What are Open Educational Resources?
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are teaching and learning materials that are free to access online, free to share, free to re-use, and typically are licensed using a Creative Commons License, allowing others to copy, distribute, or revise the OERs for their own purposes.
Start with Finding OER
OASIS a great place to start your OER search, especially if you're not tied to textbooks. OASIS searches across a variety of OER collections, databases, and repositories to make your search a bit easier. OASIS also allows you to filter by Subject and Content Type.
OASIS
For more information on finding OER, visit the Library's Open Textbook Research Guide.
Using OER in Blackboard
One of the main advantages of using openly licensed course material is the ability copy and distribute the material without worrying about violating copyright. For this reason there are a lot of ways you can share open educational resources with students. Below are a few examples of how you can reuse openly licensed material in a Blackboard online course.
Link Directly to Course Material
Advantages
- Easy to do
- If there are multiple formats available, students can choose which one they prefer to use
Disadvantages
- May not be able to link to specific parts of the course material (e.g., a specific chapter of a book)
- Students have to leave the Blackboard course site to read or watch the material
Upload Course Material
Advantages
- Students have direct access in Blackboard and do not need to leave the course site
- Ability to present the material in chunks
Disadvantages
- Will take more time to break up the material into chunks and upload it to Blackboard
Embed Course Material
Advantages
- Students have direct access in Blackboard and do not need to leave the course site
- Ability to present the material in chunks
Disadvantages
- Will take more time to break up the material into chunks and embed it in Blackboard