Open Educational Resources (OERs)

Definition: Learning materials that can be modified and enhanced because their creators have given others permission to do so. The individuals or organizations that create OERs—which can include materials such as presentation slides, podcasts, syllabi, images, lesson plans, lecture videos, maps, worksheets, and even entire textbooks—waive some (if not all) of the copyright associated with their works, typically via legal tools like Creative Commons licenses, so others can freely access, reuse, translate, and modify them.

Related terms: Accessibility, FORRT, Open access, Open Licenses, Open Material

References: https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-education, & https://en.unesco.org/themes/building-knowledge-societies/oer

Drafted and Reviewed by: Aleksandra Lazić, Sam Parsons, Charlotte R. Pennington, Steven Verheyen, Elizabeth Collins

Note that we are currently working on an automated mechanism to link references cited above with their full-length version that can be found at https://forrt.org/glossary/references with all references used so far.