Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning materials that are free to use, adapt, and share because they are either in the public domain or available under an open content license (such as those developed by Creative Commons). Open educational resources include:

• Full courses, course materials, content modules, learning objects, collections, textbooks, lecture captures and journals.
• Software to support the creation, delivery, use and improvement of open learning content, including searching and organization of content, content and learning management systems, content development tools, and online learning communities.

The permissions of open licensing allow instructors to customize their materials for the specific needs of their students and for students to share their learning resources with the world.

A Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) class or course section does not require students to purchase any course materials to be successful in the course. Typically, instructors work with librarians to identify suitable openly licensed OR library-subscribed resources to serve as the required course materials. The library will select electronic books, journals, videos, etc., allowing multiple users to access the content simultaneously. 

While all Open Educational Resources are zero textbook-cost materials, not all ZTC materials are OER. In brief:

• Open Educational Resources are freely and openly available to everyone to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute.
• Materials used in zero textbook-cost courses are freely available to your students, but neither you nor your students necessarily have the right to modify these materials or share them on the open web.