Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Educational Resources (OER)

OER are educational materials that are freely accessible and openly licensed, allowing users to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute them without legal restrictions. Faculty find, adapt, or create OER to use as free and effective course materials. As defined by UNESCO, OER are: 

"learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others."

Support at UCF

The Affordable Instructional Materials Initiative recognizes the importance of OER in fostering affordable, accessible, and effective learning experiences for our students. As part of this initiative, teaching faculty are supported by both the Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) and the UCF Libraries. OER created at UCF can be added to the Pressbooks platform (supported by CDL) or the institutional repository (supported by the UCF Libraries).

Getting Started

Learn about OER

UCF provides an OER Starter Guide that covers topics from fundamentals to integrating OER into Webcourses@UCF. For quick access to selected videos, articles, and other information, please see the list below. If you have any remaining questions, please contact the Textbook Affordability Librarian.

• Watch Freethink's video "Open Source Textbooks Save Students $1 Billion" and Abbey Elder's video "An Introduction to Open Educational Resources."
• Observe how some others at UCF have used OER: Anthropology Department, Dr. Nicole Lapeyrouse (Chemistry), Modern Languages & Literatures Group, Dr. Richard Zaurin (Engineering & Computer Science), Physics Department, Annabelle Conroy (Politics, Security, and International Affairs), and other past winners of the AIM High Impact Award.
• Read the UCF OER Starter Guide, the article "Open Education" from SPARC, or Abbey Elder's The OER Starter Kit.
• Do CDL's "Introduction to Open Education" course.  

Find OER

OER come in numerous formats, sizes, and styles. Start with the most common sources for OER below, then peruse finding-related tabs on this guide for additional options. You can collaborate with librarians or instructional designers to find content.

• Open Textbook Library (textbook-level OER paired with reviews and some supplemental material)
• OpenStax (textbook-level OER with supplemental resources)
• Pressbooks Directory (OER and Open Access eBooks, many with integrated activities)
• LibreTexts (OER and editing/creating platform)
• MERLOT (advanced search options to find various types of OER)
• OER Commons (advanced search options to find various types of OER)
• OASIS (a metafinder to discover OER and Open Access content across numerous sources)
• Mason OER Metafinder (a metafinder to discover OER and Open Access content across numerous sources)
• See the "Locating OER" section in UCF's OER Starter Guide 

Evaluate OER

Once you have found OER, evaluate the content to ensure it suits the needs and learning outcomes of your course. Some rubric examples are below.

• Affordable Learning Georgia OER Evaluation Criteria
• Achieve OER Rubrics
• Open Textbooks Review Criteria

Adopt, Adapt, or Author OER

If you have found the right OER for your course, then the next step is to adopt it. If you have questions regarding implementation or design, or if you need to make changes to an OER or would like to create your own content, then instructional designers and librarians are available to collaborate and consult with you.

• For questions and consultations, please fill out the OER Contact Form.
• View UCF's official textbook adoption instructions for OER in AIP (see slide 9). 
• See the "Integrating OER into Webcourses@UCF" section in UCF's OER Starter Guide.