Faculty Resources

The Open Textbook Library promotes access, affordability, and student success through the use of open textbooks.

Affordable Learning Ohio is an ongoing initiative by OhioLINK to provide accessible resources for college students via their member libraries. Visit the website to learn more about affordable learning and OERs, the initiatives, and specific resources.

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are resources available in the public domain or through open license. These resources can include textbooks, lesson plans, assessments, assignments, etc, and are important because they can reduce costs for students and increase collaboration.

The terms "open content" and "open educational resources" describe any copyrightable work (traditionally excluding software, which is described by other terms like "open source") that is either (1) in the public domain or (2) licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:

1. Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
2. Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
3. Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
4. Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
5. Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

This material was created by David Wiley and published freely under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license at http://opencontent.org/definition/.

The George Mason University OER Metafinder performs a simultaneous search across 21 different sources of open educational materials.