Open Educational Resources

The acronym OER refers to open educational resources. These are teaching, learning and research materials that are found within the public domain or are released with an intellectual property licence (i.e. Creative Commons) that allows for free use, adaptation, and distribution.

OERs are typically:

•     Free to access.
•     Free to reuse.
•     Free to modify or adapt to your needs.
•     Intended to support active teaching and learning.

There are several ways to explore and use OERs for your course. First, you may want to consult the MSU Library for information on the OER program ( https://lib.msu.edu/oer ). Second, you may wish to explore commonly used OER repositories to see what useful materials may be available for your course. One such resource is MERLOT (https://www.merlot.org). Others you may want to explore:

•     Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) - https://oer.deepwebaccess.com/oer/desktop/en/search.html
  
  
•     OASIS - https://oasis.geneseo.edu/index.php
  
  
•     OER Commons - https://oercommons.org/
  
  
•     Lumen Learning - https://courses.lumenlearning.com/catalog/lumen
  
  
•     Openstax - https://openstax.org/
  
  
•     Teaching Commons - https://teachingcommons.us/

Remember it is a good idea to look for the licensing information for any resources that you use. If you are unclear of this, check with the MSU OER program for guidance.