OER

	Open copyright license required	Right of access, adaptation, and republication	Non-discriminatory (rights given to everyone, everywhere)	Does not limit use or form (does not include NonCommercial limitations)
Hewlett Foundation
OECD
UNESCO
Cape Town Declaration
Wikieducator OER Handbook
OER Commons

(https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/What_is_OER%3F)

As the digital movement expands, content available online for use by teachers and teacher librarians is growing. Open educational resources, OERs, are defined by Hope as "educational resources that are either in the public domain or have been made freely available through their license."Hope explains how new companies like Creative Commons licensing allow creators the ability to "copyright their work in a manner appropriate to how they wish to share their work." This allows for more information to be globally spread and create creative, uniform, and flexible distribution of knowledge and resources to all educators. However, there are pitfalls regarding OERs, such as the management (or lack there of) for licensed and unlicensed materials, the content being perceived as appropriate, as well as ease of access to these materials.

Questions also remain about the ease of use, the actual content, the applicability for the content, and the user's knowledge to locate these resources. The study conducted by Hope was to determine the why and how teachers and teacher librarians use OERs and their level of comfort with locating and utilizing such a resource. Her study results conclude that for those working in K-12 education their self-confidence is not a factor in choosing online content that is an OER. Many elementary educators surveyed listed that they are the higher users for OERs yet are less confident than their colleagues in the upper grades in terms of online communication tools. The use of the OERs is attributed to a lack of online databases or out of date library collections. Hope's suggestion is to further embed more professional development on computer based technologies. I agree with this assessment in some manner because as an elementary professional I consistently utilized Teachers pay Teachers and other OER resources provided by colleagues; however, I believe there are more accessible items for the younger grades because of the professionals creating them. These professionals may or may not benefit from a greater knowledge in computer based technologies; yet, may benefit from enhanced trainings on OER's themselves.

In mention of OERs, Hope suggests that by knowing why the end users choose OERs the creators will be able to design these materials more effectively to reach the educators and develop higher use because they are aligned with lesson planning and curriculum development. I agree that the OER must find a way to be readily incorporated with the standards or it will be overlooked even if the material inside is amazing. There is also a need as mentioned in the article for aggregating the resources so that they are more readily discoverable and will be re-used in an organized manner.
This is highlighted in the study as "OERs must be considered easy to use or the perceived utility of the resource will be negatively impacted. While content may guide selection, quality in user interface design is essential in the adoption of these resources."

It will be interesting to see how the licensing and aggregation of materials changes in the next 10 years as technology only is increasing and students are being shuttled to use technology more and more in the classroom and library.

Being out of the educational realm for a few years, it would be lovely to have greater insight as to what databases currently use OER, what major websites teacher librarians use, and what further reading I should look into regarding OERs.








Kelly, H. (2014). A Path Analysis of Educator Perceptions of Open Educational Resources Using the Technology Acceptance Model. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 15(2), 26-42. Accessed from EBSCOhost