Foundation Skills/Open Education Resources (OER) and Open Education Practices (OEP)/What is an open education resource (OER)?

Please explore this information to develop your understanding about Open Education Resources.
 * What is an open education resource (OER)?:


 * The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines an Open Education Resource (OER) as:


 * "Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning or research materials that are in the public domain or released with an intellectual property license that allows for free use, adaptation, and distribution."

Information about open licensing is explained further on.


 * Where can you find OERs?:


 * David Wiley explains in his video: Open Education Week: Finding Open Educational Resources.


 * OER Commons - allows you to search for OERs by Topic, such as Education or Natural Sciences. You are advised to explore this search engine to gain a sense of the variety and volume of OERs available.


 * Additional OER databases and search engines are available on the OpenSource.com website.
 * Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand website.
 * search Creative Commons - images and music.


 * Of course, you are probably familiar with YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare, which are also rich OER sources of: images, videos and slide presentations.


 * Creative Commons Licensing:

Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand (CCANZ) provides guidance on intellectual property licensing for those wishing to use and/or create OERs. There are currently six different Creative Commons licences - these are all explained on the CCANZ website on their Licences explained page:
 * Attribution
 * Attribution - Noncommercial
 * Attribution - Sharealike
 * Attribution - Noncommercial - Sharealike
 * Attribution - No Derivatives
 * Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivatives

If you wish, you may also download from the CCANZ website a one-pager explaining the six different Creative Commons licences.