According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), open educational resources 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.
OER support academic freedom and utility by allowing instructors certain rights that regular copyrighted materials do not. By being free and licensed under Creative Commons licenses, OER offer more freedom in engaging with content. These freedoms are referred to as the 5 R's:
- Retain: Make and own copies.
- Reuse: Use in a wide range of ways.
- Revise: Adapt, modify, improve
- Remix: Combine two or more
-Redistribute: Share with others
