
What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?
"Open educational resources are digital materials that can be used, re-used and repurposed for teaching, learning, research and more, made freely available online through open licenses such as Creative Commons. OER include a varied range of digital assets from course materials, content modules, collections, and journals to digital images, music and video clips".
The Higher Education Academy, 2012
At GCU we have three OERs which are used for information literacy and employability skills training. They are SMILE and SMIRK (the mobile version of SMILE) for undergraduates and PILOT for post-graduates.
OERs can save staff in HE a lot of time as they allow resources to be shared without fear of breaking copyright law. The most common form of open license is creative commons. Look for a symbol simlar to this
How can I find them?
There are many subject specific collections of OERs, but the best place to start is Jorum. You can log in using your domain username and password and download resources. Most resources can be edited and adapted for your own purposes.
You can also search the JISC collections by clicking this banner.
If you want a wider search, you can use an a Google advanced search and select free to use or free to use and modify in the usage rights box.