Open and Affordable Course Materials

For a work to be considered an OER, it is necessary to distribute it online and permit users to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute the resource. 

Publication: Many platforms are available to distribute OERs online. For example, OER Commons and MERLOT have free content builders for the creation of lessons, courses, and other types of OERs. Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, our institutional repository, is also available for faculty to upload their OERs. Based on the type of OER, it may be more appropriate to add your materials to YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr or other websites for video/audio. You do not have to limit yourself to one platform. If you initially upload your materials to Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, you can also submit your materials for inclusion in OER Commons and MERLOT II. 

Permissions: The Creative Commons ‘Choose a License’ tool helps in finding a license that supports how you want others to use your work. If you assign a Creative Commons license, you are not relinquishing your copyright but giving permission on how your work can be used. Licensing can become complicated when you adapt multiple materials published under different licenses and copyright. Marking Your Work with a CC License and the guides listed above provide guidance in this area.

Open Educational Resources guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.