other similar content to create something new |
| redistribute | share content with anyone else in its original or altered format |
OER benefits & impact
There are many reasons for using OER in teaching and learning:
Equity
OER can help redress deeply-embedded issues of equity and inclusion in traditional textbook publishing.
Check out the blog post below from EmpoweredOER to learn more and to explore examples of innovative and inclusive OER.
Key takeaways:
- Equity (and Amplifying Voices through OER)
Everyone is free to create, share, and glean knowledge - Innovative (and Transformative) Pedagogy
Educators are free to explore methods of teaching in flexible and transformative ways - Student Success (OER and UDL)
Learners are free to succeed without the unnecessary barriers of cost and access to course materials