Open educational resources
Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license permitting free access, use, adaptation, and redistribution.[1] These resources encompass textbooks, courses, modules, videos, software, and other tools designed to support education without financial barriers imposed by traditional copyright restrictions.[1] The concept emerged in the late 1990s, with the term formalized at a 2002 UNESCO forum, building on earlier initiatives like MIT's OpenCourseWare launched in 2001 to freely share course materials online.[2][3] OER adoption has demonstrated empirical benefits, including reduced student costs and improved academic outcomes, as multiple studies indicate comparable or superior learning results compared to proprietary materials, with lower rates of failure and withdrawal in OER-using courses.[4][5] For instance, meta-analyses reveal small but positive effects on achievement (Hedges' g = 0.07), particularly with OER textbooks, alongside enhanced persistence and equity in access for underserved students.[4] Key drivers include open licensing frameworks like Creative Commons, which facilitate modification and reuse, fostering collaborative improvement over time.[6] Despite these gains, OER faces challenges such as inconsistent quality, limited discoverability, and insufficient institutional support for creation or adaptation, which hinder widespread efficacy.[7][8] Ethical concerns also arise, including potential non-compliance with openness principles and risks of commercialization undermining the public-good intent.[9] While academic sources promoting OER often reflect institutional incentives toward cost-saving and access narratives, rigorous empirical reviews confirm causal links to better retention without evidence of systemic bias inflating outcomes in controlled studies.[10] Overall, OER represents a structural shift toward democratized knowledge dissemination, though realizing its full potential requires addressing production barriers and verifying long-term scalability through ongoing research.[11]Definition and Core Concepts
Definition and Scope
Open educational resources (OER) are defined by UNESCO as teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium—digital or otherwise—that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license permitting no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others.[1] This definition, formalized in the 2019 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources adopted on November 25, 2019, by the UNESCO General Conference, emphasizes the role of open licensing in enabling these permissions to maximize educational impact.[12] The framework aims to support quality education as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal 4, focusing on equitable access without financial, legal, or technical barriers.[12] The scope of OER encompasses a wide array of materials designed to facilitate teaching, learning, and research, including but not limited to full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and faculty-created content.[13] These resources can exist in various formats such as text, audio, video, interactive simulations, and software tools, provided they meet the open licensing criteria that allow users to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute them—the so-called "5Rs" framework commonly associated with OER principles.[14] OER are distinguished by their intentional design for openness, excluding materials that are merely free but restricted in modification or sharing, such as those under all-rights-reserved copyrights.[14] In practice, the scope extends to any educational asset that supports knowledge dissemination and pedagogy innovation, applicable across primary, secondary, higher education, and lifelong learning contexts.[15] This includes supplemental units, lessons, assessments, and data sets, as long as they are openly licensed to permit adaptation for local needs, such as translation or cultural contextualization.[15] The emphasis on adaptability addresses diverse learner requirements, though empirical validation of specific implementations remains essential to assess causal impacts on outcomes.[16]Distinctions from Proprietary and Other Open Materials
Open educational resources (OER) are distinguished from proprietary educational materials by their licensing framework, which permits broad permissions beyond mere access. Proprietary resources, such as commercial textbooks from publishers like Pearson or McGraw-Hill, operate under "all rights reserved" copyrights that typically require payment for use, limit access to licensed purchasers or subscribers, and prohibit reproduction, adaptation, or redistribution without explicit contractual permission.[17] In contrast, OER are released under open licenses—most commonly Creative Commons (CC) variants—that enable the "5Rs" framework: users can retain copies indefinitely, reuse for any purpose, revise or adapt content, remix with other materials, and redistribute derivatives, often with attribution as the sole requirement.[18] This structure reduces financial barriers and fosters customization for specific pedagogical needs, as evidenced by initiatives like the OpenStax project, which has provided over 50 peer-reviewed textbooks adopted by millions of students since 2012 without licensing fees. Proprietary materials often prioritize revenue models, leading to frequent updates driven by market demands rather than user feedback, whereas OER development emphasizes community-driven revisions, with platforms like MERLOT hosting over 50,000 resources vetted by educators for adaptability since 1997. Empirical analyses indicate that proprietary dominance persists in higher education, with U.S. students spending an average of $1,240 annually on textbooks as of 2023, while OER adoption correlates with cost savings of up to 80% per course without compromising quality when properly implemented. However, proprietary resources may offer structured support like publisher-provided instructor tools, which OER communities replicate through voluntary contributions but not always at the same scale. OER also differ from other openly available materials, such as free digital resources or open access (OA) publications, in their explicit emphasis on editability and educational applicability. Free digital content, like Khan Academy videos, may be accessible at no cost but remains under restrictive terms that preclude legal modification or integration into new curricula, treating them as view-only assets.[17] OA materials, defined by initiatives like the Budapest Open Access Initiative of 2002, focus on removing paywalls for scholarly articles to enable reading and downloading but retain copyrights that limit remixing or derivative works unless an open license is applied. OER, per UNESCO's 2012 recommendation, specifically target teaching, learning, and research tools—encompassing textbooks, syllabi, simulations, and assessments—that reside in the public domain or under licenses ensuring "no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others," distinguishing them from broader open content like Creative Commons-licensed images or software not tailored for pedagogy.[18]| Aspect | OER | Proprietary Materials | Other Free/Open Materials (e.g., OA or Free Digital) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Paid (purchase/subscription) | Free |
| License | Open (e.g., CC BY-SA) | Restrictive copyright | Varies (often non-commercial, no derivatives) |
| Permissions | Retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute | Personal use only, no adaptation | Access and download; limited/no modification |
| Customization | High (editable for local contexts) | Low (fixed content) | Varies (often view-only) |