Open Educational Resources (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.
They include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." - Hewlett Foundation
Through a partnership with the Open Textbook Library, Hofheimer Library and Instructional Technology are pleased to offer the opportunity for VWU faculty to attend an Open Textbook Adoption Workshop and receive $200 for a written review of an open textbook. The workshop covers:
- Open - what it is and what it isn't
- Open educational resources and open textbooks as a solution to student affordability issues
- OER as a tool for learning resource customization and pedagogical innovation
- Supporting faculty adoptions of open educational resources
Open textbooks may be selected from among the 350+ books in the Open Textbook Library. VWU faculty are welcome to contact Kelsi Dunman for additional information.
An Open Education Reader, edited by David Wiley. "A collection of readings on open education with commentary. Created for IPT 515R Introduction to Open Education, a graduate course at Brigham Young University."
Encouraging the Ecology of Creativity (PDF from CreativeCommons.org)
VIDEO: Why Open Education Matters (2:27)
Definition: "[Open Educational Resources] are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license [such as certain kinds of Creative Commons licenses] 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."
Source: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (2010)
Why is the Open Source model compelling for learning and research?
VIDEO: Get Inspired [making education more affordable] (OpenStax)
VIDEO: Supporting Students to Succeed with Open Education (Lumen Foundation)
VIDEO: Open Source Cancer Research - TED Talk by Jay Bradner
The Open Education movement is built around the 5Rs of Open. These represent the gold standard in openness:
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 (e.g., in class, in study group, on a public website, in a video)
Revise – the right to adapt, 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 open content to create something new (e.g., 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)
Most of the content on this guide is used with attribution and gratitude to the Virginia Tech Libraries. All original content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 3rd-party content including, but not limited to images and linked items, are subject to their own license terms. 
Introductory-level open textbook for Business. 370+ pages, free, online and licensed CC BY NC SA 3.0.