Open Educational Resources (OER)
In 2001, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced the release of most of its courses on the Internet with free access. As a result of the increase in the number of institutions offering free or open courseware, UNESCO organized the 1st Global OER Forum in 2002. At this forum, the term Open Educational Resources (OER) was adopted.
There are many definitions of OER. UNESCO’s definition of OER is ‘‘open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes’’ (UNESCO, 2002). Varis (2010) defines OER as “educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute” (Varis, 2010, p. 1076).
The distinction between an OER and any online resource is that OER are licensed for reusing (White & Menton, 2011). Creative Commons is the most commonly-known open license. The purpose for which learners are allowed to use the resources other than for sharing (e.g., altering the work or using the work for commercial purposes) changes depending on the type of the Creative Commons license (See www.creativecommons.org for detailed information).
Yuan et. al (2008) classifies OER into four categories: Large Institution-based OER initiatives; Community (or Consortium)-based OER initiatives; Specialized OER Initiatives; and Public OER Initiatives. Examples of each of the categories as taken from Yuan et al. (2008) can be found in the Appendix.