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ALI Open Educational Resources: Home

A guide to Open Educational Resources provided by the Affordable Learning Committee of the Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI)

What are Open Educational Resources?

OER icons

Image by Open Scotland is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Open Educational Resources (OER), which are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use.* They include a multitude of formats, including textbooks, full courses, modules, videos, labs, assignments, and assessments.

What makes them "open"?

OER are licensed in such a way that enables adopters to utilize the 5 Rs:

  1. Retain a copy of the content
  2. Reuse the content in a range of ways
  3. Revise the content as needed
  4. Remix original or revised content with other material
  5. Redistribute the original, revisions, and remixes with others

Creative Commons licenses are often applied to OER to license these rights to adopters.

Why do they matter?

  • Students save money: The national estimated cost for textbooks and supplies for an academic year is over $1,200.*
  • Pedagogical freedom: Faculty can add, remove, and modify content to fit their classroom rather than having an expensive textbook dictate topics and order.
  • Immediate and lasting access: Resources can be accessed immediately, retained, and returned to again and again.

ALI Affordable Learning Committee

This guide was created by members of the Academic Libraries of Indiana Affordable Learning Committee.  The charge of the Affordable Learning Committee is to provide the communication structure needed to build awareness and share resources about alternatives to traditional course materials, such as open educational resources (OER) and library-licensed content, among ALI members; to facilitate educational opportunities about techniques and best practices for implementation, focusing on the library’s role; and to research and recommend further collaboration-based opportunities to the Board.