Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for anyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student, or self-learner. OER can exist as smaller, stand-alone resources that can be mixed and combined to form larger pieces of content, or as larger course modules or full courses.

OER is also a process of engaging with the materials. This process involves sharing materials that you have created, either individually or in groups with other teachers and/or learners; using and adapting others’ materials for your own use; and sharing back modifications to or comments about others’ materials so that future users can benefit. In this course, when we use the term OER, we are talking about the process of engaging with the materials.

Here are a few examples of materials that have been submitted for anyone to use and adapt for their own use:

Circle of Pong

From The Tech Museum of Innovation come a collection of fun design challenges which present students from grades 4 to 8 with problems that require them to apply their knowledge just like designers and engineers in the "real world." In this challenge, learners use their knowledge of potential and kinetic energy, and explore forces and motion to place a ball into the center of a 6-foot diameter circle. These informal exercises are licensed for use and reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5.

Time Management

From KQED Education Network, this lesson's aim is to develop students' understanding of the importance of managing time. It is the first lesson in the study skills series and is intended to support adult learners who are embarking on a course of study and need to acquire skills which will help them to be successful. The lessons are designed as a package with key skills reinforced in each subsequent lesson so that a study culture is developed over time. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5.

An Ad for an Element

A lesson plan for Grades 9–12 Chemistry and Physical Science from LEARN NC. Build an understanding of the structure and properties of matter while practicing communications skills. The author comments: "My students really showed creativity. I have had every form of ad turned in from video commercials to pamphlets to movie posters". Licensed for use and reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.5.

These materials, as well as thousands of others, can be found in OER Commons, a comprehensive open learning network that provides the platform for facilitating the OER process.

OER is much more than a collection of resources. It is more than a thing. It is also a process that is dependent upon teachers and learners who continuously improve the resources, and share their use scenarios so that others can also benefit. It is also about collaborating to create materials.

OER is a relatively new movement in education; educators and learners as well as learning institutions are driving its development. OER provides an alternative to the rising costs of education. For example, in some countries like South Africa, some educators and learners are tapping into OER as the only source for textbooks. OER provides an opportunity to try new ways of teaching and learning, many of which are more collaborative and participatory.

Some educators are using OER as a way to get students more involved, using the OER process as a way to collaborate with them on content creation. This process brings students into a larger context of learning and sharing knowledge beyond the four walls of their classroom.

Flexibility is a key concept in OER—materials can be adapted for your specific needs. Because these materials can be searched by a wide variety of criteria, you can quickly find what you specifically need.

The following activities have been created to help you get started with OER using OER Commons.

The following resources have been selected to provide more information on concepts we covered in this module.

What is OER

About OER Commons

In this module, some OER basics were presented and opportunities were provided to help you get started using OER Commons. In the next module, “Finding OER Materials You Can Start Using Now,” will cover finding OER materials you can start using right now in your teaching and learning.

For more information about OER Commons, send an email to info@oercommons.org.

Use this feedback form to send OER Commons general feedback, a feature request, or information about a bug/problem you had using the site.

To see the ever-growing list of the new content providers and contributors to OER Commons, visit the Content Providers page often. You can be one too!

For all information’s independence and extent, it is people, in their communities, organizations, and institutions, who ultimately decide what it all means and why it matters1.

The "How Tos" of OER Commons is a set of learning modules evolving out of the development of OER Commons (http://www.oercommons.org), a teaching and learning network for free-to-use educational materials from around the world, created and licensed by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME).

Course contributors are Lisa Petrides, Amee Godwin, and Cynthia Jimes, and online learning consultant, Patricia Delich.

For more information, visit http://www.iskme.org and http://elearningnetworks.com.