Open Educational Resources and Open Access

Getting Started

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What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

OER are educational materials—everything from a single lesson plan to an entire textbook—that save students and teachers money because they are free to use, customize, and share. OER are openly licensed, which makes it easy to personalize materials and infuse them with fresh, relevant content. (Adapted from https://oercommons.org/oer-101, 2024)

What is Open Access?

Open access is a broad international movement that seeks to grant free and open online access to academic information, such as publications and data. A publication is defined 'open access' when there are no financial, legal or technical barriers to accessing it - that is to say when anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search for and search within the information, or use it in education or in any other way within the legal agreements. (Adapted from openaccess.nl, 2024)