Open Educational Resources

OER Designation on the SUNY CCC Master Schedule:

• OER use lowers textbook costs for students.

• OER resources constitute at least 51% of required learning materials.

• Typically, the OER material is available online.

• Sometimes, the instructor may require purchase of a print copy- generally less than $30.

• OER sections are assessed a section fee of $25 in support of sustainability.

• Often the fee is the only required cost associated with course resources for an OER section.

• OER costs for a section, should ideally be no more than $50, including the fee.

OER Definition:

"OER are 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, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge" (William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)

• The key distinguishing factor is the copyright status of the material.

• If course content is copyrighted under traditional, all-rights-reserved copyright, then it's not OER.

• If it resides in the public domain, or carries Creative Commons or similar open copyright status, then it is OER.

You, the user of openly licensed content, are granted advance permission legally established through Public Domain or Creative Commons copyrights to do the following based on the specific license of each OER:

• Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)

• Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)

• Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)

• Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)

• Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

This definition is adapted from original writing by David Wiley, which was published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition.

Faculty OER Resources:

SUNY OER Course Resources: https://oer.suny.edu/

OER Services- Brief Open Courses to Learn about OER: https://innovate.suny.edu/sunyoercommunitycourse/

Open SUNY- Browse OER Textbooks: https://textbooks.opensuny.org/browse-by-subject/

Instructor Requests for Print Copies of OER:

When an instructor would like to have a printed copy of an OER text available for student purchase, there are two recommended low cost printing options: SUNY Press, 64 ink printing or, if using an OpenStax text, the OpenStax print service.

Faculty course coordinators should use the following links below to request printing: SUNY Press: 64 ink or OpenStax printing

If a faculty member has done heavy editing of an OpenStax book and/or supplemented substantial information interwoven with the OpenStax materials, then 64 ink printing is recommended. Even if a faculty member is only using half an OpenStax book, it will still be cheaper for students to buy the full book printed by OpenStax than the custom version 64 ink printing produces. Used versions of the OpenStax books are fairly available.

SUNY Corning Community College OER Sustainability Plan:

For more information about OER, resources, licensing, creation and adoption, printing, and policies about OER maintenance and use in courses, please read the SUNY CCC OER Sustainability Plan.