Educators and students have access to a lot resources, whether their institution pays for a license to those materials, or they're published publicly—in a journalistic setting, for example. For our purposes, Open Educational Resources (OERs) are defined as: openly licensed, freely available, and modifiable materials designed for educational purposes. OERs can include textbooks, slide decks, syllabi, assignment descriptions, and more.

Attributes that make OERs truly "open"

OERs are inherently flexible in their adaptation to your course. If something is in the public domain or openly licensed (using a CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-NC, or CC-BY-NC-SA license), it allows for the 5 R's as defined by Wiley (2014) and described here by Elder (2019):

• Retain = the right to make, own, and control copies of the content

• Reuse = the right to use the content in a wide range of ways

• Revise = the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself

• Remix = the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new

• Redistribute = the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others

These allowances mean OERs are easily adjusted to fit your needs, whether you use a resource as is, or combine and/or revise content from multiple sources, as long as you follow the rules of their CC licenses.

When assessing existing OER, Elder (2019) suggests you consider these criteria:

• Clarity, Comprehensibility, and Readability: Can the material you are considering be read and understood by your students?

• Content and Technical Accuracy

• Adaptability and Modularity: Is the resource easily divided into modules, or sections, which can be used or rearranged out of their original order? Is the content available under a license and in a file format that allows for modifications?

• Appropriateness and Fit: How does the content align with your course learning objectives?

• Accessibility: Is the content accessible to students with disabilities through the compatibility of third-party reading applications? If you are using Web resources, does each image have alt text that can be read? Do videos have accurate closed-captioning? Are students able to access the materials in a quick, non-restrictive manner?

Where to search for OERs in your field

In The OER Starter Kit, Elder (2019) provides an extensive (although certainly non-exhaustive) list of places to search for OERs relevant to a given field. Elder's (2019) linked text is published on Pressbooks, an OER publishing platform that also has a searchable collection. Here are a few more of the most popular resources from Elder's (2019) list: